4 Ways to Become A Role Player in Your Church

Anyone who plays or follows sports knows that it takes an entire team to win. Winning teams usually have star players and role players. A team is usually built around one or more stars, relied on to carry the squad. Role players have lesser-known yet still significant roles. They don’t receive all the credit, take all the blame or provide the most influence.

But each role player is vital to the overall success of a team. If they fail to execute their responsibilities, it makes everyone’s job harder. We often don’t realize that role players strengthen the team dynamic, not the stars. Stars have a significant impact, but without an excellent supporting cast willing to follow, sacrifice, and carry out necessary tasks for the benefit of the team, that team will either remain stagnant or eventually crumble into a rebuilding state.

Sports fans also know there’s no greater competitive experience than when your team is firing on all cylinders because everyone is doing their job.  If you watched the recent demolition in the 2018 NBA Finals as the Golden State Warriors swept the Cleveland Cavaliers, you understand this illustration very well, but I digress.

A HEALTHY CHURCH

It’s no different in the church. While some may lead out front, and others help make it possible, everyone is necessary. There’s no better feeling than when your church is in sync and everyone is doing their part to make disciples.  A church like this is healthy.

“Healthy" doesn't refer to numerical growth, increased staff positions, the number of ministries, even the longevity of a church.  All those things are good and can be the fruit of faithful service, but they are not God-promised signs of success.

God's path to success for his church is based more on subtraction than addition.  The words of Christ teach us that to gain we must lose; and to live, we must die (Matthew 16:24-26).

This means our churches should forsake worldly passions and pursue Christ.  A healthy church progressively reflects the character of God through a constant dying to self so his name may be magnified.

Every church should desire to be healthy in this manner.  Mark Dever draws a picture of a healthy church; “I like the word healthy because it communicates the idea of a body that’s living and growing as it should.  It may have its share of problems. It’s not been perfected yet. But it’s on the way. It’s doing what it should do because God’s Word is guiding it.”

So even if it’s unpopular, uncomfortable or tedious, continue in steadfast pursuit of what Scripture calls us to in Ephesians 4:11-16, which is to equip the saints, and build up the body of Christ, until we all attain unity in faith and knowledge of the Son of God. Now the question is, “Isn’t building up the church the pastor’s job?”  Yes, but the job isn’t theirs alone. Every member is called to take part in building up their particular body. Members are meant to serve in ways that supplement the pastor’s role and make his work a joy and not burdensome.

Here are four ways to become a good role player in your church.

1. DEVELOP A PRAYING SPIRIT 

We should pray for church leaders and members, always interceding on their behalf.  Paul urges the church in Ephesians 6:18 to at all times make prayers and petitions for all the saints.  Often, our default reaction is to criticize or complain about what goes on in the church, regardless of it is right or wrong, big or small.  I’ve struggled with this more often than I can say.

However, I was convicted by the words of Puritan preacher John Bunyan, who said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed.” Words, thoughts, and works will all be in vain if we don’t first seek the Lord for wisdom.

How much do our critical spirits or excessive complaints build up the church? If we reprogram ourselves to pray instead of criticizing, I believe our attitudes toward the object of our critique will change.  Excessive grumbling and objection only lead to quarrels and factions.

Remember what James 4:1-3 says: “What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

We must be gracious and patient with leaders and other believers. We're in this walk of sanctification together. Pray with your brothers and sisters. Pray for your leaders. Let’s guard our hearts against selfish motives, discouraging words, and critical attitudes by striving to pray for one another instead of preying on one another.

2. PARTICIPATE IN CYCLES OF DISCIPLESHIP

Members should disciple one another, walking alongside each other, teaching and showing each other how to walk faithfully with the Lord. Titus 2:2-8 speaks of older men teaching younger men, and older women teaching younger women. The mature need to invest in the less mature.  The Christian life is a life of discipleship, from every angle.

I was oblivious to the concept of discipleship during my younger days in the church. No one ever approached me about reading the Bible together or going through a Christian book. The shallow depth of my Christian relationships was reached between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Sundays.

I had a tough and lonely walk for some years. But years down the road, the Lord placed some godly men in my life willing to teach me how to be a godly man.  And it was from that experience that I learned what true discipleship is.

It’s imperative that members do their part by intentionally seeking out others known for their wisdom and maturity, asking him or her to spend some time discipling them. Or seek out a younger, less mature Christian, maybe someone on the fence about membership, and similarly engage them.

Studying the Bible together is a great starting point, but as the relationship builds, begin to step it up a notch and ask tough questions regarding personal holiness, practice confession and repentance, and pray for each other.  These practices will eventually lead to mutual Christian accountability (Proverbs 27:17) and a stronger walk with the Lord.  As each Christian is built up, so is their church.

3. PRACTICE EVANGELISM

In many churches, stagnant growth is often a mystery or a blemish. Despite faithful preaching of the Word and a pastor living above reproach, some churches remain stuck or are on the decline. The causes can’t always be determined, but one diagnosis often is lack of evangelism by members. The sermon is not, and should not be, the only means of evangelism going on.  Every member should be involved in personal evangelism. Scripture mandates that every Christian be equipped for the work of the ministry (Eph. 4:12). Pastors are responsible to equip the saints. If they do the training, members are responsible for receiving that training and putting it into practice.

4. CELEBRATE EACH OTHER

Individually and collectively, public adoration for the faithful living and gospel witness of members should regularly happen. Our churches should thank God for members showing hospitality in their homes, doing mission work, sharing the gospel at their jobs or with their neighbors, serving in children's ministry, and starting ministries or small groups.

Don't be afraid to publicly affirm, with wisdom, the Christian maturity that particular members are displaying, for the blessing they have been to the body.  2 Thessalonians 1:3-4 says, "We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.”

Cultivating the practice of celebrating the work of God in the lives of members will help us think more of others than ourselves and give glory to God.

PLAY YOUR ROLE

Church members who pray, disciple, evangelize and celebrate are blessings to their bodies and pastors. There are other ways to faithfully serve your local church, but for those unsure where to begin, let these four areas be your starting blocks to becoming an excellent role player.  This will help strengthen your church and make for a great team win for the Kingdom of God.

No matter what your role is, if you play it well, you will help build up your church until it reaches its full potential.

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Joseph Dicks was born and raised in Lexington, Kentucky, and is a master of divinity student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is also an assistant campus missionary with the Kentucky Baptist Convention. He is married to Melanie, and is a member of Mosaic Church Lexington. Follow Joseph on Twitter.

Pastoring Your Home On Purpose

Many pastors fail at being the pastor of their family. We may be ashamed to admit it, but often when we pontificate from the pulpit about how parents shouldn’t outsource the discipleship of their children to the church, we aren’t even discipling our own children. Before you feel a heavy hand of condemnation, let me remind you that no man wakes up one day and instantly becomes the pastor of his home. It takes years of experience—and many awkward face-plants—to grow into that role. From my limited experience as a father and husband, here are a few simple habits that will get you on the trajectory to being a healthy “pastor-dad.”

PRAY FOR AND WITH YOUR FAMILY

It should be the most natural thing for a man to pray for his family, but it isn’t. It takes intentionality. My wife is a praying woman, and her prayer life pushes me to have a healthier prayer life of my own. It is now part of my daily routine to pray for Rebekah and my boys. If you develop the habit of privately praying for your family, then publicly praying for them will come naturally. Your family needs to hear you pray for them. Your children need to hear their father praying for their salvation.

TURN OFF THE TV, PUT DOWN THE PHONE, AND ENGAGE

I’ve gone through periods when I struggled to come home from the office and simply be pastor-dad, not Pastor Dayton. Our culture calls us to take pride in maintaining a slammed schedule, but our culture also celebrates and encourages a million other things that starve our spiritual vitality and destroy our families. Don’t come home from a long day and shut down. When you are with your family, turn off the TV unless you are watching it together. You also don’t need to be checking sports scores or your email on your phone. I know it’s hard, since many of us have rewired our brains to “need” to check our phones every few minutes. But it can wait.

TALK ABOUT JESUS WITH YOUR FAMILY 

What you talk about most often is what your kids think is most important to Dad. If you can’t remember the last time you had a meaningful exchange with your family about the person and work of Jesus, then your kids have no idea that Jesus matters to you. You don’t have to drop theology bombs on their little minds. Just talk to them about Jesus.

READ SCRIPTURE WITH YOUR KIDS EVERY NIGHT

There is no easier way to make sure you talk about Jesus than to read the book that’s by Jesus and about Jesus. There are a number of great resources for families, and most of them can be used in increments of ten or fifteen minutes. For instance, if you have small children you can use resources such as The Gospel Project Bible or The Jesus Storybook Bible. Reading a chapter or two takes no time at all.

The next day, come home from the office and ask your kids what they remember about the previous night’s family devotion. Ask them how they applied the gospel truth from last night during their day. Tell them how you applied that truth to your heart and life. It’s simple; it just takes intentionality.

PRACTICE DISCIPLINE THAT REVEALS THE GOSPEL

The vast majority of parenting advice from our culture is horrible. Why? Our nation has become post-Christian and is quickly moving toward being anti-Christian. Even for many who believe in God, the default worldview has become something akin to what sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton have called “moralistic therapeutic deism.”[1] “Moralistic” means someone thinks God just wants them to be a good person; “therapeutic” means they think God wants them to be happy (according to their own definition of happiness); and “deism” is a way of saying God isn’t personally involved in their life.

You do not want to tell your kids that Jesus matters and then parent them through a filter that encourages moralism. That duality is how you create little religious hearts that try to earn God’s favor by being good. This may be the most difficult aspect of being a father and a pastor. We face all kinds of real and perceived pressure to have children who behave properly, who obey, who do not become the stereotype of the wild and crazy pastor’s kids. Our default wiring, with its natural inclination toward religion, will cause us to apply this pressure when disciplining our children, and in doing so will turn them into legalists.

If you believe the gospel, you will not be shocked by your child’s sinfulness. You do not need to lament that your eighteen-month-old is a viper in a diaper the first time he disobeys, but you should remember that Scripture says we are sinners by nature. When we respond to our children’s sin with shock, we communicate to them: “Do better, try harder, make yourself righteous.” Our goal as fathers must not be mere behavior modification. Our aim is to see our children repent and believe the gospel. Therefore, do not respond to their sin in a way that simply calls for a change in behavior; respond in a way that calls for heartfelt repentance.

The moments when we discipline our children are of incredible value for pointing them to Jesus. I’ve found that asking my oldest son a few pointed questions keeps me calm and helps draw his attention to the Perfect Father in Heaven. I ask my son, “Who am I?” He says, “Daddy.” That’s right! “Do I love you, son?” He replies, “Yes!” I then tell him, “Because I love you, just as you are, please obey me.” Sometimes it makes a huge difference. Many times, he doesn’t get it. However, I’m trying to lay gospel groundwork, and that doesn’t happen overnight.

PASTOR YOUR HOME ON PURPOSE

None of this is hard. It just requires intentionality, yet we are often far too passive. This passivity is hurting your family. Begin implementing these basics habits now!

As you pursue being the pastor of your home, you will fail. It’s OK! We all fail, but we cannot allow failure to become defeat. The stakes are too high and your family is far too valuable.

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[1] This term is from their book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).

Content taken from Lies Pastors Believe: Seven Ways to Elevate Yourself, Subvert the Gospel, and Undermine the Church by Dayton Hartman, ©2017. Used by permission of Lexham Press, Bellingham, Washington, LexhamPress.com.

Dayton Hartman holds a Ph.D. in Church and Dogma History from North-West University (Potchefstroom) and an MA from Liberty University. He serves as Lead Pastor of Redeemer Church in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Additionally, he is an Adjunct Professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary (Wake Forest, NC) and Columbia International University (Columbia, SC). Learn more at his website.

The Missing Component in Most Discipleship Strategies

Forget all the discipleship books you’ve read. Forget all the conferences you’ve attended and blueprints you’ve adopted. None of them matter. Not really.

What matters is how Jesus made disciples. So how did he do it? What was his strategy?

At first glance, it might appear that Jesus didn’t have a strategy. His strategy “is so unassuming and silent that it is unnoticed by the hurried churchman,” writes Robert Coleman in his classic The Master Plan of Evangelism.

Yes, Jesus had a strategy for making disciples. And “when his plan is reflected on, the basic philosophy is so different from that of the modern church that its implications are nothing less than revolutionary,” says Coleman.

So what was Jesus’ plan for making disciples?

JESUS’ STRATEGY FOR MAKING DISCIPLES

“[Jesus’] concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes, but with men whom the multitudes would follow,” writes Coleman.

People were Jesus’ strategy. And they still are today.

Jesus discipled people in different audience sizes: the crowd (25-5,000 people), the group (the 12 disciples), the core (Peter, James, and John), and the one (one-on-one encounters; i.e. – the woman at the well).

Let’s look at what Jesus did in each of these settings:

1. The crowd: Jesus often taught crowds of people that included believers and unbelievers. Jesus did not repeatedly address one specific crowd but a variety of crowds in the towns he traveled through.

2. The small group: This is where Jesus spent the majority of his ministry. After spending all night in prayer, he chose twelve men to be with him, become like him, and then imitate what he did. These are the men he entrusted with the future of the church.

3. The core group: In the most intimate moments of Jesus’ ministry, such as the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1-13; Mark 9:1-13), he pulled aside Peter, James, and John to get an even closer glimpse at the kind of disciples he was calling them to be. Jesus knew he was entrusting the church to his disciples, and that these men would become pillars of it.

4. The one: The Gospels record many encounters between Jesus and one man or one woman. These one-on-one encounters were infrequent and focused; we don’t see Jesus having a follow-up conversation with those he discipled this way, and their conversations were typically centered on a particular issue.

Of these four components, Jesus gave the majority of his life to the community (his twelve disciples) and the core group (Peter, James, and John).

Now let’s turn to the church as we know it today and see how each of these components is incorporated into its discipleship strategy. Of course—these are generalizations—but I think this captures the norm in many American churches:

1. The crowd (25-5,000 people): Churches understand the corporate gathering. We disciple our crowds in weekend services, mid-week services, and Bible studies. In many churches, the crowd setting is viewed as the primary avenue for discipling.

2. The small group (12 people): Churches get this too, for the most part. Some miss this. Discipling the group takes places through Sunday school classes, community groups, small groups, life groups, discipleship groups, and variant kinds of study/social gatherings. The emphasis changes from church to church, but almost every church puts at least some emphasis on getting its people into smaller, more manageable groups to practice centering our lives on the gospel together and loving one another.

3. The core group (3-5 people): Churches have a variety of ways a small, more intimate group gather, study, and fellowship together. Churches discipling groups of this size do so through things means like weekly meetings, discipleship/study groups, prayer groups, accountability groups, pastoral internships or residences. These typically reflect single-gendered groups of three-to-five that meet for a fixed time with the purpose of applying the gospel practically to life, typically with the goal of multiplying.

4. The one (1 person): Discipling the one takes place in environments like coffee shop conversations, pastoral meetings, or focused mentoring. Much of ministry to one takes place face-to-face. Some of this type of ministry happens digitally, through phone calls, emails, texts, Skype, etc. Interestingly, for many, this seems to be the area of discipleship they think they need to spiritually flourish.

MISSING THE CORE COMPONENT OF DISCIPLESHIP

Churches get Sunday services. Churches often get small groups. We even get personal, one-on-one mentoring and pastoral conversations. But for some reason, many churches don’t offer anything to serve the most intensive component of Jesus’ discipleship strategy. Monumental moments with the disciples in the gospels take place—not with the many—but with the few. The core group is the missing component in most discipleship strategies.

“Jesus, it must be remembered, restricted nine-tenths of his ministry to twelve Jews,” writes Eugene Peterson.[1] Three of those twelve Jews were Peter, James, and John. These three men would have observed more than the others what Jesus said, did, and taught during the three years they followed him. While Jesus spent nine-tenths of his time with the twelve, he spent concentrated time with these three—his core group.

