Revival: Ways and Means
Editor Note: Revival: Ways and Means originally posted at Redeemer City to City. It appears here with Tim Keller's permission. ---
How do seasons of revival come? One set of answers comes from Charles Finney, who turned revivals into a "science." Finney insisted that any group could have a revival any time or place, as long as they applied the right methods in the right way. Finney's distortions, I think, led to much of the weakness in modern evangelicalism today, as has been well argued by Michael Horton over the years. Especially under Finney's influence, revivalism undermined the more traditional way of doing Christian formation. That traditional way of Christian growth was gradual – whole family catechetical instruction – and church-centric. Revivalism under Finney, however, shifted the emphasis to seasons of crisis. Preaching became less oriented to long-term teaching and more directed to stirring up the affections of the heart toward decision. Not surprisingly, these emphases demoted the importance of the church in general and of careful, sound doctrine and put all the weight on an individual's personal, subjective experience. And this is one of the reasons (though not the only reason) that we have the highly individualistic, consumerist evangelicalism of today.
There has been a withering critique of revivalism going on now for twenty years within evangelical circles. Most of it is fair, but it often goes beyond the criticism of the technique-driven revivalism of Finney to insist that even Edwards and the Puritans were badly mistaken about how people should embrace and grow in Christ. In this limited space I can't respond to that here other than to say I think that goes way too far. However, this critique trend explains why there is so much less enthusiasm for revival than when I was a young minister. It also explains why someone like D.M. Lloyd-Jones was so loathe to say that there was anything that we can do to bring about revivals (other than pray.) He knew that Finney-esque revivalism led to many spiritual pathologies.
Nevertheless, I think we can carefully talk about some factors that, when present, often become associated with revival by God's blessing. My favorite book on this (highly recommended by Lloyd-Jones) is William B. Sprague's Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1832). Sprague studied under both Timothy Dwight, Edwards' grandson, at Yale and also Archibald Alexander at Princeton. The Princetonians – the Alexanders, Samuel Miller, and Charles Hodge – did a good job of combining the basics of revivalism with a healthy emphasis on doctrine and the importance of the church. Sprague's lectures include a chapter on "General Means" for promoting revivals, and his chapters on counseling seekers and new converts are particularly helpful.
Means of Revival
The primary means-of-revival that everyone agrees upon is extraordinary prayer. That's the clearest of all and so I won't spend time on it. The second means is a recovery of the grace-gospel. One of the main vehicles sparking the first awakening in Northampton, Massachusetts was Edwards' two sermons on Romans 4:5, "Justification by Faith Alone," in November, 1734. For both John Wesley and George Whitefield, the main leaders of the British Great Awakening, it was an understanding of salvation by grace rather than moral effort that touched off personal renewal and made them agents of revival. Lloyd-Jones taught that the gospel of justification could be lost at two levels. A church might simply become heterodox and lose the very belief in justification by faith alone. But just as deadly, it might keep the doctrine "on the shelf" as it were and not preach it publicly in such a way that connects to people's hearts and lives.
The third factor I would mention is renewed individuals. Sprague points out how certain church leaders can be characterized by the infectious marks of spiritual revival – a joyful, affectionate seriousness, and "unction" – a sense of God's presence. In addition, often several visible, dramatic life-turnarounds ("surprising conversions") may cause others to do deep self-examination and create a sense of spiritual longing and expectation in the community. The personal revivals going on in these individuals spread informally to others through conversation and relationship. More and more people begin to look at themselves and seek God.
A fourth factor I will call the use of the gospel on the heart in counseling. Sprague and John Newton in his letters do a good job of showing how the gospel must be used on both seekers, new believers, and non-growing Christians. The gospel must cut away both the moralism and the licentiousness that destroys real spiritual life and power. There must be venues and meetings and settings in which this is done, both one-on-one and in groups. See William Williams, The Experience Meeting, a leaders' manual for revival-promoting small group meetings in Wales during the first great awakening.
Creativity & Revival
Finally, Sprague rightly points out that revivals occur mainly through the ordinary, "instituted means of grace" – preaching, pastoring, worship, prayer. It is a mistake to identify some specific programmatic method (e.g. Billy Graham-like mass evangelism) too closely with revivals. Lloyd-Jones points to some sad cases where people who came through the Welsh revival of 1904-05 became wedded to particular ways of holding meetings and hymn-singing as the way God brings revival. Nevertheless, Sprague grants that sometimes God will temporarily use some new method to propagate the gospel and spark revival. For example, under Wesley and Whitefield, outdoor preaching was a new, galvanizing method. Mid-day public prayer meetings were important to the Fulton Street revival in downtown NYC in 1857-58. I'm ready to say that creativity might be one of the marks of revival, because so often some new way of communicating the gospel has been part of the mix that God used to bring a mighty revival.
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Timothy Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 with his wife, Kathy, and three young sons. For over twenty years he has led a diverse congregation of young professionals that has grown to a weekly attendance of over 5,000. Dr. Keller’s books, including the New York Times bestselling The Reason for God and The Prodigal God, have sold over 1 million copies and been translated into 15 languages.
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For more ideas on inspiring revival, check out Tony Merida's Proclaiming Jesus.