Peter, James, and John were present with Jesus during some of the most intense moments of his ministry and struggle, no doubt because Jesus was preparing them for their leadership roles in his soon-to-be church. Robby Gallaty notes there are at least five times where we see this in the Gospels:

1. At the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law (Mark 1:29).

2. At the raising of Jairus’ daughter from the dead (Mark 5:37).

3. On the mount of transfiguration with Jesus (Mark 9:2).

4. At the Olivet Discourse, when Jesus explained the end-time events (Mark 13:3).

5. With Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, just prior to his trial and crucifixion (Matt. 26:37).[2]

There can be no doubt that Jesus was intentional about his decision to include these same three men at each of these events. Nothing about Jesus’ discipleship strategy was left to chance, the church was his plan A—the only plan he made. He brought Peter, James, and John alongside him in these moments for a specific purpose, and that purpose served the future leadership of the church.

JESUS IS PAR FOR THE COURSE

So what does Jesus’ core group teach us? At the very least, we can say that Jesus discipleship methods are the example par excellence in content and context. In discipleship, Jesus’ way of walking closely with these three is par for the course of our lives. We should model his content and context; the content of Jesus’ discipleship is the Word of God, reflected in the Old and New Testaments which Jesus shows spoke of him (cf. Luke 24:44); the context of his discipleship methods were everyday relationships as he moved among the crowd, the twelve, the core group, and individuals.

We cannot overlook the content and the context of Jesus’ disciple-making strategy. These two elements work together to form men and women into followers. Therefore, we cannot embrace the content of Jesus’ teaching apart from the context of his teaching and expect the same results. We wouldn’t come to the table with just a recipe and expect to get a meal without bringing ingredients and doing some cooking.

Elton Trueblood noted the real problem facing the church back in the twentieth century:

Perhaps the single greatest weakness of the contemporary Christian church is that millions of supposed members are not really involved at all, and what is worse, do not think it strange that they are not. As soon as we recognize Christ’s intention to make his church a militant company, we understood at once that the conventional arrangement cannot suffice. There is no real chance of victory in a campaign if 90 percent of the soldiers are untrained and uninvolved, but that is exactly where we stand now.[3]

Unfortunately, this is exactly what the American church into the twenty-first century has been witnessing: a sifting of men, women, and children loosely affiliated with Christianity as the cultural winds have shifted from a Judeo-Christian worldview to a secular, post-Christendom one. With so many untrained or uninvolved, how does the church march forward in the shifting culture?

IT’S TIME TO BUILD AN ARMY

Before ascending to his seat of power in heaven, Jesus said, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt. 28:19). Let’s identify the missing components in our discipleship and start making Jesus’ last words our first work—in our lives, in our homes, and in our churches.

And let’s start with making disciples out of the disengaged and disenfranchised within our ranks. The best way to do this is to round them up into core groups (you can call them D-Groups, DNA Groups, or Fight Clubs) of three to five men or women and enter into an intentional time of accelerated spiritual growth, for the purpose of multiplying each of the members into disciple-makers in the same way.

God’s kingdom will advance with or without us. If we want to be a part of its advancement, we must train soldiers. But we must start now.

[1]Eugene Peterson, Travelling Light: Reflections on the Free Life (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1982), 182.

[2] Robby Gallaty, Rediscovering Discipleship: Making Jesus’ Final Words Our First Work (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015), 143.

[3] Elton Trueblood, The Best of Elton Trueblood: An Anthology (Kirkwood, MO: Impact Books, 1979), 34.

Grayson Pope (M.A., Christian Studies) is a husband and father of three, and the Managing Web Editor at Gospel-Centered Discipleship. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship. For more of Grayson’s writing check out his website, or follow him on Twitter.

Sermons Aren't Popcorn: Tips for Being a Good Listener to God's Word

We do it every week. We grab our coffee, greet some friends, sing some songs, and then sit down to listen to a sermon. Some of us Bible nerds even do it more than once a week through podcasts. We know sermon listening is good for us and part of the Christian life. We have been inspired, challenged, bored, distracted, convicted, and entertained by sermons. So we keep coming back for more.

But we don’t often stop to think about how to listen to a sermon.

There is a way to glorify God most in how we go about listening to a sermon, whether in person or online. Here are five tips to help us be sermon listeners and not just sermon consumers.

1. PREPARE YOUR HEART

Let’s face it. Between checking one more text, Instagramming our coffee, or scrambling to get the kids checked-in, much of the time we’re not even remotely prepared to take in a half hour or hour-long sermon.

Before giving into the Sunday morning frenzy, we must remember that we’re not at church for the sake of routine, but because we really believe the Creator of the universe loves us and wants to speak to us. As you find your seat or pew, take a deep breath, exhale everything on your mind, and ask the Lord to speak to you. A simple prayer, “Jesus you are here, I love you, I want to hear from you, speak to me,” can go miles in preparing your heart.

Leave your phone in the car if at all possible. Use a physical Bible and paper journal to keep you from digital distractions. Spend some time praying before the gathering if you can. Pray for the preacher, the church, potential visitors, and for yourself.

Come prepared to hear the sermon as a member of the church, not just a consumer of its services.

2. ASK BETTER QUESTIONS

How many of us come away from a gathering and we judge the whole experience like we would the latest Marvel installment? "How did you like the sermon?" "What did you think of the music?” “Was the pastor’s Iron Man or Ant-Man example funnier?”

The point of gathering with the saints and sitting under biblical preaching is not for us to judge the Word, but for the Word to judge us. Responding to God’s Word the same way we respond to movies will train us to treat it like cheap entertainment. We are called to be disciples, not consumers. Consumers come, take, and leave; disciples come, see, and go and tell.

Let me suggest three questions to ask after listening to a sermon, either to yourself or someone else.

What did God say to you? Sometimes God speaks through the sermon, prayer, communion, music, benediction, or a moment of silence. He loves to speak to his people. Let’s listen and ask one another how we’re hearing God through sermons. This makes it less about the jokes, antics of the preacher, personality or style, and more about hearing from God—which is the point! And God is faithful to speak through his Word even in the less “entertaining” or poorly articulated sermons because his Word does not come back void (Is. 55:10-11)!

How is God calling you to respond? In Hebrew, the word “hear,” or shema, means “listen & obey” (cf. Deut. 6:3, 4). The American version of listening is fine with just listening, even listening and responding enthusiastically to what has been said, but with no real change, obedience, repentance or transformation. We love to say, “Oh man, that was such a convicting message!” and then go on with our day as if we never heard it at all.

I’m afraid too many of us are content with just listening—listening that doesn’t result in heart change or genuine response. Jesus rebuked this kind of listening, calling it having “ears but never hearing” (Matt. 13:13). And in one of the most terrifying passages of the Bible, Jesus says, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?” (Luke 6:46).

Biblical hearing leads to biblical action. After listening to a sermon, we should ask ourselves how God is calling us to respond. Is he telling me to stop doing something? To start doing something? To think something different? To give something away? Questions like these bring sermon listening to life.

Who could you share this truth with? Sermon listening shouldn’t end with us. God invites us into a life of community and mission; a life of loving him and loving others. After all, faith comes by hearing the gospel, and hearing the gospel comes through the word of Christ (Rom. 10:17). Others need to hear the Word we have heard!

Whether you are building someone else up or you have someone else help you in responding to the sermon, sharing what God speaks to us and how we will respond is one of the great joys of being the church! As you reflect on the preaching you’ve sat under, ask yourself who you could share with.

3. FIGHT ENEMIES OF LEARNING

Pride, stubbornness, and a lack of teachability are enemies of listening and responding to a sermon. That’s why Hebrews 3:15 says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.” We can nitpick a sermons’ delivery, critique the personality of the preacher, pridefully boast that we already have heard this text before, or use the time to think through all the ways we would teach Scripture differently. These are all walls in front of our hearts that will block the Word of God.

This hurts us and hurts the church. Pride and stubbornness are not badges of honor in the Kingdom of God; they are not biblical virtues and we ought to fear them. Pray for humility and teachability. Ask the Lord to keep you from stubbornness. Assume the sermon application does actually apply to you.

I’m not saying to mindlessly embrace everything taught, but I am saying to prayerfully join a gospel-centered church, one that preaches the full-counsel of Scripture, and then submit to that teaching. There will be times where the application does not apply directly to you, or when your pastor was off on the text. But if applying the Word you heard is the rule—and not the exception—the more likely you will wrestle with your sin rather than scapegoating the preaching (Heb. 4:12). Pursue humility and default to submitting to the preached Word.

4. PRAYERFULLY PARTICIPATE WHEN TRUTH IS REPEATED

If you have been part of a church for a long time, you will inevitably begin to hear stories, illustrations, and applications repeated over and over. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Scripture repeats personal testimonies, commands, and evidence of God’s work and calls us to remember what God has done in the past.

As consumers, we want every sermon or gathering to seem new, fresh, or different. But the point is not to be entertained by something new, it’s to be transformed by something eternal. The next time you begin to think, I’ve heard this before, or I know where they are going with this, lean into prayer instead. Ask the Lord, “Why are you having me hear this again? What do I need to remember?” And pray for those in the room that may have never heard that particular point.

5. PODCAST SERMONS OCCASIONALLY AND RE-LISTEN REGULARLY 

The number and accessibility of podcasts, with godly men rightly exegeting the Word of God, is a gift of grace. But like any good thing, too much of it can be a bad thing. For the sermon-podcast junkies out there: be careful. You can listen to so many podcasts that you train your mind to hear a sermon with no response. Sermons can become means of entertainment instead of transformation.

We can also begin to build an imaginary or ideal preacher that doesn’t exist, making us unable to enjoy our local preacher because he’s not as funny as Matt Chandler, as astute as Tim Keller, or as passionate as Francis Chan. But that’s good! Your local church pastor is the one God gave you to hear from most regularly, and God intends you to hear his truth through their personality.

Be wary of listening to sermons so much that they become mere entertainment. Sermons are not popcorn. God has sovereignly placed you in a local congregation, so enjoy and appreciate your local preacher instead of binging sermon podcasts. Consider re-listening to a sermon that has spoken to you deeply. Reflect on it. Sermons are to be savored.

LET’S BE GOOD LISTENERS

Hearing God’s Word preached is a privilege. “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’” (Is. 52:7).

Let’s be good listeners of God’s Word, reveling in the beauty of the gospel and giving thanks for those who teach it.

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Jake Chambers is the husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to Ezra, Roseanna, Jaya and Gwen. He is passionate about Jesus and his church and has spent the last decade both leading a church plant in San Diego, CA and helping others plant churches. He is currently helping create a church planting strategy for Resurrection Church in Tacoma, WA and hopes to plant a church in his hometown of Gig Harbor, WA in the future. Preach, pray, lead, listen, write and recreate are the 6 ways that God has specifically called Jake to enjoy his presence and serve his church locally and globally.

Believer, Your Leaders Needs Your Prayers

I saw him stretched out on the floor behind the curtain, his face touching the concrete. The worship music blasted through the speakers while the few congregants sang in response. His sermon was ready, but he wondered what difference it made. The church wasn’t growing. He wasn’t paid. He faced pressure from his friends, his staff, and himself.

Can God do anything through me? he wondered.

Gospel ministry is a glorious weight, and every leader needs help holding it up. Paul, recounting the opposition and sufferings he faced, made a desperate plea to the Corinthians: “You must help us by prayer” (2 Cor. 1:11).

It's hard to ask for prayers from the concrete floor, but your ministry leaders have been there. Some might be there now.

They might not ask, so I’m asking on their behalf: Brothers and sisters, pray for your leaders.

THE LORD’S WORK IN THE LORD’S WAY

Francis Schaeffer opens the fourth chapter of No Little People with these lyrics from a song sung during his seminary graduation:

From ivied walls above the town

The prophet’s school is looking down.

And listening to the human din

From marts and streets and homes of men:

As Jesus viewed with yearning deep,

Jerusalem from Olive’s steep,

O, crucified and risen Lord,

Give tongues of fire to preach thy Word.

It’s fitting for a seminary graduation. Leaders want a burning desire to fuel the Word of God coming from their mouths. But it doesn't take long to realize inner desire isn’t enough. The flesh is no help at all (John 6:63). Only the Holy Spirit can spur you on and sustain you at the same time.

The Spirit’s leading of Jesus during his earthly ministry was the model for how he guides all God’s leaders along the same path: suffering, rejection, crucifixion, resurrection.

You must march through the valley of the shadow of death to find the green pastures beside still waters, the place all leaders want to take their people. It’s here, on resurrection’s path, that ministry makes its mark.

Schaeffer understood the difficulty: “Because the world is hard, confronting it without God’s power is an overwhelming prospect. But tongues of fire are not to be had simply for the asking. The New Testament teaches that certain conditions must exist. In short, they come down to this: we must do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way.”

With your expectations, conversations, and suggestions, are you helping your leaders do it God’s way? Or is the pressure to perform so high that they’re tempted to take shortcuts to appease the crowd?

Doing the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way is a treacherous road. Relying on God alone isn’t more comfortable for your leaders than it is for you—but the church depends on their faithfulness.

A PRAYING CHURCH

Who is sufficient for these things? Not peddlers of God’s word, that’s for sure. Trusting one’s ministry to God alone is for sincere men and women who have been commissioned by God, in whose sight they speak in Christ (2 Cor. 2:17). It's a high calling—and a difficult one.

But difficulty and glory are not enemies of God. Jesus said of Paul, "I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:16). It was foolishness to the world, even as it was the wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:25). Paul’s response was not gloom but joy (Phil. 4:10–13).

But Paul knew Christianity was not his personal religion. It was Jesus’ kingdom movement, calling Jew and Gentile alike into a new family. In a family, everyone’s needs are shared. To fight the good fight, Paul knew he needed his family’s help. He needed a praying church.

To do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way, every leader needs a praying church. I've never met a leader that is too encouraged. Gospel leaders do not assume they are sufficient on their own.

It's likely no one is more discouraged about the state of your church than your leaders. You don't have to tell them everything that's wrong. They know and feel much of it already.

The church must realize it fights on spiritual ground. Maybe your leader needs practical tips—but not before they need your prayers. No ministry is more needed, and no ministry more overlooked, than the ministry of prayer.

A SPIRITUAL BATTLE

“Imagine,” Schaeffer said, “the Devil or a demon entering your room right now. You have a sword by your side; so when you see him you rush at him and stab him. But the sword passes straight through and doesn’t faze him! The most awesome modern weapon you could think of could not destroy him. Whenever we do the Lord’s work in the flesh, our strokes ‘pass right through’ because we do not battle earthly forces; the battle is spiritual and requires spiritual weapons.”

The flesh, the world, and the devil conspire against every leader. They need an army of holy warriors who pray with gospel defiance against the enemy, declaring that “the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds” (2 Cor. 10:4).

We cannot take a sword to a demon fight, but that doesn’t mean we have to rely on our fists. Scripture tells us we can put on the armor of God himself (Eph. 6:14-17).  The individual Christian must put it on, but it must be used for the good of those who lead.

The key that upholds it all is prayer: “Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Eph. 6:18). A personal prayer life keeps God’s armor on the body.

To that end, Paul says, “Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak” (Eph 6:18-20) .

God’s armor is not just for solo missions. It is for the front-line battle as we stand firm in one Spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the sake of the gospel (Phil. 1:27).

When you pray for your leaders, you are playing no small part in the story of redemption. God uses good soldiers, and he knows every one by name (John 10:3).

MOMENT-BY-MOMENT RELATIONSHIP

Like all Christians, every leader needs a moment-by-moment relationship with God. In our day of professionalized ministry, many assume closeness with God is a given. But talking about God is not the same as walking with God, and the closer you are to ministry, the wider the trap grows. The enemy loves a church leader who treats God as a theory.

Paul fought against theorizing God. He knew the gospel was of first importance (1 Cor. 15:3). Knowing Jesus and him crucified mattered above all (1 Cor. 2:2), walking in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him was the only life worth living (Col. 1:10).

He also knew to endure to the end, he needed the prayers of his people. So when he wrote to his churches, he asked for prayer to stay faithful (Eph. 6:20), to be delivered (Rom. 15:31, 2 Thess. 3:2), to bear fruit (Col. 4:3, 2 Thess. 3:1).

What Paul wanted most—what every gospel-centered leader wants most—is to serve the Lord with gladness, resist temptation, and do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way. If Paul needed the prayers of his people, don’t your local church leaders need yours?

You can put your leader on the floor, or you can lift them up. Which will you choose?

“Brothers and sisters,” Paul pleaded, “pray for us” (1 Thess. 5:25). Your leaders plead the same.

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David McLemore is the Director of Teaching Ministries at Refuge Church in Franklin, Tennessee. He also works for a large healthcare corporation where he manages an application development department. He is married to Sarah, and they have three sons.

You Don't Need a Passport to Reach the Nations

I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, “Those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand.” – Rom. 15:20-21

I was twelve when I first read these lines from Romans. The unstoppable advance of the gospel immediately captivated me.

Stories of missionary heroes like David Livingstone, Hudson Taylor, and John Paton flooded my mind as I considered what gospel-pioneering work would look like.

With a Bible in one hand and a machete in the other, I envisioned myself blazing a trail through the dense African bush, fighting off snakes and lions to reach remote tribes with the gospel. I was convinced this was the life God was calling me to live.

Twenty-five years later, I’m still just as excited about reaching the unreached. But my role in this work has looked entirely different from my childhood dreams.

DASHED DREAMS OF REACHING THE NATIONS

Initially, passion for the gospel’s advance led my wife and me to leave the comforts of family, friends, and homeland to church-plant in a Muslim village in West Africa. But our baby daughter’s struggles with malaria led us back to the States.

I was crushed.

My childhood dreams of reaching the unreached had been dashed.

Or had they?

These days, I’m not sweating bullets under the scorching African sun. Instead, you can usually find me shoveling snow on yet another frosty day in western New York. I’m not halfway across the continent, but a few miles up the road at the local university, studying the gospel with young men and women who’ve never heard the good news. Instead of cutting my way through a jungle with a machete, I’m digging my way through conversations with chopsticks.

Through this season of ministry, I’ve discovered something that never occurred to me when I first read Romans 15. I had always thought of the unreached peoples as only being “out there.” But the truth is, they’re very much here, too.

We don’t have to cross the ocean or cut down a trail to get to the nations. The nations have come to us.

THE UNREACHED IN OUR BACKYARD

One of the most dynamic mission fields of our time might easily be one of the most overlooked. This past year, more than one million international students from all over the world attended colleges and universities in the U.S. Many of these bright, ambitious men and women came to us from countries closed to traditional missionary endeavors.

Some will be only here for a year. Others, for quite some time. After completing their studies, many will go on to become influential leaders.

An article from the Washington Times stated that nearly 300 current and former world leaders once occupied American classrooms before ascending to prominence in their home countries.

The potential to see the gospel advanced globally through international student ministry is truly staggering!

AN EXCITING—BUT CHALLENGING—OPPORTUNITY

Almost anyone involved in international student ministry will tell you that most of these students are curious about religion. Unlike their American counterparts, international students are open to discussions about Christianity.

And they’re eager to make American friends. Being far from home, many long for a sense of community. They are an ideal mission field that is ripe for harvest!

Making disciples of the nations within our nation, however, is not for the faint of heart. The challenges can be overwhelming.

Since English isn’t their first language, communication can be complicated. Most of these students have cultures and worldview perspectives that are drastically different from ours. Some come from countries completely closed to the gospel and therefore lack basic categories for basic biblical concepts. Even those from “Christianized” countries often have a seriously distorted understanding of the gospel.

Patience, love, and a long-haul mindset are essential if we’re going to reach these men and women for Christ.

HOW YOU CAN REACH THE NATIONS AT HOME

If you’ve read this far, you might be thinking, “Micah, I get what you’re saying. Reaching these people sounds awesome, but kind of scary.” Maybe you’ve never interacted with someone from another country. Perhaps you’re worried that you won’t know what to say or how to act. How would you even begin?

If you’re near a local campus with international students, let me encourage you to consider the following:

Partner with local campus ministries

Partnering with a student ministry on campus is probably the best place to start. There are a number of campus ministries effectively reaching international students. Our church has been able to establish a healthy, working relationship with one such ministry.

Through our partnership, we’ve had numerous opportunities to make connections and develop meaningful relationships with students. Some of them have come to know the Lord and are now radiant followers of Christ. Others are attending gospel studies led by some of the men and women of our church.

Working together, I’m thankful that my church body can multiply our time, efforts, and resources to advance the gospel.

Meet the international student advisors at your local college

I recently talked with a young man who is involved in a thriving international student ministry at his local church. When I asked him how his church started their outreach, I was struck by the simplicity of his response:

“We met with the international student advisors and asked them how we could help students adjust to college life. They were happy to have us help with things like picking up students from the airport, showing hospitality, and helping students learn about the city.”

Through simple acts of service, members of this church established relationships with both students and faculty that have opened doors for disciple-making ministry.

Organize an ESL conversation club

Opportunities to meet Americans, make friends, and practice English are usually big hits with international students, especially those with families. With a little planning and training, nearly anyone can organize an effective ESL (English as a second language) conversation club. Select a few conversational topics that might be of interest to students. Open your gathering with a few ice-breaker activities to help everyone feel comfortable with one another. Divide the students up into smaller groups where they can receive more personalized attention and opportunities for discussion.

As relationships are established, encourage volunteers to follow up with students in their groups to set up one-on-one gospel studies.

REACH THE NATIONS RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE

God may not be calling you to cross the ocean to reach the unreached. Instead, he might be asking you to drive a few miles up the road.

Through international student ministry, you can labor so that “those who have never been told of him will see, and those who have never heard will understand”—and you won’t even need a passport.

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Micah Colbert and his wife, Debbie, live in Buffalo, NY with their three children. In addition to planting and pastoring Gospel Life Church, Micah also works part-time as an ESL instructor in the city. Currently, Micah is working on developing disciple-making materials to help churches effectively engage in international student ministry and ESL outreach. You can visit his website at www.internationalbiblestudy.com.

'I Don't Know How You Do It': God's Grace for Foster Parents

As I stood there watching him sleep, I was reminded of the terrible reality that there are 430,000 children just like him in foster care across our country—and not nearly enough families to take them in. I had tiptoed into the room so I wouldn't wake him. Laying on a mattress wrapped in his red 'blankey' was a napping three-year-old little boy. While typically an explosion of energy, loudly bouncing around from one toy to the next, he lay there asleep and looked so peaceful.

We had received a call from Child Protective Services (CPS) a few days before saying there was a child in need of a temporary home. We accepted, and it wasn't long before a blue-eyed boy with long reddish-brown hair entered our lives.

'I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU DO IT'

Fostering is hard. A child comes into our home, alters the norm of our everyday lives for a number of weeks or months, and then by government order leaves as quickly as he or she came. Many find it difficult that we regularly let children we've grown attached to go back home, usually never to see them again. People often say to us, "I just don't know how you do it." That bewildered statement implies that we have some special gift or ability that others don't have, but the truth is, we don’t.

Foster care is hard at every level. It's hard when you first get a child. When a worker brings by a snoozing child at 3 a.m., your family is forced to make quick adjustments. Numerous scheduling changes have to be made. It might mean pulling the spare bed out of the attic, or it might mean running to the store for diapers and wipes.

And yes, it's hard when you've grown close to a child and they return to their family. Reunification is always the goal, so we rejoice when it happens, but that doesn’t make it easy. The last child was a part of our family for nearly a year. We celebrated her first birthday. We watched her take her first steps and heard her first words. Then one day the court decided it was time for her to go home, and just like that, she was gone.

GIVING US MORE THAN WE CAN BEAR

The challenges of foster care from beginning to end are often more than we can bear. It’s a struggle to incorporate another child into our family dynamic. The behavioral issues are frustrating and overwhelming at times. Juggling home inspections, doctor appointments, therapy sessions, and visitations can quickly zap our strength. It’s heart-wrenching to hear a child crying in the middle of the night, “My mommy doesn’t love me anymore!” while trying to convince her that’s not the case. We become well acquainted with our own weaknesses when we face these burdens.

On one occasion, I was exhausted and just about at the end of my rope. Already wondering if I was in over my head, I walked into our foster child’s room (who was supposed to be sleeping) and he had destroyed the room. I’m typically not a crier, but I wanted to weep at that moment. As I cleaned up the mess, I uttered to the Lord, “God, we need your help.” At that moment, I was reminded of my own helplessness and weakness.

But in our weakness, we are reminded that Christ is strong (2 Cor. 12:10). The Alpha and Omega never sleeps or slumbers (Psalm 121:4). He sees every tear shed and frustration expressed. By his power, not only did he speak everything into existence, but he continues to hold all of creation together by the power of his word (Col. 1:16-17). He is the one who sends forth the lightning and provides for the ravens. At his command the eagle mounts up, and he measures all the waters of the earth in the hollow of his hand. The nations are like a drop in a bucket to him, he stretches out the heavens like a curtain. He calls the stars by name, and because of his strength, not a single one goes missing (Job 38-40; Isaiah 40:9-31).

I’m not strong enough to face the challenges that come with foster care, but he certainly is. The great promise for the believer is that this powerful God will never leave us nor forsake us (Deut. 31:6; Heb. 13:5). We live moment by moment, depending on him and trusting that he will give us the exact amount of grace needed for each trying time.

HIS GRACE IS SUFFICIENT

I trust that the Lord, in his sovereignty, brings these children to our home. He sees every child’s unique situation and struggles. It's easy to doubt this, though. In spite of the teaching of the popular cliché, the Lord will give more than we can handle at times. He is gracious to take us to the end of our strength so we that we learn to rely on his. Without his grace, we couldn’t do it. We couldn’t handle another heart-breaking "good-bye." We couldn’t survive another long day filled with the challenges of foster care. Thankfully though, in those moments, his grace proves to be enough.

The staggering number of children in foster care can make us feel powerless. We often want to bring massive change all at once, but the Lord doesn't always work that way. While I wish I could help all the children in foster care, I simply can't.

But as I stood in my room that day watching that little boy sleep peacefully with his red blanket, I realized that even though we can't bring mass change, perhaps the Lord can use us to make a massive change in his life. We can't help all 430,000, but we can help this one.

That’s why we foster—to overwhelm the life of one child with the love of Christ for as many days as we get to share with him.

A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS

Scripture reminds us often of the Lord's heart for the vulnerable and oppressed, especially orphans (James 1:27). His heart breaks for the 430,000. And as God's people, ours should too. We should be the most willing to die to our comforts, our dreams, and our convenience for the sake of the vulnerable and orphaned.

I recognize not everyone can take a child in, but we can all serve foster children in some way. There are ministries that provide creative ways for anyone to contribute by ministering to foster families and CPS workers. Some help collect needed items (clothes, car seats, etc.) that foster families can use, or help provide “parent’s night out,” where they offer childcare. Others adopt CPS workers and try to minister to them through encouraging notes and gifts. There may not be a ministry like this in your community, and if so, there's an opportunity to start one through your local church.

It’s not easy, but the Lord’s grace is sufficient. His strength is perfect to overcome every frustration and obstacle in foster care.

In our short time of fostering, we've cared for babies with meth in their system; we've had children from homes where they were left to live in their own feces; we’ve received precious children that bear the image of God, from dysfunctional and broken homes.

When you engage in foster care, you get a front-row view of the depravity of man. You get a glimpse into the darkness. But it's in the darkest places that the church's light can shine the brightest.

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James Williams has served as an Associate Pastor at FBC Atlanta, TX since 2013. He is married to Jenny and they have three children and are actively involved in foster care. He is in the dissertation stage of a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology. You can follow James Twitter or his blog where he writes regularly.

The Essence of a Gospel-Soaked, Faithful Teacher

How did we get to a place where Christians turn against Christians in the name of political power? How did we get to a place where we demonize one another by oversimplifying our beliefs and convictions?

How did we get here? By quarreling over words and secondary matters to the neglect of what matters most; by not faithfully teaching and demonstrating those things which matter most. Without faithful teachers, God’s people have few, if any, guardrails against worldly pursuits and thinking.

But what does it look like to be a faithful teacher of God’s Word? In 2 Timothy 2, Paul paints three compelling pictures of a faithful teacher for his young protégé, Timothy: the unashamed worker, the clean vessel, and the Lord’s servant. Taken together, these three pictures convey the essence of a gospel-soaked, faithful teacher.

THE UNASHAMED WORKER

The first picture Paul gives Timothy of a faithful worker is a sharp contrast between a good and bad workman:

"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. But avoid irreverent babble, for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness." – 2 Tim. 2:15-16

The good workman does his best to present himself as one approved. He is diligent about the work of teaching. He reads good books, takes classes, and disciplines himself to learn God’s Word. The good workman is humble. He knows he needs his instruction just as much as those he teaches. The good workman is careful to ensure he is presenting the Bible’s truths clearly and accurately. He knows the more clearly he presents God’s Word, the more powerful it is.

The bad workman, on the other hand, gets lost in endless controversies, inevitably entangling others in their foolishness. Their talk spreads like gangrene, infecting people everywhere it goes. Quarreling over such things as secondary or tertiary matters creates divisions and hurts the people you teach.

Don’t get tangled up in the parts of the Bible that are unclear when there is so much that is clear. Be like the good workman: present yourself as one approved, with no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

THE CLEAN VESSEL

Next, Paul explains that a faithful teacher is like a clean vessel:

"Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work."– 2 Tim. 2:20-21

“Vessels” refers to containers that would be found in one’s home in Paul’s day, like Tupperware in ours. Some vessels would have been used for honorable things, like eating, whereas others would have been used for dishonorable things, like washing feet.

We have a Tupperware cabinet in my kitchen (you know, the cabinet where every container falls out every time you open it). One of the “vessels” in that cabinet is a yellow, plastic bowl we use for thawing raw meat. I wash the bowl every time we use it, but even though I cleaned it, I’m not about to eat out of it. Why? Because that would be gross. That bowl is used for a dirty, or dishonorable, task.

In the same way, people are used for either honorable or dishonorable tasks. Without Christ, each of us was a vessel for dishonorable use—we were far from God and probably cared little for others. We were slaves to sin and set ourselves apart for dishonorable use.

But in Christ we have been made clean through the blood he spilled on the cross. Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension justify us in the sight of God once our faith is in him. We have been cleansed, made holy, and are now set apart for honorable use.

Honorable vessels are “useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.” As believers, we are useful to God in the sense that we are equipped to do good works here and now for people made in the image of God in a way that brings him glory (Eph. 2:10).

The words Paul uses—“honorable” and “set apart”—indicate that his clean vessel picture is about holiness. Paul wants to remind Timothy, and us, that holiness matters.

Holiness has fallen on hard times, though. We want to be accepted, so we wink at the number of drinks we have when we’re out with friends. We’re loose with our tongues, or we’re quick to laugh at a crude joke. But each time we participate in sin, we’re making dirty what Christ has made clean; making dishonorable what God has set aside as honorable.

Believer, pursue holiness and set yourself apart as useful to the Lord Jesus Christ.

THE LORD’S SERVANT

Paul’s third picture of a faithful teacher is the Lord’s servant:

"So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will."– 2 Tim. 2:22-26

Paul first tells Timothy to “flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” This is related to holiness, and it relays the Bible’s most basic instruction for how to deal with sin: to flee from it. As fast as you can.

Most of us have an overinflated sense of how strong we are. We think we can stand up to temptation and beat sin through sheer strength or willpower. But we can’t—that’s why Jesus had to die for us.

The Lord’s servant is not prideful. He knows he needs the grace of Jesus and the power of his Spirit to stand up to temptation. Sin and its consequences are scary enough to the Lord’s servant that he wisely runs the other direction. Instead of running to temptation, he should run to righteousness, faith, love, and peace. These are the fruit of the Spirit—attributes he will cultivate in us as we pursue them alongside him.

The Lord’s servant should also be gentle. In contrast to the devil’s quarrelsome servant, the Lord’s servant should be “kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.” Think of your relationship with the people you lead: are you kind to them? Patient with them? Do you endure their questions and hardships? Are you gentle in your conversations and sensitive to their struggles?

The world is filled with impatient, prideful, power-hungry leaders. God’s Kingdom should house leaders who are just the opposite. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t correct people when necessary—Paul clearly states that Timothy should be correcting his opponents. But he should be doing so in gentleness, because “God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.”

Be patient with your flock. Be kind to them. Love them. And if they have strayed, instruct them in gentleness, and perhaps they will come to their senses and find their way back to the truth.

JESUS IS THE FAITHFUL TEACHER

Faithful teachers should be like a good workman, a clean vessel, and a servant of the Lord. And if, like me, you feel woefully inadequate to be all of these things, then take heart, because you don’t have to be.

You don’t have to be the perfect workman, the cleanest vessel, or the greatest servant because Jesus is.

Jesus is the perfect workman who never shrank back from declaring the truth and correcting false teaching. He never mishandled the Word of truth. He never quarreled over inessentials and never tired of telling his people of God’s goodness and their need for salvation.

Jesus is the clean vessel who presented himself pure and blameless before the Father. He was an honorable vessel his entire life but willingly gave himself up to dishonorable treatment on our behalf. He was willing to be dishonored so that we could become honorable through him.

Jesus is the Lord’s servant who was perfectly pure, never sinning though tempted in every way as we are. He was focused, never straying from his mission to bring the gospel to bear on all mankind through his sacrificial death on the cross. He was gentle, treating the lowliest of men and women with the highest amount of dignity. He patiently corrected, continuously endured.

Jesus is the faithful Teacher. He is the only leader who can do all of these things. And it is only by looking to him and relying on him that we will become the faithful leaders he means for us to be.

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Grayson Pope (M.A., Christian Studies) is a husband and father of three, and the Managing Web Editor at GCD. He serves as a writer and editor with Prison Fellowship. For more of Grayson’s writing check out his website, or follow him on Twitter.

What if Pastors Stopped Sharing the Gospel?

What if, at a major continental conference, we asked every pastor in North America not to lead another person to Christ for the remainder of their ministry? If someone wanted to enter the Christian faith at their church, the pastor would redirect them to his people. It would no longer be the pastor’s responsibility to reach or attract unbelievers. If anyone was going to come to Christ, it would require direct participation from the individuals within the church body.

This is obviously a hypothetical situation for the purpose of illustration. But consider it for just a moment: if pastors stopped sharing the gospel and bringing people to Christ, what would happen to the church? With pastors pulling back, would church growth come to a screeching halt?

A CHURCH IN DECLINE

Plateaued and declining churches outnumber growing ones four to five in North America,[1] and denominations are reporting that high percentages of their churches are reaching few. America’s largest denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, reported in 2016 that 47 percent of their churches baptized two or less.[2]

You might think that reducing the pastor’s mission scope could have nose-dive level repercussions. Pastors are, after all, the main communicators of the gospel in our churches today. They also tend to be the most educated and socially adept people in God’s assembly (not that they don’t have some relational quirks and awkward tendencies). For those two factors alone, the mission of the church could substantially suffer if pastors were to stop sharing the gospel. But could it be that we'd see something surprising occur within the body of Christ?

What if across the wide spectrum of the Church, a mood of solemnity took place? A spontaneous-heart-and-knee-drop holy moment, where the church body in every region rises from its seats, comes to God’s altar, and with contrite and repentant hearts cries out, “Lord, we sense your Spirit in this. You are calling us to fulfill the very thing written in your Word. Lord Jesus, as your body, with our pastors now stepping down, we are ready to step up—to bear responsibility for bringing the gospel to the whole world! And we are willing to learn from our pastors all that is necessary to do that task more effectively.”

Seeing this heartfelt outpouring, pastors, too, all over the land might drop to their knees, exclaiming: “Lord, you have entrusted me with your people. I have been given the highest call to be their shepherd, but also the leader of your army. So Lord, make me a powerful equipper. Use me to unleash through them your symphonic gospel. May we see revival like the church has not seen since its first-century inception!”

Can you imagine this? I can.

BACK TO REALITY

Before you get too overwhelmed, there will be no such conference. No pastor has to stop living on mission; they can continue to be God’s messenger and minister of the gospel, uniquely called and qualified.

What I hope you get from this hypothetical scene of gospel-less pastors is a sense of how “pastor-centric” our congregations are. I believe the average church is far too dependent upon their leaders. From consultations with various church leaders, it seems to me that the lack of belief in church member’s mission abilities, coupled with inadequate training, is hindering the church’s potential impact at such a scale that it is unprecedented. Right now, North America has more unsaved people outside the immediate “joining circle” of the church (won’t attend with a simple invitation) than ever before. And our culture is continuing its plunge into pluralism.

A recent LifeWay study revealed that only 6 percent of churches are growing at the population rate of their communities.[3] Another survey from Christ Together found that 73 percent of respondents (all of whom were believers) were ineffectual with any non-believer.[4] The way churches are set up, with the pastor being the prime conduit of the gospel and a high ratio of church members being unengaged and ill-equipped for their gospel disseminating role, is not going to cut it any longer. Major cultural sectors will remain unreached unless God’s people rise into a new level of missional prowess.

I submit we have entered a new mission-necessitating era for the church’s growth. Yet even with the plateaued or declining numbers in so many congregations, many pastors are trying to do mostly the same “come and see” attractional devices to draw outsiders to check out their churches, when what is happening culturally has rendered this singular strategy insufficient.

MOBILIZING MEMBERS FOR MISSION

I played four years of college football and will always be a huge NFL fan. Though I am not part of the New England Patriot’s bandwagon, one day I listened to an interview with Patriot players who mentioned what their hoodied master, legendary coach Bill Belichick, required of them: “Do your job! Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing. We need you to do your job, each one of you, and on every single play. Fulfill your responsibility, and we’ll compete at the highest level.”

What if the church adopted a similar playbook? What if pastors truly embraced their role as given in Ephesians 4:11–17? What if pastors heard the call to “Do your job! Equip the saints. Stop stepping on their mission responsibility. Do what Christ is calling you to do and expect them to do their roles.”

It was Paul, under the Spirit’s inspiration, who was first to see this divine architecture in its most nascent form. God’s infinite wisdom conveyed the eternal plan for how his church would redeem the whole world. In Ephesians 4, Paul discloses a simple top-down-and-out structure designed to create the highest level of mobilization. It is so simple it’s easy to miss: God has given gifts to equip the members for his ever-expanding work.[5]

GETTING EPHESIANS 4 RIGHT

Despite specific instructions from this Ephesians 4 passage, teaching pastors still do the bulk of the mission enterprise. Too often, a church is measured by its preaching prowess, not the messaging exploits of her people. Too often the pulpit leads others to Jesus, not the people. Too often it is church staff, not the men and women in the pews, who are baptizing. Why do we settle for roles that diverge from Scripture, as well as the equipping example of Christ, who raised twelve everyman types to lead his movement?

I long to see pastors switch their metrics and begin measuring themselves by their equipping effectiveness and their people’s mission fruit. To get there, we would have to stop reinforcing a dependency upon leadership and a sequestering of viable mission skills, and instead devote ourselves to creating solid structures for achieving the member’s empowerment.

I am not proposing a restriction on pastoral proclamation, of course. But I am proposing a focused effort to train and mobilize the men and women in our churches to be the primary agents of gospel proclamation. If we make this shift, we will find ourselves closer to God’s ecclesial design, we will unleash the potential of our movement, and we will see a resurgence of the people’s “acts” that made Christ’s name famous in the first place.

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Gary Comer is the author of six books, including the newly released, ReMission: Rethinking How Church Leaders Create Movement. He founded Soul Whisperer Ministries, an organization dedicated to helping churches develop missionally. Gary is a motivational speaker, faith-sharing skills trainer, community group campaign catalyst, discipleship path designer, and development consultant. His ministry is also international, involved in training leaders in the United Kingdom, Kenya, Egypt, and India. Connect with Gary at soulwhispererministry.com, or on Twitter/Instagram at @gcomerministry.

[1] Jared C. Wilson, The Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto against the Status Quo (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2015), 35.

[2] Kevin Ezell, Southern Baptist Life, 2016.

[3] Rebecca Barnes and Linda Lowery, “7 Startling Facts: An Up Close Look at Church Attendance in America,” Church Leaders, April 10, 2018. Available at: https://churchleaders.com/pastors/pastor-articles/139575-7-startling-facts-an-up-close-look-at-church-attendance-in-america.html/2

[4] Ryan Kozey, “Your Church on Mission: What’s It Going to Take?” (presentation at Southwest Church Planting Forum, October 29, 2014).

[5] Read JR Woodward’s Creating a Missional Culture for insight into the five top equipping gifts.

The Best Worst Day Ever

They had known him his whole life. As his aunt and uncle, they had watched him grow from a little boy into a man who had faithfully provided for his widowed mother and siblings. Then, as his public ministry began, they had followed him and had come to believe, however crazy the thought might seem, that their nephew, Jesus, was actually the Messiah, the One who would redeem Israel. But then the unthinkable happened. Right when they thought things were finally coming together, when Jesus had entered Jerusalem to songs of “Hosanna,” he had been betrayed, arrested, tried, and executed. The shock, fear, and grief that came crashing into their hearts would have been indescribable. Their dear nephew was dead. The Romans had done it again. Their nation would remain under their cruel oppressors.

And so, after a few days in hiding and mourning, when the Sabbath ended and they could travel, Cleopas and probably his wife, (another) Mary[i], began their journey home to Emmaus. It had been the worst weekend of their lives. But everything was about to change.

BURNING HEARTS

As they made the journey along the dusty road home, they were joined by a stranger. “What are you talking about?” he inquired. “Don’t you know what’s happened these last few days?” they answered.

They proceeded to describe how their dreams had been crushed beneath Rome’s heel. But then, as the stranger spoke to them, their hearts began to glow and then burst to flame again. Later they would say to their friends, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he . . . opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32).

What set them on fire?  What changed them? The resurrection and their new understanding of the Scriptures.

That Jesus would have risen from the dead was completely unthinkable to them, even though they had actually heard stories from those who had seen the empty tomb, and even though he had foretold it. They simply didn’t have a category for understanding what had just happened. So Jesus had to open both the Scriptures and their understanding. And that’s just what he did, “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself” (Luke 24:27). And as he did this, their hearts, once shattered, cold, and unbelieving, were set ablaze.

In one short conversation, Jesus explained the meaning of the Old Testament to them. Although they were certainly familiar with it and undoubtedly knew that it foretold a Messiah who would bring redemption, they had misread it. They had assumed the Christ would be a powerful king who would establish an earthly kingdom, exalting their nation and expelling their oppressors. They had misread all the stories about Abraham, Israel, Moses, David, and Daniel as being about them and their ultimate earthly success. And it was their misreading that caused their confusion and sadness. So he opened their eyes and they began to see.

Filled with excitement and joy, they made the journey back to Jerusalem and brought the news to the eleven disciples. And then, the Lord “stood among them” (Luke 24:36) and repeated the same conversation with the whole group. He “opened their minds to understand the Scriptures” (Luke 24:45).

IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS

What was the meaning of the Scriptures? What had Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms been about? They were actually about the gospel.

Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem (Luke 24:46-47).

The entire corpus of the Old Testament was about the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the God-Man who would become one of us, live perfectly, die shamefully, then rise and ascend bodily. It was about mankind’s need for redemption, as seen over and over again in the epic failures of every one of its “heroes.” It was about the suffering that everyone deserved and the patience and forbearance of the Lord who had held out his hands to a disobedient and contrary people “all day long” (Rom 10:21). And it was about the child of the woman who would trample under and crush Satan, the tempter (See Gen. 3:15).

But how would this happen? Shockingly, it would happen through the suffering of the only One who didn’t deserve to suffer, the Sinless Son. As much as his disciples had believed that Jesus was the Christ, they had missed this message entirely.

ARE WE MISSING THE POINT?

And so do we. We miss the message when we try to turn the Bible into morality tales that tell us how to have our best lives now. Be like Moses! Dare to be a Daniel! we’re told. We miss the message when we use it like tarot cards, predicting our personal future: Should I move to Atlanta? What does this verse say? And we miss the message when we read the Bible as though we’re doing our algebra homework, so we can get a good grade from God for the day.

The Bible, both Old and New Testaments, are about Jesus, our need for redemption from sin, new life, and his mission supply all that we need. It demonstrates the truth that all people are fallen and in need of redemption from outside ourselves. And it shows us where that redemption comes from: the second Person of the Trinity who took upon himself our flesh and our debt, lived the life no one had ever lived, died the death we all deserved, and then broke the power of the curse of sin for disobedience by rising on the third day.

What turned the disciples’ worst day into their best? Nothing less than the gospel. And when we read it the way he taught them to, our hearts will blaze into zealous fire too!

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Elyse Fitzpatrick is a frequent speaker at churches, retreats, and large conferences such as The Gospel Coalition and True Woman. She has an MA in biblical counseling from Trinity Theological Seminary and has authored 23 books on daily living and the Christian life and lives with her husband in San Diego, California. Learn more at www.elysefitzpatrick.com.

[i] http://www.jesus.org/death-and-resurrection/resurrection/who-were-the-disciples-on-the-road-to-emmaus.html

3 Ways Googling Hinders Your Growth and Your Church

Every day, I turn on my phone and scroll for wisdom. Sometimes it comes from friends that are friends in real life. Other times it comes from my carefully curated experts. There are some I go to for political analysis, and others for parenting advice. There are experts on theology, sexual abuse, and the commentators on racial division. They’re knowledgeable and instantly offer Biblical advice or encouragement.

But is this really what’s best for me or the church?

Not too long ago, if you had a parenting question you would call your mom. If you wanted a book recommendation, you would ask a friend, or if you had a question on a difficult passage of Scripture, you would wait to talk with your pastor or Bible study group.

Then the search bar arrived with its instant, reliable answers. The rise of social media makes the availability of information even faster as we can now turn to a host of people we have personally vetted to feed us answers. It is true that the internet is a wonderful tool in our day and age that enables us to gain wisdom and see the global church of Christ with incredible clarity. Still, there is an underlying danger when we start to use social media as our go-to for expert information. This pattern hinders not only our own growth but the growth of Christ’s church in several ways.

STEALING HUMILITY

One of the ways it hinders our growth is by robbing us of opportunities to learn through humility. When I’m in a tough spot with my young children, I’d rather send off a quick post to my homeschool group on Facebook than call an older mom in my church who has walked this path before me. I make all kinds of excuses, but in reality, I’d rather receive instant encouragement from strangers than become vulnerable and teachable in the community God has given me. The truth is it’s easier to turn to our friends on the internet for advice or even confess our sinful struggles because we do not live, worship, and learn alongside these saints each week. We feel safer and protected in our online bubbles, but our attempts to save face actually hinder our spiritual growth.

Often times the means of greatest growth and grace in our lives is not through the cheers of distant acquaintances, but through the humbling counsel of the people who know us the most. Of course, we can still use the internet for advice and even for friendships, but are there some conversations we aren’t having with saints in our local church because we fear to be vulnerable? Proverbs tells us that with humility comes wisdom (11:2), and three times in Scripture it is repeated that God gives grace to the humble (Prov. 3:34, Jas. 4:6, 1 Pet. 5:5, ESV). The cost of laying down our pride is worth the blessings of growth and grace we will receive in return.

THE BEAUTY OF THE BODY

Another way seeking all our answers online hinders our growth is by limiting our ability to see how the body of Christ works. There is a distinct difference in the way we feel the church through social media than through our local church down the road. I could ask my favorite author for a book recommendation, but their answer would not be as encouraging to me as when my pastor handed me a giant theology book and said, “Here you go, eat it one bite at a time.” While I have learned much from my favorite authors, they don’t know me like my pastor. He is the one who sees me each week and has heard my questions and what I’m passionate about. He knows how busy I am with three kids, which projects my family is working on, and he’s both challenging and encouraging me in a way that no far-off Christian writer ever could.

As brothers and sisters we are called to serve one another (1 Pet. 4:10, ESV), to encourage one another (Heb. 3:13, ESV), to teach one another, and to hold each other accountable (Col. 3:16, ESV). While these commands can be carried out on the internet, they begin and flourish in the local church.

What if along with racing to see those end-of-year book lists we stopped an elder and asked what book he recommends? What if we asked a godly teacher what reading plan she was going through? As we purposely take these questions to those around us, it blesses them as they are allowed to pour into us, while at the same time showing us the accountability of the body of Christ. No longer are we faceless avatars, but fellow laborers in our community. We assume the role of a saint who not only wants an answer but a chance to form deeper relationships in the body of Christ.

THE RISE OF CELEBRITY

Finally, seeking all our answers on our smartphones contributes to the Christian celebrity culture that continues to ravage the body of Christ. It’s easy to believe our favorite authors, the wittiest podcasters, or the famous pastors on our phones have it all together, that their words can be trusted the most. But the reality is that behind that screen they are the same, sinful, flawed, and gospel-needing people like those sitting next to us in the pews. We must remember it is not because of any special skill or importance that some are elevated, but it is because “God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose” (1 Cor. 12:18, ESV). Christ is the head, and he has made each member of the body in need of each other. Moreover, Paul tells us that the parts that seem weak are indispensable, and we should bestow the greatest honor on the parts which seem less honorable (v. 22, 23).

When we start to use our social media groups as our primary source of advice, we see Paul’s definition of the body of Christ upside down. We don’t see each other in desperate need of grace, but we instead elevate certain members and forfeit the value of the “lesser members” sitting next to us. This warped sense of the body of Christ feeds our own pride and eventually sets us up for crushing disappointment when any of our esteemed leaders show their faults. We can and should benefit from the wisdom of public leaders, but we must make sure to prioritize and esteem the local church members God has given us. When we do this, we protect not only ourselves, but also those very leaders in the public eye.

FINDING THE BALANCE

God is sovereign over the internet and our online relationships. We don’t need to pull the plug completely, but we do need to examine the balance we’re striking. There may be some tweets we shouldn’t send and some conversations we can wait to have face to face. In doing this, God strengthens not only our own congregation but the entire body of Christ.

Next time you’re tempted to ask your phone to function as your church, think of who in your church might be able to answer the same question.

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Brianna Lambert is a wife and mom to three, making their home in the cornfields of Indiana. She loves using writing to work out the truths God is teaching her each day. She has contributed to various online publications such as Morning by Morning and Fathom magazine. You can find more of her writing paired with her husband’s photography at lookingtotheharvest.com.

Fixing Our Discipleship Deficiency

The gospel is the church's most precious gift to cherish, protect, and pass on. If we get the gospel right, we are on a holy and healthy journey into discipleship.^[1] If we get the gospel wrong, we get everything wrong. Right now, we are experiencing a discipleship deficit. To her own detriment, the church in recent years has defined discipleship as optional, a choice and not a command.^[2]

With the death of Christendom and the rise of secular postmodernity, the American church is now a mission field.^[3] While Christianity is growing and flourishing in many parts of the world, it seems to be declining in America. The number of Christians and cultural strength of Christianity are both declining in the United States, even in the Bible Belt. The research and polling of George Barna and George Gallup consistently demonstrates that in terms of moral values and lifestyle choices there is little distinction between Christians and non-Christians within the United States.

Christianity in America seems to be compromised to the core.^[4] How can this be?

GOSPEL BANKRUPTCY

Unfortunately, many pulpits lack the gospel and many pews lack discipleship. A church that is deficient in discipleship is deficient in its fundamental reason for existence.^[5] The church must make Jesus’ final command her primary mission. In many churches, the Great Commission has been stated as the primary purpose of the church, but not obeyed. As Jesus’ last words, the Great Commission expresses his greatest passion and top priority. As stated in Matthew 28:18-20, the Great Commission is:

“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’”

Discipleship is, and always has been, Jesus’ plan A for the church—and there is no plan B. Robby Gallaty says, “A return to biblical discipleship will enact the reformation of the 21st century.”^[6] God has not promised to bless good motives, dreams, and innovation. He has promised to bless his plan; his plan is that the church would be about making disciples who make other disciples.^[7]

Robert Coleman, the author of The Master Plan of Evangelism, said, “The solution to our ineffectiveness as church is to train people to be spiritually mature, fully devoted followers of Christ, and in turn to have those disciples make more disciples.”^[8] If the church is going to be good at anything, it must be good at making disciples.

AN AGE OF DISCIPLESHIP

In his book Discipleship Essentials, Greg Ogden writes, “I can only hope and pray that a century from now (if Christ has not returned) when church historians study the time in which we live that it will be called an age of discipleship.”^[9] An age of discipleship characterized the early church—after the Great Commission—and can still characterize us.

Faithfulness to the Great Commission must begin with a true understanding of the gospel message. The gospel fuels the Great Commission. If Christians should be crystal clear about one thing, it’s the gospel. Christians are meant to be “unashamed of the gospel” (Rom. 1:16) because it is “the power of God for salvation” (1 Cor. 1:18) and is intended to be “of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:2).

Bill Hull has said, “One of the perennial tasks of the church is to reexamine the gospel we preach and believe, alert to ways it has been reshaped by the idols of our culture.”^[10] Why? Because the gospel we believe will determine the disciples we make. We cannot make Christ-like disciples with a flawed gospel message. Pharisees were good at making disciples. Unfortunately, according to Jesus, they were making disciples of hell (Matt. 23:15). The Pharisees were perpetuating a false gospel that led to damnation. Consider the Apostle Paul’s warning in Galatians 1:9: “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” As in the Apostle Paul’s day, false teachers and false gospels abound in our culture.

The goal of the Great Commission is to get the true gospel to all nations. Jesus said, “this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). Disciple-making will lead to the consummation of God’s Kingdom!

If you’re in a church setting that seems to have lost sight of the Great Commission, be encouraged because change is possible. I know because I’m watching it happen all around me. As a result of taking God at his Word and obeying it, I’m watching older men and women invest their lives in younger men and women. I’m watching families engage in foster care, adoption, and special needs ministry as a result of a God-given burden for the lost and marginalized. I’m watching our people serve the homeless and mentor children of our local public schools. I’m watching parents disciple their kids. I’m watching people obey God’s call to plant churches. Our people are praying more, giving more, and going more.

I am witnessing God awaken and empower his people to the importance of disciple-making. I am seeing God transition a traditionally non-disciple-making church into a disciple-making church. It seems God is doing this, not just in our church, but all over the world.

COUNT THE COST

To be clear, the cost of transitioning to a disciple-making church may be great, but the cost of non-disciple-making is much greater. If you are a church leader, allow me to offer some practical suggestions on transitioning to being a disciple-making church. These are things we either have done or are implementing, at Calvary Baptist Church:

• Define the gospel. Define the gospel as revealed by God through his Word. Communicate your gospel definition consistently (in spoken word and in writing) from all platforms, including the pulpit, small groups, meetings, etc. Define key terminology, such as “disciple” and “discipleship.” Don’t allow terms like “discipleship” or “making disciples” to become catchwords and lose their meaning.
• Develop a simple and clear disciple-making strategy. If you don’t have a plan to fulfill the Great Commission, you probably don’t intend to do it. Aim to minimize programs and maximize the process of disciple-making. Once developed, communicate this strategy clearly, consistently, and visibly. Make sure your people understand how you intend to lead them to make disciples. Lead in disciple-making by example. Realize there is no perfect or silver bullet strategy. Whatever your strategy, prayerfully depend on God to transform and grow people.
• Champion disciple-making. Lead your church to rediscover the importance of disciple-making through teaching, example, and individual conversations. Use all means necessary to call your members to be disciple-makers. Championing discipleship means conveying disciple-making as a lifestyle, not a program.
• Equip your people for the work of disciple-making. It seems many people in our churches understand the importance of disciple-making, but are paralyzed because they have no idea what to do or where to start. Relentlessly equip your people to make, mature, and multiply disciples of Christ. Train them. Challenge them. Lead them step-by-step.
• Celebrate “wins” in disciple-making. Your church will celebrate what you celebrate. Take every opportunity to celebrate the work God is doing in the area of discipleship.
• Be patient. Disciple-making is a marathon, not a sprint. The journey is the destination. Because the concept of disciple-making will always be new for some, they may be hesitant to get started, and slow to mature and multiply. At our church, we are in year seven of our transition and we are seeing more and more fruit because we are remaining patient and not giving up. Pray for God to awaken your people—as he has you—to the importance of discipleship.
• Trust God. Take God at his Word. The beauty of the command to “go and make disciples” is that the church is never left to do the work of God apart from the power of God. The promise of Jesus’ power ( 28:19) and Jesus’ presence (28:20) should give you assurance and confidence in making disciples.

BEAR THE FRUIT OF DISCIPLESHIP

This is not an exhaustive list, but it’s a good place to start. According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, “the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” How does one glorify God? I believe Jesus provides the best answer in John 15:8, “My Father is glorified by this: that you produce much fruit and prove to be My disciples.”

God’s ultimate plan is for his children to bring glory to his name as disciples of Jesus Christ. As God brings history to an end, disciple-making is the only cause that will matter. Let’s count the cost of being disciple-making disciples, and then let’s get to work.

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Dan Tankersley (M.A., New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary) currently is Discipleship Pastor at Calvary Baptist Church of Dothan, Alabama. He is married to his beautiful bride Anna, and they have one son, Elijah. Dan's passionate about spurring God's people on to make disciples. 

^[1] Ibid., 14.

^[2] Hull, Bill. Conversion and Discipleship. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016, 21.

^[3] Hull, Bill. The Disciple-Making Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Publishing Group, 2.010, 56

^[4] Ogden, Greg. Discipleship Essentials. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007, 7.

^[5] Ibid., 11.

^[6] Gallaty, Robby. Rediscovering Discipleship. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2015, 87.

^[7] Harrington, Bobby and Josh Patrick. The Disciple Maker’s Handbook. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017.

^[8] Putman, Jim and Bobby Harrington. DiscipleShift. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013.

^[9] Ogden, Greg. Discipleship Essentials. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007, 8.

^[10] Ibid., 23.

What Does Mission Look Like in the Suburbs?

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.” – Karl Marx

I was at a church conference, listening to an impassioned young pastor talk about the work he does in inner-city high schools in his neighborhood:

“Everyone should be getting in on this. It’s the greatest need in our city. Young men without fathers need attentive, compassionate, strong men to pour into their lives and mentor them.”

I listened to him with a mixture of admiration and annoyance. I admired how he’d discerned local mission in his neighborhood and galvanized his community to action. Men putting their lives on the line for young men stirred my heart and excited my mind.

But I was also annoyed (and feeling more than a bit guilty about being annoyed). What if my neighborhood doesn’t have the same problems as your inner city neighborhood?

Does mission in the suburbs count, too?

THE BEST PLACE TO LIVE?

The city where I am living and planting a church (Fishers, Indiana) was recently named the BEST place to live (in all of America!) by Money Magazine (based on factors that a magazine named MONEY would base it on: healthy economy, affordable homes, and a “high quality of life”).

This is a very different environment from inner-city realities described by the young pastor above. So what does mission look like in the affluent suburbs? Should we drive 30 minutes to mentor high school teens in a more impoverished area?

What does mission look like here in the suburbs?

THE HIDDEN PAIN OF THE SUBURBS

My friend and co-pastor Ben says that mission in the suburbs is more difficult to discern because the needs we see most quickly are those that contrast with the American Dream (poverty, homelessness, crime, etc.). But the American Dream isn’t the same thing as the Kingdom of God.

The needs in the suburbs are just as pressing, but it takes some discernment to see them because they’re hidden under the veneer of the apparent fulfillment of the American Dream.

Our church has been inhabiting and praying for our suburban city for three years now. And we’ve noticed a glaring issue largely left untouched and ignored by the affluent, active culture of our city: there seems to bea deep well of unprocessed sadness, unfinished grief, sorrow, and relational pain that people carry with them on a day to day basis.

One recent study suggests that loneliness is rampant, and it’s just as dangerous to our health as obesity. And unlike poverty, homelessness, and hunger, most people who are chronically sad don’t know it. They can’t identify what’s actually haunting them.

AFFLUENCE AND ACTIVITY NUMB US

Part of the reason we don’t know we’re sad is that the affluence and relentless activity of the suburbs insulate us from having to feel our pain. We’ve generally got enough money and power to find a way to numb the pain if we ever start feeling it.

• Lonely? Watch another Netflix show, refresh your Facebook pic of your family to see how many likes you’ve received, kill off that box of cookies.

• Ugly? Get free botox from your neighbor, start a gym membership and lose that weight, buy more expensive (and flattering) clothing.

• Hurting from a relationship? Eat, drink and be merry; change churches; just begin to ignore that awkward relationship.

• Insignificant at work? Find your significance in your kids' performance, or your meticulously cared for lawn, or your car.

• Stressed out and unable to cope? Pop open another bottle of wine, plan a guys’ weekend, play another round of golf, download another mobile phone game.

CHURCH DOESN'T HELP (MOST OF THE TIME)

And our suburban churches aren’t helping.

Worship services are often called “celebrations.” Preachers regularly tell people that the answer to their unhappiness is to “just praise God!” Our liturgies are full of thanksgiving, praise, and exhortation, but often bereft of lament, mourning, and weeping. Our Christian radio stations are full of “positive and encouraging” programming, implying that to be a Christian is to be happy, positive, smiling, and put together.

If Karl Marx thought the religion of his day was the “opium of the people,” there’s a case to be made that the kind of Pop Christianity described above is the opium of the American suburbs.

Drop the kids off at childcare, get emotionally moved by awesome music, listen to an inspirational message about God that tells you to try harder and do more, and God is good all the time and all the time God is good . . . and come back next week for your next spiritual hit!

But none of this frenetic spiritual activity really heals us. It just keeps us sedated and unaware of our immense sadness and pain. Church just becomes another activity to distract me from my pain.

RECKONING WITH REALITY

Instead of this kind of happy-clappy faith, the suburbs desperately need a faithful Christian witness of how to lament pain and evil in our world.

One of our foundational assumptions about life (because we see Jesus make this assumption over and over in his dealings with people) is that God is so real he most fully meets us where we really are.

We need a reckoning with reality, a dealing with “what is,” a rhythm that makes way for healing, and a robust community with which to journey.

We need the emotional safety to name what’s actually going on, a pruning of distractions to become aware of how we are really doing, language to describe “I think that feeling of loneliness and anxiety is really just sadness that I haven’t dealt with yet.”

LEARNING A LITURGY OF LAMENT

Mission in the suburbs can begin with learning to lament. And thankfully, even though most of us aren’t practiced in it, the Bible is filled with lament, especially the Psalms. Lots of Psalms are mainly lament!

Our church gatherings must make room for lament because this is the only thing that can heal our sadness.

We can start with sadness for our own life tragedies: relational ruin, personal trauma, individual sin. And we can enter into solidarity with the suffering of the world as well: victims of natural disasters, systemic oppression, the principalities and powers of racial and economic injustice, broken families, physical and emotional abuse.

Healing and restoration happen when we move beyond merely “standing up for” or “speaking out against” things. Underneath speaking and standing, we find the aching need to suffer in solidarity with actual people.

GROWING ROBUST CHURCH COMMUNITIES

Loneliness and isolation are the privileges of affluence. In the suburbs, we live in large castles of independent self-sufficiency, closing ourselves off to connection and dependence on others.

Much of our pain in the suburbs is due to past and present relationships that are not healthy. If relationships have caused us pain, it will be relationships that play a role in our healing.

Our discipleship must be built on creating relationships of emotional and spiritual safety. At a minimum, this means cultivating a culture where:

• Shame is dethroned through regular confession and proclamation of good news.

• The worst thing about me can be brought into light in community because the grace and truth of Jesus Christ are trusted and celebrated.

• People can share pain without others dismissing, denying, ghosting, fixing, or gas lighting.

• We learn how to be present to others pain; suffering solidarity with each other.

• Hope and healing are held together with despair and pain.

This isn’t easy, of course. Most people have to pay professionals $125 an hour to receive this kind of relationship and care. And of course, professional counseling is important and good and necessary. It’s just sad that it’s often the only place people experience this kind of care.

What if we can create a fabric of community that is able to bear more and more suffering as we learn to name our own in community?

In the suburbs, creating spaces where it’s safe for people to learn to lament is mission, because it addresses one of the hidden ways the kingdom of God needs to come to the suburbs.

Matt Tebbe has been a coach, communicator, and consultant for over 4 years with churches in North America. He holds a Masters of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School and has worked as an adjunct professor at Trinity College. Matt co-founded Gravity Leadership and is planting a church (The Table) in the northeast suburbs of Indianapolis, where he and his wife Sharon live with their children Deacon and Celeste. You can follow him on Twitter or check out Gravity Leadership for more of his work.

The Wastefulness of God

EFFECTIVE. EFFICIENT. PRACTICAL. It is remarkable how often one hears these words in the world of Church, Inc. Their frequency may reflect our desire to be wise stewards of the resources God has entrusted to us, or they may reflect the influence of a culture that strives for control and values ROI (return on investment) above all else. I suspect both motivations are at play. Scripture rightly warns us to be careful with money. It is a tempting master broadcasting a siren promise of omnipotence—the power to control one’s life and circumstances. We have all heard the heartbreaking stories of pastors lured into wealth’s maelstrom. We have also heard the stories of ministries that simply mismanaged their finances and slowly, quietly disappeared beneath a tide of debt. Regularly telling these tales of woe keeps church leaders vigilant. They provoke us to be effective, efficient, and practical. But might these values carry a hidden danger, perhaps even more perilous than wealth?

When efficiency becomes an unquestioned value within Church, Inc., we risk embracing the ungodly ethic of utilitarianism. Rather than seeing people as inherently valuable regardless of their usefulness, we begin to wonder how we might extract more money, volunteer energy, missional output, or influence from them. Our goal as pastors shifts from serving and equipping to extracting and using. Rather than asking how we might love someone, we wonder how we might leverage them, and we can hide these ungodly motivations from others (and even from ourselves) by appealing to the universally celebrated virtue of stewardship. After all, isn’t it poor stewardship to have a CEO sitting in the pews every week and not utilize his wealth and leadership capacity for the church? And would a good steward invest the church’s resources into young adults who are too transient to become leaders and too poor to give back?

We condemn our culture for devaluing human life it deems useless—the unborn, the elderly, the mentally disabled, the immigrant, the poor, etc.—yet the same utilitarian values of efficiency and practicality that fuel these societal sins are no less common within the church. As ministers of the gospel of Christ, we must stand boldly against the popular belief that everything and everyone exists to be useful. We must remember that in His grace God has created some things not to be used, but simply to behold. After all, the Lord not only created a garden for the man and woman with every tree that was useful for food, but also every tree that was beautiful to the eye (Gen. 2:9). Sometimes we are the most like God when we are being the most impractical.

The graceful, “wasteful” nature of God was revealed shortly before Jesus’ death. While reclining at a table, a woman poured a very expensive ask of oil upon His feet. When His disciples saw this, they were appalled. Like many church leaders today, they could only see through the lens of practicality. “This ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor,” said Judas, and the disciples rebuked the woman.

“Leave her alone,” Jesus shot back. “Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.”

For those who believe that the beautiful must submit to the practical, it is impossible to view the woman’s action as anything but wasteful. The disciples saw the spilled oil as a lost opportunity. To them the oil was only a commodity to be utilized and exchanged for a measurable outcome. What they interpreted as a waste, however, Jesus saw as priceless. He recognized the spilled oil as beautiful, impractical worship. True worship can never be wasteful because it seeks no return on investment. True worship is never a transaction. It is always a gift—an extravagant, “wasteful” gift.

Perhaps our captivity to efficiency, like that of the disciples, explains the dismissive posture many pastors have toward the arts. Sure, we appreciate beautiful architecture, music, and paintings if they serve the practical goal of communicating a biblical truth or drawing people through the church’s doors. But art for art’s sake? How could that possibly glorify Christ? Why would that be a wise investment?

Artists who cultivate beauty in the world remind us that the most precious things are often the least useful. Artists provoke us to see the world differently—not simply as a bundle of resources to be used, but as a gift to be received. Therefore, the creative arts serve as a model of God’s grace, and how the church affirms and celebrates the vocations of artists is likely to inform its vision of God. As Andy Crouch said, “If we have a utilitarian attitude toward art, if we require it to justify itself in terms of its usefulness to our ends, it is very likely that we will end up with the same attitude toward worship, and ultimately toward God.”

To combat the utilitarianism of our culture, and to foster a right vision of God, perhaps the church needs to learn to be more wasteful rather than less. Maybe there is a time for the voices of practicality to remain silent as the artists prophetically call us back to extravagant worship, to behold God rather than to use Him. And maybe it is good to embrace the impracticality of having young children, the mentally handicapped, and other “useless” people in our worship gatherings as a way of valuing what the world discards, detoxifying such ungodly values from our own souls.

And perhaps the church should spend money on what the world deems impractical and wasteful. When the voices of the world cry out in protest against the church, as they inevitably will, maybe the voice of Jesus will speak in defense of His precious, often useless bride: “Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.”

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Taken from Immeasurable: Reflections on the Soul of Ministry in the Age of Church, Inc. by Skye Jethani (©2017). Published by Moody Publishers. Used by permission.

Skye Jethani is an author, speaker, consultant and ordained pastor. He also serves as the co-host of the popular Phil Vischer Podcast, a weekly show that blends astute cultural and theological insights with comical conversation. Skye has authored three books, The Divine Commodity: Discovering a Faith Beyond Consumer Christianity, WITH: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God, and Futureville. Skye and his wife Amanda have three children: Zoe, Isaac, and Lucy and reside in Wheaton, IL.

Four Critical Values for Pastoral Accountability

Let’s face it. If a pastor's accountability isn't in the local church, it's probably not real accountability. It's the illusion of accountability so we can traffic in the vocabulary without the entanglements of the substance. Here’s the problem: Not everyone is clear on what they mean when they use the word "accountability." Let me suggest four specific values we should seek to experience in accountability of plurality.

• Intentionality
• Self Disclosure
• Approachability
• Appeal

Below we’ll look a bit at each of these values. But before we do, there is one overarching principle we must never overlook. If you want to know the secret underlying the kind of loving accountable relationships where elders grow more in love with Jesus, their wife and their ministry, it’s humility. That’s right, humility.

AN IMPORTANT WORD ON HUMILITY

Humility is the oil that lubricates the engine of plurality. When one considers all of the polity options God could have chosen for governing churches, I theorize that God chose plurality because he loves humility.  And plurality can’t work without humility because in plurality, God imposes a governing structure that can’t be effective without embodying humble values. God loves unity, so he calls us to plurality where we must humbly persevere with one another to function effectively. God loves making us holy, so he unites us to men who will make us grow. God loves patience, so he imposes a way of governing that requires humble listening and a trust that God is working in the lives of others.

God has decided the church will be governed in ways that value both the ends and the means. That is, God values decision making, but he also values the way we relate to each other in the decision making process. We often think what’s “best” in polity is what’s most efficient, easiest, or most effective way of doing something. Instead, God’s best way is whatever is the most beautiful way. The standard of beauty is God, specifically the interplay of his own unity, diversity, and harmony. God throws together diverse men with different gifts who have strong opinions and then insists upon their unity. This does not always look or feel “beautiful”. But God still charges elders to lead the church. As they lead, they are also called to grow in their exercise of authority as they remain mutually accountable and responsible to one another. The only hope for such a dynamic to exist in a group is for us to make humility our aim.

But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. (Isaiah 66:2)

God made healthy plurality dependent upon accountability because he loves humility. Now we’ll turn our attention to the four values of accountability, the first one being "intentionality."

FOUR CRITICAL VALUES FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

Intentionality means I will have some defined, regular and consistent context in my life where guys who know me can encourage me, pray for me, and understand my patterns of temptation. It’s saying, “I love my wife enough, my family enough, the church enough and fear God enough, that I’m actually going to define the contexts for my accountability. And rather than sharing in a generic manner, or in vague generalities, or using amoral words to remove any sense of my own moral agency, I’m going to ensure they know me all the way down to where I am most tempted. This way they can pray for me, encourage my growth, and ask about how I’m doing.” We must press down into all the areas that could potentially detonate our family or ministry and define when and where these will be discussed. That’s intentionality.

Self-disclosure means while you are always welcome to inquire about my soul, it is not your job to investigate my life, my sin or my temptations. Self-disclosure brings forth humility by making it our responsibility to humbly open our souls to those to whom we are accountable. Fellow elders are not prosecuting attorneys cross-examining your life. Instead, you are a witness to your own life, sharing truthfully, freely, and happily with little or no provocation. In Christ, we have God’s self-disclosure (John 1:18). Jesus is God moving towards us making himself known. Self-disclosure stems from the incarnation by communicating we too want to experience deep community. We move towards one another by beginning with making ourselves known first. The burden is on me to disclose my joys and struggles.

This small distinction in how we view self-disclosure results in a far more gracious approach to accountability and respects the believer’s relationship with God. Behind this value is a confidence that God’s work in our lives propels us towards an honest life before Him and one another. Placing the accent on our disclosure creates an arrangement where accountability is not rigged to find sin or places us in the role of the Holy Spirit.  Rather, it is transformed into a context to trust God’s word and encourage the exercise of humility. When I make self-disclosure my responsibility it’s easier for others to ask me questions about my soul, my marriage, my parenting, my ministry, or to share their heart for me.

Approachability is best described by Ken Sande who writes about the importance of conducting ourselves in a way that makes us approachable, generous, and easy to talk to--even if our conversation is about something hard. Sande says when we live humbly, resonate with openness, and become more Christ-like, we gain ‘passports’ into the lives of others. This is an important concept for anyone who wants to experience genuine, meaningful, and fruitful accountability.

Simply belonging to a group is not passport into the lives of others. A passport, remember, is an authorization to enter and travel in a foreign land. Similarly as we are intentional, self-disclosing and approachable with one another, we gain passports into the lives of the other people in our group. These “passports” are earned bestowals of trust that come when others feel they can trust us with their own self-disclosure and with the care of their souls amidst their struggles.

If you want to experience real accountability and helpful feedback from others, you will need to be known as one who is approachable and trustworthy.

Appeal recognizes accountability is hard and sometimes needs help. Maybe the experience of fellowship breaks down due to a conflict that can’t be resolved, or maybe one person in the group feels permanently tagged by something they’ve confessed. Maybe it’s something more serious:  You seem to be caught in sin and the group feels unable to help, or your wife feels trapped by some pattern of behavior you’re exercising in the home and just doesn't know what to do.

The value of appeal says, even before we start our group, we are agreeing a plea for help may be necessary and we are defining the person or group within the church to whom we will appeal. Appeal says that seeking outside help is not betrayal or slander, but sometimes necessary when sinners are trying to help each other. Appeal says we are agreeing up front we will not allow our homes to become tightly controlled, closed systems; that our wives can appeal to others for help if they feel it is needed. Our cycles of accountability can be appealed if something becomes an albatross. The value of appeal anticipates that sometimes we are blind and need help and in that moment, we are far less likely to want to seek it. So we agree now to protect ourselves (and those we love) then.

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Dave Harvey serves as the Executive Director of Sojourn Network and a Teaching Pastor at Summit Church in Fort Myers, Florida. Dave is also the founder of Am I Called.com, a leadership resource site helping pastors, leaders, and men who sense a call to ministry. He has 31 years of pastoral experience, with 19 years as a lead pastor. Dave chairs the board for the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) and has traveled nationally and internationally doing conferences where he teaches Christians, equips pastors, and trains church planters. Dave has a D.Min from Westminster Theological Seminary, writes regularly for TGC and FTC, and is the author of When Sinners Say I Do, Am I Called, Rescuing Ambition, and Letting Go: Rugged Love for Wayward Souls. Married for 35 years, Dave and Kimm have four kids and two grandkids.

You can find this Sojourn Network e-book here on Amazon, iTunes, or at the Sojourn Network bookstore.

You can find out more about the Sojourn Network here.

Women’s Ministry Needs the Gospel

Every other day it seems as if I get another email from someone asking if our church has any groups for them to get plugged into and, without actually saying it, wondering how much work is required to be a part of said group. Christian-ese aside, churches have spent years figuring out what it takes to get people involved, many begging to belong. A plethora of books have been written about the many hoops it takes to get those people involved.

The loud cries of those who simply want to be part of something more than just Sunday morning are encouraging, a deep delight to one who plays a role in those groups. Yet, the discouraging part of it all is the drop-off. When the rubber meets the road, when community takes time and growth in the Lord isn’t microwavable, where are all those people who said they wanted this?

Although I don’t have children in this stage of life, the majority of the women I serve are wrestling down not just one but many kids as they attempt to wrestle with the Biblical text. Add the many other hats women wear, children or not, and you have a church-wide problem. Life is busy and we know it.

This has translated into ensuring we create ways to cater to our church body. The positives include providing regular child care, lowering the costs of buying curriculum, and offering many different times for those joining our many groups. The negative side leaves us with much to discuss.

How then should we move forward so that we don’t miss the felt needs of our given group, but also see their true lack with full eyes? In all things, Jesus Christ has provided what we need. The gospel of Jesus calls us to see rightly, though things are dimly lit around us. As we dive deeper in to the world of women’s ministries, we find that the gospel not only calls us to accurately view ourselves in light of Jesus’ death, but also to resurrection life.

THE GOSPEL CALLS US LOWER

The gospel says we are all sinners, and a perfect sacrifice, found only in Christ Jesus, was necessary to save us. As we recognize the weight of what that means, we need to begin to tear down the false gods we have found within ourselves, and within other fallible human beings.

As we examine how we have played a part in this within our women’s ministries, we look specifically at the downfall of what Erin Straza and Hannah Anderson call the “outsourcing of women’s discipleship,” as well as the dangers of what social media has done in women’s circles.

Because of reasons we’ll discuss further, we find that sometimes when women are not being fed in their churches, they look elsewhere to be discipled. Christian publishing and marketing has wholeheartedly embraced this tragedy. Plenty of resources are pumped out to feed these starving souls, in the hope one of those books hits the spot.

The problem, which often springs from a lack of discipleship, moves further in that direction. Not only do these women select the sort of discipleship they want, choosing leaders who look and act like they want to be or are, for better or for worse, but they then are discipled by someone outside the local church body, finding themselves even further disconnected from the struggling body they belong to.

Community is hard, discipleship is hard, and our natural inclination when things get tough is to run. We need women who will stay in their churches and do the hard and dirty work of reformation.

Another issue that has crept into our ministries is the ever-so-tiring need to keep up on social media. We have an astronomical amount of mama blogs, which translate into Instagram accounts where we begin rounds of dissatisfaction with what we have, then trying to keep up on the latest fashion trends and rules for our kids. We also find ourselves judging the ways other women do things. Not only do we have Ruth, the picture-perfect woman Proverbs 31 references, but now we have a gaggle of woman who ride the line of boast and humble-brag daily.

I don’t say this to cast condemnation, but to awaken hearts, including my own, to the ways in which these things translate into our walks with Christ, helping me make sure I’m one step up from where so-and-so is, and that she knows it because I posted a picture of my Bible. It’s not social media that needs to change, but the heart behind what we do.

The great news of the gospel says that though comparison and dissatisfaction have been an issue since the beginning, leaving us incredibly guilty, we have a Savior who paid for those numerous sins.

We don’t have to compare our walks with each other, not if we keep our minds and hearts fixed on Jesus Christ. We don’t have to ditch our churches and find life on our own, not if Jesus calls us into the hard work of true discipleship, which he has mandated. (Genesis 1:28; Matthew 28:19-20; Mark 8:34-37).

THE GOSPEL CALLS US HIGHER

The gospel says that when we die in Christ, we rise with him as well. As we see ourselves clearly as sinners, we also look at what it means to die to ourselves, putting on the garments of Jesus and putting off all that hinders us.

The problem of outsourcing discipleship often starts with being fed poorly. Women’s ministries frequently have been typified by fluffiness. Sometimes those fluffy things can get substituted for meat, and we continue to find ourselves gorging on sweets.

As we figure out what this looks like, hunger cries are met by eating cake, which means craving even more dessert. We then create another issue found in women’s ministry, which is constant activity, but no depth.

There is an immediate need to make Bible study as applicable as possible, leaving women every week with a feeling that “something needs to change” yet little awe for the God that they serve. This inadvertently means that, more times than not, behavior modification, not gospel transformation, is happening in and among us.

Things continue to skim the surface, making it seem plenty easy to dive in, with rewards galore as the book of the Bible we study becomes all about me.

When there’s no depth, we also find lack in our communities. If this is the amount and time we touch the surface with God, then this has to be the amount and time we give to the people around us.

We have been taught to love how people see us love Christ, and not taught to love Christ. We have been taught to love the way we feel after checking off all of the boxes and filling in all the blanks, and not to push through the struggle of true and deep connection with Scripture and others .Discipleship and community should not be pitted against one another, and yet they are as people around us demand they be manufactured for them, and refuse when it takes more than a retreat or simulcast to cultivate.

Our women are still hungry because they don’t yet know what a feast is, and how long it takes to make every part of it delectable and filling. Our palates need to change. The gospel calls us to a feast, the body and blood of Christ, dying to what we may think we crave so we might taste something more glorious, something that does more than stroke our heartstrings or tell us to behave better.

THE GOSPEL CALLS US TO HIDE IN HIM

This diagnosis can seem harsh, and at times, overwhelming. I think anyone can attest to the fact that no community or church they have been a part of has been perfect. Yet this too shows glimmers of his gospel.

Although we fail, flail and fall regularly, Jesus Christ is in the beautiful business of redeeming everything. This is who we point to, the crux of it all. No matter the mess it seems we make as we feeble humans as we attempt to figure out what is best for the sheep here on Earth, this is still where Jesus Christ came and inaugurated his glorious Kingdom.

As ministry leaders, we sit in that already-but-not-yet almost comfortably, knowing we can’t conjure up the best programs to disciple our people well, but that the Spirit is the one who does the work. The gospel calls us to point to Jesus in all that we do. In him we live, move, and have our being, and every part of our ministries should do the same.

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Alexiana Fry is a wife, MDiv student, and associate Women’s Director in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her passion and call is to see the church make whole disciples, pursuing the gospel in the everyday mundane of life. She also finds herself to be highly caffeinated, and blogging regularly at mygivingofthanks.com. 

A New Metric for Ministry Success

The life of a pastor or ministry leader is stressful. Many days when I wondered if the expectations of ministry are worth the effort. Often the stress self-induced or predicated on handed down assumptions of ministry success. The latest book saying my church wasn't big enough or multiplying fast enough. A conversation at a conference when a pastor convinced me numerical church growth was God's will. If the church wasn't growing something was wrong with my leadership.

In the daily grind of making disciples and helping people “mature in Christ,” there's added pressure in how to evaluate ministry fruit. What do we measure? How do we measure? Is it possible to measure the work of the Spirit and spiritual realities?

Some foundational and ultimate questions arise. Questions not always engaging the deeper realities of the work of the Spirit. How many people attend services on Sunday? How many members do you have? What is your facility like? How's the budget?

These metrics and questions can be helpful. But, don’t paint a full picture for ministry health and success. We can have hundreds of people coming to a service and not see any evidence of spiritual fruit in the attenders. Jesus attracted many crowds during his earthly ministry. But, the moment he began to talk about “counting the cost” (Lk. 14:28) of being a disciple the crowds thinned. Crowds are not always a good indicator for ministry success.

What if we have a small budget and are not able to pay a pastor or other staff? Is that failure? What if the ministry context is urban, rural, expensive, or transient? How can a church sustain a large budget if they don’t grow to a particular size? Jesus spent the bulk of his ministry homeless, no budget, and little resources. I think things turned out okay.

After fifteen years of ministry in church planting, established church, and student ministry contexts. I'm not satisfied with the typical metrics used in local churches, latest ministry books, and pastor conferences. Tired of getting the same questions asked of me at conferences and denominational functions. If I hear another question about the three B’s (bodies, budgets, and buildings), it will be too soon.

So what are we to do? Do we succumb to the 3 B’s and call it a day? Or, is there another metric we can use for disciple making, church planting, maturing people in Christ, and city renewal?

It all changed for me when a verse I read a hundred times stuck out like a sore thumb.

In the book of Acts, the disciples are scattered from Jerusalem because of persecution. A disciple Philip is doing the work of evangelism in Samaria. He preaches Christ, heals the sick, exercises demons, and people are coming to saving faith. It’s an exciting time in the early church as the gospel spreads from the Jewish epicenter of Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

Caught up in my own enthusiasm for the mission of God spreading to the ends of the earth (even the despised Samaritans according to Jews), I almost missed an important verse that simply read:

“So there was much joy in that city.” – Acts 8:8.

There was a connection forming in my mind between the gospel being preached, people responding to the good news, and “much joy in that city.” Samaria was literally becoming a city of joy because of the power of God in the gospel.

I began to wonder if joy was the metric for ministry success I longed for. If the gospel has the power to make an entire city joyful. If disciples of Jesus are to be joyful people because of the Spirit’s work. Joy had to be a way to measure ministry health and success.

The Bible is dripping with joy for God’s work on display. First, Nehemiah chapter eight gives an example of joy coming to a community. The people of God had lived in exile for seventy years in Babylon and now were returning to Jerusalem. The people were in spiritual and physical disarray and needed renewal. When Nehemiah arranges for Ezra (a priest), to read the Law, the people begin to repent of their sin and worship the Lord. Then we read these words:

“And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” – Nehemiah 8:10

It says, “for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” It is the joy we have in knowing God through Christ that will sustain us. The people of God were dislocated (spiritually and physically) from their homeland and longed to return. Their identity as God’s people fractured because of sin.

But, Nehemiah wanted to remind them of joy—an everlasting  joy found in knowing their God. This joy would sustain them through every circumstance.

Second, the Psalms teach a consistent connection between joy, salvation, and knowing God. In Psalm 4:7, we read, “You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.”

When the Psalmist looks at all the good of his life. Grain and wine overflowing in a demonstration of God’s provision and goodness. It didn’t compare to the, “joy in my heart.” A joy that comes from knowing God.

In Psalm 16:11, we get the clearest example of joy being a metric for ministry health, “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”

The path of joy, lasting joy, is found in the presence of God. If God holds the key of joy, we must go to him to find it.

Third, Jesus gives a clear explanation of his mission for the world. When Jesus is days away from the cross and ready to finish the mission given from the Father he says:

“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” – John 15:11

Jesus’ entire life and ministry was dedicated to making people joyful in God. He taught, healed, and mentored his disciples to this end. He wanted them, and future disciples, to have “full” joy in him. Jesus designed the universe for his glory and our joy. People will not find lasting joy in their city but only in the city to come. As Hebrews 13:14 says, “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.”

The joy quotient of a city spreads when it is found from an eternal source. Found in the joy-giving God Jesus Christ.

How does this tie back to the joyful city of Samaria in Acts? When disciples, churches, and communities come to grips with the realities of the blood-bought sacrifice of Jesus. When entire cities begin to see the fleeting joys of the best wine, food, and cultural experiences. When these “joys,” are nothing compared to the lasting pleasures found in Christ, everything changes.

So, if joy is a clear and definitive marker of a healthy and maturing disciple of Jesus. It would make sense to use joy as a metric for ministry health. But, how can we measure the joy and happiness of people in the church and our city? Let me use a couple probing questions:

• Do pastors and ministry leaders operate from the joy of the Lord? Or, are they motivated by power, money, and success?
• What do people talk about? Do people in the church have enthusiasm about Christ, the gospel, and Kingdom, as they do the latest movie and sporting event? Listen for evidence that Jesus is their greatest joy and treasure.
• How do people respond in trial and suffering? Is there indication Jesus is their greatest joy even in hardship, loss, and suffering? Are people, “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10)?
• In your gatherings are people making a “joyful noise to the Lord”? Is there evidence of deep joy in Christ? It is hard to fake robust Spirit-wrought singing when people are not filled with the joy of Jesus.
• What are the idols of the church and culture that are sapping joy? Are there political, denominational, cultural, ethnic, relational, or experiential loyalties trumping loyalty to Jesus? Can you identify where people are looking for happiness and joy in your church and city?

After reading one more book on church growth and getting blasted by a pastor for slow growth in the church. I went to the elders. Opened Acts eight and asked: what if we measured ministry success by joy? How joyful are we in the Lord and where is joy sapped in the congregation?

After a couple nods and puzzled looks, we knew joy had to be one metric for measuring effectiveness.  It won't be easy to use joy as diagnostic. But, it's important for the health of maturing disciples. That's why this matters. Disciples find their joy and strength in the Lord.

I believe that if Jesus is after our joy, he wants our cities to be filled with joy. A joy found solely in Him.

How’s your joy in Jesus?

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Ryan J. Pelton is a husband, father of three boys, founder of The Gospel Marinated Life, church planter, writer, speaker, coach, and founding pastor of New City Church. My greatest joy is Christ and family.

Trusting Jesus to Grow the Church

In 2004, the Lilly Endowment one of the world’s largest philanthropic foundations invested money into an initiative to answer this question: “What does it take to sustain pastors in such a way that they will flourish in ministry over the long haul?” This initiative (“Sustaining Pastoral Excellence”) was birthed out of statistical data showing a rise in pastors burning out and leaving ministry more rapidly than ever before and a belief that the local church was too important for this to continue.

Covenant Theological Seminary, which was given grant money to help address this question, started the Center for Ministry Leadership, to explore how pastors survive and thrive in ministry. Over a five-year span the center held summits where they brought in seasoned pastors and spouses to draw upon their experience, talk about various struggles, successes, concerns, and brainstorm ideas.

One of the primary conclusions the Center came to was:

“Every disciple – and every pastor – must have a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ and nurture that relationship in a regular and consistent manner. The dangers of not doing so are many, yet, for various reasons busy pastors often ignore or circumvent the process.”

This conclusion shouldn’t surprise us: think about Paul’s parting instructions to the Ephesian elders:

“Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” – Acts 20:28

The order is clear. Paul tells them to first pay careful attention to themselves then care for the flock. Yet, as the center concluded, most pastors get this out of whack at one time or another or worse get it out of whack continually. This is especially true in the nascent stages of church planting, when it feels like every aspect of the success of the plant depends on the work you put in. But as many pastors can attest to the results for establishing a practice of reverse priorities will lead to devastating results.

Listen to some of the comments from pastors who participated in the program:

“The sad fact is, for most of us in ministry, work for Christ comes before our relationship with Christ.”

“Our hearts are often thirsty for a word from God, but who has time?”

“I feel like Frodo. In the Fellowship of the Ring, he’s talking to Gandalf and says, ‘I feel like butter spread over too much bread.’ I just feel like I’m tired and running on fumes.”

“My relationships and ministry are presently taking place from a place of drought. No wonder I am tired, on edge, angry and restless.”

“I feel like a guy who is driving over the speed limit on a narrow mountain road without barriers. It’s only by the grace of God that I haven’t driven off”

Think about Acts 20:28 again and take a moment to list out some of the reasons why you don’t pay careful attention to yourself before taking care of the flock?

There are many reasons: We don’t know how, we’re lazy, we’re too busy, we have unrepentant sin, it’s hard to invest time, and so on. I remember that all of these “excuses” were at play early on in my own church planting experience. Although I knew I needed to rely on the Lord, I tended to only do this in areas related to my achievement rather than my affections or allegiance. In fact, as I’ve coached pastors over the years, I’ve found that this is one of the most common reasons we head down this path. Because we have an incessant driven-ness to succeed combined with a belief that it all depends on us, we often fail to pay attention to self.

Ambition and achievement isn’t always a bad thing. In John 15, we read that Jesus mentions “bearing fruit” seven times in a span of seventeen verses. It is good to accomplish much, to be fruitful and effective. This is clear from the passage. But it’s also clear fruit bearing must flow from abiding in Christ.

Peter Scazzero writes in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (p. 32):

“Work for God that is not nourished by a deep interior life with God will eventually be contaminated by other things such as ego, power, needing approval of and from others, and buying into the wrong ideas of success and the mistaken belief that we can’t fail.”

If we forget or ignore our identity in Christ and pursue achievement out of our own effort and ability, our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls will be unable to support the weight of this and we will crash.

Archibald Hart who is a psychologist writes, “Most ministers don’t burn out because they forget they are ministers. They burn out because they forget they are people.”

If we’re going to be faithful and fruitful disciples of Jesus who are able to effectively care for the church God is calling us to lead then we are going to need to live out of a relationship with Jesus that is nurtured on a consistent and ongoing basis. This practice needs to start at the beginning of your church planting journey or else you will develop destructive habits that will be difficult to overcome.

Consider the Apostle Paul’s words in Colossians 2:6-7, “Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”

Think about how you entered God’s Kingdom. It wasn’t through self-dependence, reliance, or righteousness. Rather entrance into the kingdom came through humility, admitting our inability to save ourselves from sin’s punishment and enslavement, through trust in Jesus alone as the Savior who can forgive and reconcile us to the Father and through submission to him as Lord, living under his rule, care, and will.

Although we entered God’s kingdom by relying on Jesus, we often move on from there and live as if we need him + something else or we just live as if we no longer need him at all and place our trust in other things altogether. But Paul is reminding us that this is a foolish way to live this life. Instead our lives should be characterized by ongoing humility, trust, and submission. This is the way we are to walk.

Paul’s adds to his instruction with four additional statements in verse 7.

First he says we are “rooted in him.” For a tree to flourish the roots need to be firmly planted in soil that can produce healthy and growth. Paul is saying that is exactly what has occurred with us. We’ve been rooted and planted in Christ.

I like how Sam Storms describes this in The Hope of Glory: “God has graciously seeded my soul into the soil of Christ’s unchanging and unconquerable grace.”

Second, he reminds us “we are being built up in him.” Have you ever walked by a property that has an unfinished building with a foundation but no structure? It’s obvious from all the weeds and trash that overruns the property that the owner was unable to finish the project.

This doesn’t happen to those rooted in Christ. At times, we might look a little trashy and overrun with weeds but God is not finished with us and is building us up brick by brick; grace upon grace. He is finishing the work he started.

The third statement he makes is that “we are established in the faith.” As God once opened up our eyes to the truth of the gospel so that we’d see it and receive it by faith, he is continuing to show it and confirm it to us. There are days we are on shaky ground; our faith is wavering, we have doubts, anxiety, and questions about our leadership or the viability of the church. Yet God is working in and on us to strengthen us in the faith.

Notice how Paul says God goes about doing this: “just as you were taught”. The way he roots us in Christ through the gospel is the same way he builds us up in Christ and establishes us more firmly in the faith.

In a sermon on this passage, Ligon Duncan stated:

“All growth and progress in the Christian life must be consistent w/its beginning. If we began the Christian life by professing Christ as Lord, our living of the Christian life must be consistent with that profession. If Christ is the object of our faith, if He is the one who saves us, then surely it is Christ who must be the sphere of our spiritual growth and development.”

As we walk, we need to continually immerse ourselves in the depths of the gospel, remembering our identity and the security, hope, and riches that accompany being united to Christ. We need to walk with others who remind us of the message we probably just preached. We need to daily address doubts, fears, dreams, accomplishments, efforts, and idolatries by running to Jesus and living a life of ongoing humble, trust, and submission.

Finally, and this is by no means an afterthought for Paul, he writes that we should be “abounding in thanksgiving.” All of this is and continues to be his work of grace in our lives. He has given us every reason to overflow with affection and worship and the interesting thing is that as we “abound in thanksgiving” recalling his gracious way with us, this practice increases our affection and allegiance to him.

If you are embarking on the church planting journey put this walk into practice immediately. Failing to pay attention to yourself before you care for the flock might be sustainable for a moment, but it will eventually lead to a disengaged pastor who is at risk of derailing their life and ministry. And if you are a pastor who has failed in this area, it’s not too late to correct the course. Just as you received Christ Jesus the Lord start walking in him.

—

Jason Roberts is the founding Pastor of Crosscurrent Church, an Acts 29 church in Virginia Beach, VA.  Fourteen years ago while working for Spanish River Church in Boca Raton, FL, God began to lay the church planting calling on his heart and after some time of investigation and holy arm twisting, he packed up the family, moved back to “the Beach” and planted in the fall of 2002. For the past eight years, he has also given considerable time to coaching and training church planters and pastors. This past fall he transitioned into the corporate world where he now works as an Executive Coach for CACI, International, coaching senior and mid-level managers at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. He still lives in Virginia Beach, with his wife of 23 years, Aimee and his five children.

State of Affairs

There are a lot of people angry at the church today. Everyone has their reasons. I will say upfront that I love the church unapologetically. I have spent ten years working with churches and thirty years as part of the church. With that being said, there has been a growing unrest building inside of me for a while.

Once we are in Christ, we are no longer orphans. Everyone has a place in the people of God.

My intention here is not to point a finger and throw rocks from the outside but to mourn from the inside. I offer it as a starting point for some of a conversation already happening around us.

The Church Today

The church is in a unique and dangerous place today. The constant pressure to show some tangible success has pressed pastors and staff to produce. Whether it’s attention grabbing worship services, catchy sermon series, or a relevant experience, churches are starting to become producers of religious good and services, not existing for much more. Church models that have had success in other places are packaged, reproduced, and implemented in varying contexts all over with hopes that they might experience that same sort of success quickly to see tangible results.

See, we have become obsessed with numbers. We told ourselves that we care about numbers because, “Numbers are people and people are souls,” and we have dived headfirst into the number-driven deep end of the pool:

• How many people came Sunday?
• How much money was given?
• How many kids showed up?
• How many small groups do we have?
• How much will _______ cost?
• How many people go to ______ church?

And on and on it goes.

A study in 2013 found that churches spent eighty-two percent of her budget on personnel, buildings, and administration expenses. Hey, that’s horrible, OK?

We complain and sincerely mourn that people show up to our services and don’t want to go deeper. They like the music or the preaching style and just come to get “filled up for the week.” We know that’s a recipe for disaster. They come because they like the sermon series that is centered on a topic, movie, or pop culture icon. We walk away hoping they got the real message. We talk in our meetings about how we want people to experience a “real, deep relationship with Christ” and we know that’s the point. But, in our very next breaths, we spend our time crafting services that require people to sit shoulder-to-shoulder facing a stage and, for the most part, sitting quietly and listening to the preacher. The preacher who in turn spends his time during these services telling people, “This isn’t the point” and “There is more to being a Christian than showing up to a service”—which is completely true (and I am thankful for people who say that) but completely confusing at the same time.

Sunday Is Coming

Monday comes around though, and we know we have to produce something so that people will hopefully come back to hear the message. So we learn the new worship songs, prepare the graphics, go over the transitions so that everything is smooth. We see what the larger churches are doing to get some ideas and try to recreate it. We spend twenty (or more) hours during the week prepping for a forty-five minute to an hour service.

We then meet the people in our churches; the people who show up to our services. They are good people, and we care about them. Because we do care deeply about them we know they need more than just a Sunday; we do too! We know the danger of that type of thinking and what it leads to, so we decide we are going to help. We are going to help people assimilate into the life of the church; we call it the “Assimilation Ministry.” Well, that sounds creepy. Where else does anyone talk like that? It has a good heart, but we try to explain the importance of connecting with people from the stage in the most impersonal way and how we have set up a few ways to do that. You know sort of like some weird blind dates.

To make people feel welcome, we pass out free stuff to new people, make special parking spaces, maybe give out a staff members novel, a CD of our songs, and welcome them to an informational gathering to learn more.

All the while, everyone knows people don’t want or have the time to come to that, and we miss the easiest idea in the mess. Go to them and hang out. Ironically, we give out all these things and setup these gatherings to bring people into the life of the church only to bring them into the corporate and institutional life of the church. I have seen new people visit a church, go to a meeting, serve in a position, burn out, and leave the church in six months time more than I care to say. They were never really any closer with the people, but they did help the Sundays go!

Then we have people burned by the church in some ways, walking around talking about how bad the church is:

• That it’s impersonal.
• That it just cares about what they give monetarily or service wise.
• That they couldn’t connect with anyone.
• That the Pastor is unapproachable.
• That there isn’t enough services for their kids.
• That the sermons got too long or their were too many worship songs.
• That the prayers started taking too long, I just wanted to hear the songs; people sat in my seat, or the lyrics were not clear enough.

A Messy State

On and on it goes. It never stops. Why? Well, we set it up that way. We created a system where people could come and get what they want, the way they want it, and nothing was asked of them. Or when something was asked of them they found another place that didn’t ask. We taught them being a Christian was really about living a good life and finding a Sunday morning service they like, one that was not too convicting, didn’t require too much action on what they heard, and didn’t require committing to the other people next to them. We gave them a club, not a movement. We offered a yacht club without the boats and a Christianity without Jesus.

And now we are living in that mess. People walk around thinking they understand the church enough to hate it; in reality, they know so little and are a danger to anyone in earshot. And I don’t blame them completely! I blame us—the pastors, staff members, and leaders who kept the vicious cycle going. We all knew something was off, but we didn’t want to upset the boat too much. We saw the other guys who did that, and they were kicked off violently. We weren’t sure we could swim in those waters too long. We didn’t want to change anything because then, “People may not come.” And we were right. They kept coming and going, like people in Target, waiting to get their goods and checkout in a nice orderly fashion. We created hubs of people that got a little bit of Jesus and were OK with it until it didn’t fit their time/schedules/preferences. So maybe it’s all of our faults—people for wanting it and the churches for providing it.

All that being said, let me say this: You need the church. I need the church. We all need the church. That church idea was never an option. It was part of the point. Should you gather? Yes! Should churches have some form of gatherings with teaching, music, fellowship, and so on? Of, course! But if everything seems broken what should do?

Be Honest

Everyone with the same likes, contexts, and passions gather together—football teams, kids sports, neighborhoods, coworkers and so on. Stop using the ridiculous excuse you don’t have time, or it’s not worth it. You do, and it is; it’s just not important to you. Start there, wonder why it’s not, and make some changes.

Maybe you got hurt by someone in the church. Get healing. I’m sure you have had people hurt you in ways before, and I hope you tried finding some healing. If not, approach them. Talk with them just like you would in your neighborhood, kids sports events, a coworker, and other places. A broken relationship does not make the church bad; it just makes it full of broken people. . . . And you are welcome in, too!

Maybe you didn’t like the preaching, worship, pastor, building, wall color, etc. Just think about that one. Maybe you have a good reason not to go back there. So go somewhere else. Or maybe you have a terrible reason, and you need to get over it.

Maybe you are the pastor, leader, or staff member who is just frustrated day in and day out because you are part of it and want more. Instead of yelling at a bunch of people, start engaging. Start doing what you know you should be doing. Don’t tell others what they should or shouldn't do unless you are doing it.

It’s About Jesus

One day my daughter was crying about being so hungry “she could die.” So, I took out my iPhone and showed a picture of children starving in third-world countries. I then showed her everything we had in our house and how much God had blessed us with and how the children there would be overwhelmed with all the stuff we had. She ate very happily after that. Likewise, there are Christians around the world that are meeting in the cover of darkness and caves in fear for their lives. They don’t have the time nor would they ever care to concern themselves with these things. They just want Jesus.

Church is a gathered people who have come to the very deep fundamental realization that they are in desperate need of the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you do not believe that, then don’t go, but if you want to or are trying to figure it out, go! Just know the point is not to make you feel welcome (though we may try), it is to paint a very clear picture of how great God truly is.

If you are a pastor or leader in the church, can I ask you a serious question? Do you believe that it’s all about Jesus? Do you ultimately trust God that the call of the church is not success but faithfulness?

Do you remember that he builds the church and we just get to tell the story? Can you be content in knowing God can do more with twelve followers than thousands of attenders?

—

Greg has served in various pastoral roles in churches in NY and FL over the course of 10 years. Greg now lives in FL with his wife and two children where he is helping churches and church planters equip the church to make disciples in everyday ways in everyday places. You can read more from Greg at www.gregsmiths.com

Originally appeared at www.gregsmiths.com. Used with permission.

Killing Social Glory-Seeking Hearts

“We didn’t seek glory from people.” Or did we?

One of the darkest dangers of the Christian life is the pursuit of praise. We want people to affirm and recognize us for who we are, what we have accomplished, and the results of our efforts. Perhaps rightly so.Our culture at large gives renown and praise to celebrities for who they are, what they have accomplished and the things they have produced. We taught that if you want your life to matter, you have to have people pay attention.

Our culture at large gives renown and praise to celebrities for who they are, what they have accomplished, and the things they have produced. We taught that if you want your life to matter, you have to have people pay attention.

Disciples devour and dwell on the things of God found in the Scriptures. We pray. We kill sin in our lives. We serve others.

Consider the incessant reality of social media today. Masked as a vehicle with which to share your life with your “friends” these channels have become self-glorifying platforms in which we project ideal versions of ourselves for the world to like, favorite, and adore.

Forbes Magazine reported a recent study from the University of Houston that found that the “highlight reels” of social media were linked to higher rates of depression among users. Our social comparison of each other creates a culture in which everyone seeks to be the celebrity.

Even think about the videos that have gone viral across social media platforms. We call it “transparency,” but it is a kind of voyeurism and narcissism that causes a couple to share live on video everything from their kids spilling milk at breakfast to a heated argument, to the sad realization that she has just had a miscarriage. All of this to get clicks, likes, shares, and a social platform of celebrity.

We are seeking glory from people!

So how do we overcome this sort of glory seeking? Paul, writing to the Thessalonian church in one of his first letters sought to demonstrate this sort of challenge that he himself faced, and the remedy for that sort of glory seeking.

In a high charged socially-aware and omnipresent world today, we have to think through how to defuse our social-glory-seeking-selves. Paul gives us three remedies to the illness of social-glory-seeking.

We Live in Gentleness Among the World

In the context of Paul’s ministry he is speaking of the way in which he and his missionary team conducted themselves among the new believers there in Thessalonica. The paradigm he uses is that of a mother and her small infant child. He describes his relationship with the people there as, “gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children” (1 Thess 2:7).

Set in opposition to the glory-seeking orators and thinkers of Paul’s day he postured himself as someone who would hardly be celebrated or recognized in the world—a nursing mother.

Most mothers I know don’t get a lot of platform and social praise for the labor they do in raising children. Gentle mothers aren’t usually lifted up in our culture as the kinds of people that we should aspire to be. They aren’t the paragons of society, influence, and renown. Yet this posture should be the very first posture if we are to kill a social-glory-seeking virus among us.

You can’t build a platform or make much of yourself when you’re busy being present with people and listening to them. Pastors and ministry leaders who embody this don’t get to Instagram and selfie their every counseling conversation, tear-filled pleading for repentance, broken-hearted funerals, and hours of labor alone in a study listening to and pondering over the Word of God.

These kinds of leaders often do most of their work without Twitter announcing to the world their efforts, or a live-stream, webinar conversation with empowered leaders and entrepreneurial dynamos. The social-glory-seekers get those. This kind of leader humbly, gently works among his people feeding, shepherding, and loving them.

We Yearn For The Good of Others

Paul says that a second remedy to the heart illness of social-glory-seeking is the compassionate longing for the good of others. He describes his ministry this way, “So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you…” (1 Thess 2:8).

Paul’s affectionate desire was a deep yearning and ambition for the good of that church. He truly loved them. The context of his ministry there and the conflict, persecution, and strife that befell him as he ministered to the Thessalonians knit their hearts together. As they went through the deep waters of adversity and struggle, they were bound up together in love and compassion.

This affliction-born affection radically changed the perspective of the relationship. We often like to envision Paul’s missionary journeys as being some sort of multi-city tour where he would book a venue, have a big entertaining gathering, amass a crowd, preach the gospel, and see hundreds if not thousands get saved.

He stuck around for a few days with a discipleship class, and then off to the next town to raise up the next evangelistic crusade power-assembly. How wrong we would be. His visit to Thessalonica was anything but that. Acts 17 paints the picture of civil discourse in the Jewish synagogue turned into a violent mob and a harrowing late-night escape to the next town. Nothing self-aggrandizing in this ministry but a beating from jealous religious zealots.

But this affliction-soaked ministry birthed deep love and concern for the good of others. Ministers that care only for the glory of the platform don’t worry themselves with the street-level stuff.

Seeking glory from people means working to make sure that people affirm and like you, not that you care about them. Paul saw the hostility and the rage against the new Christians firsthand in this city, and it moved him to compassion for those people and that city. Social-glory-seeking would count Paul’s work as a loss and a failure. He saw it as a means to love.

• Pastor, do you care for the good of those in your church?
• Do you yearn for the fruit of the Spirit to be prevalent among the flock of God?
• Have you shown up unannounced at the home of a friend who is living in folly to try and wake them out of their stupor?
• Do you pray with the lonely, elderly, sick, and shut-in? Or do you only care about the “wins” (blasphemous term!) of ministry and celebrate the numbers of success; attendance records and fiscal prosperity?
• Are you intertwined in the affliction of ministry or just the successes?
• Or are you busy retweeting the rave reviews of your books, declaring where you’re speaking on the tour next, and the fiscal perks of your work?

Killing the social-glory-seeking heart that is present among the ministerial ranks requires an affectionate yearning and care for the good of others.

We Share Our Lives, Not Just Our Message

No one will say that proclaiming the gospel isn’t necessary, or even important. However, an insidious trap has been set by our enemy. In a social-glory-seeking world we’ve been deceived to believe that our message of the gospel is a product with which we can dispense to the world, build a platform around, and amass a pop following of glory with.

But if we’re not seeking glory from people, why do we act like the stage is the pinnacle place of ministry in the world today?

Paul’s remedy is very different. “We were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us” (1 Thess 2:8). For Paul, living in community was essential to defeating the monster of the glory-seeking me.

Sharing lives, not just messages required that people knew him, and that he made himself known. The believers at Thessalonica became part of Paul’s life. He had friends, he had meals with them, he shared everyday stuff of life.

Social-glory-seeking however creates false barriers. It puts out only the best and brightest of our lives for everyone to see. We may feel that we are “sharing our lives” but it’s never our failures, never our sins, never our weaknesses or losses. It’s always our wins. Does anyone really know us?

To kill this kind of glory seeking requires an imbeded-life together. We have to be known; we have to be sharing of ourselves—our joys, our worries, our frustrations, our aspirations, our true selves with others. I worry for leaders and pastors who are not in community life with people in their church.

They don’t express hospitality to the church; they don’t attend or participate in normal small groups; they create bubbles and barriers of protection and circles of trust that isolate them from the crowds, unless everyone see their faults and weaknesses.

Killing Social-Glory-Seeking

I am convinced that the postures of gentleness, affection, and imbeded-life together will keep us from seeking the glory that comes from people. We won’t have time to get caught up in seeking praise.

Instead what will result, especially among pastors and leaders, is hard work that engages the lives of the people in a community and church and the effective advance of the gospel at the street level.

These attitudes will produce a church life that is ripe for revival and gospel-advance. It will bring a contagious movement of the Spirit of God that will produce fruit for generations to come.

It won’t end with a celebrity parade or self-sticked spiking of the ball to tell everyone how great you are. It will conclude with honor, praise, power and glory to the King of all Kings—Jesus.

“For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything” (1 Thessalonians 1:8).

Reflections

• Pastor, do you care for the good of those in your church?
• How has social media contributed negatively to your spiritual health? Positively?
• In what ways have you sought glory from others?
• How do you overcome the social glory-seeking?

—

Jeremy Writebol (@jwritebol) has been training leaders in the church for over fourteen years. He is the author of everPresent: How the Gospel Relocates Us in the Present (GCD Books, 2014) and writes at jwritebol.net. He is the pastor of Woodside Bible Church’s Plymouth, MI campus. 

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