For more free articles on evangelism & revival, read: For the City-Excerpt by Matt Carter & Darrin Patrick, Taking the Long View by Bill Streger, & What Does Revival Look Like? by Winfield Bevins.
Leading Joe Blow into Mission
All around the world, pastors and church leaders say the same thing. We need more leaders. We speak about these leaders as though God has sent us on a snipe hunt and is laughing at us as we search for these leaders in the bushes. The fact is you have tons of leaders in your church family right now. The key is to lead your people in a way that effectively trains leaders who also train leaders.
I have an interesting perspective on this topic. I am both a preaching elder in our church and the owner of a business. To put it bluntly, I am busy. But don’t let me fool you. I am not busier than anybody else. Almost every conversation I have around the coffee and donut table at church goes like this:
Me: How have you been?
The Entire Church (even the 9 year old playing tag): Busy.
It doesn’t matter if you're speaking to an executive on Wall Street or an executive of the home (props to the stay at home mom), everybody's busy these days. But if you perceive yourself and others as busy, how can leaders ever emerge from your church to lead others on the mission? How can any disciples of Jesus ever be made? Let me suggest some things.
1. Start with the Gospel
I know this seems very Christian of me to say, but the fact is we, and the people we lead, need to be motivated by the good news, not motivated by what we do. God has given us a new identity, changed us from enemies to his children. He did it all by his work, not our effort.
Not only has God done this in justification, but he does this in sanctification. When we are bearing fruit worthy of repentance, it is because it has been through his power and grace, not our merit and works.
I remember sitting under the preaching of Mike Gunn, Jeff Vanderstelt, and Caesar Kalinowski. I was getting “gospelled” each week. It was like God was taking their words and beating the moralism out of my heart. I was so compelled that this good news wasn’t just for yesterday, but for today and tomorrow. My wife and I naturally asked, “How can we make sure everyone around us knows about THIS good news?”
When we hear truly good news, we want to share it and live in the light of it. If good news is phony, who cares? Meaning, if the gospel was good for us once upon a time (like when we walked down the aisle or raised our hand when everyone had their heads bowed and eyes half shut) but it isn't even better for us today, then that becomes a burden to carry, not a load that we’ve given to the Savior.
Everything you do as a leader/pastor has to start with the gospel motivation of who God is, what God has done, who we are, and what we need to do. When the gospel is correctly and authentically preached, shared, and lived out in community, people will naturally (by the new Spirit) desire to live it out.
2. Have Realistic Goals for Leaders
Imagine what you want a leader to look like in your church. I’m talking about everyone. The single mom, the single dad, the mentally handicapped, the disabled, the CEO, the college students, the children, everyone.
You see most of us - when thinking of leaders - really have a narrow view. For whatever reason, we think a leader must be someone who can preach, know every dark corner of theology, take over Bible studies, and write a thesis on the Nephilim.
Additionally, many pastors think every leader should be just like them. The problem with this thinking is:
- If you could raise leaders to be like you, you’d be out of a job
- Your people don’t have time to be like you. That’s why they pay you - to equip them for the point of all ministry.
So, what is realistic for leaders in your church? The answer is simple. They need to do exactly what God has called all of us to do: make disciples of Jesus who make more disciples of Jesus.
Jesus tells us, in short order that making disciples is done by his power and authority (Matt 28; Acts 1:8). He tells us to do this with the term “Go,” which means more accurately “as you go” (Matthew 28), and tells us that we are his body, the parts of which have many different functions. Your people have been designed and formed by how God wants them to be. He has placed them in the place he desires. The power is not by their will but by God’s might and wisdom.
Think of this. If you tell your people that the goal is to make disciples and to do this where they are NOW, how much of a burden have you just released from their shoulders?
To tell the stay at home mom that she can’t live two lives only one and to live this one life for the glory of God, then she can go to the mom’s group and be a light to them. She can invite other moms over and have a play date and befriend them to show them and tell them about Jesus. She’s probably already doing some of these things, but now she is released to do it in the power of the Spirit for the glory of God to make disciples.
Think of the burden released if you don’t have programs in your church where everyone has to attend, but they live their life with the family of God to show off who God is where they are sent.
Instead of telling someone you need to show up for Vacation Bible School to teach for those 5 days from morning until night, you send them back to their neighborhoods and keep doing the things they do, but to do them with non-Christians and Christians, to fully form disciples who then go and make more disciples.
Just ask your people to take an inventory of what they are doing now and have them start thinking how they can start doing those things with the power of the Spirit with the goal of living out the great commission.
All these things can be turned into times of disciple making. (Don’t let this statement fool you, we are always making disciples. It’s just a matter if we are making disciples of us or Jesus.):
- Coaching sport teams
- Work
- Going to the gym
- Neighborhood Parties
- Dinner at your house
- Hanging out in the front yard
- PTA
- Community Events
The list goes on and on.
3. Share Meals
If you want an easy start, given to me by Caesar Kalinowski, tell your people this:
We eat 21 times per week. Each person in each MC eats one meal with a not yet believer twice in a month. That’s two meals out of 84 meals. If a family has another family over that counts as 1 out of 4. Then come together and share about your conversations and start praying like crazy to know what the Spirit would have you do next with each person you've shared a meal with.
The simplicity of this, and the conversations that come from this will show your people what you mean by making disciples and doing it in the everyday.
The point is, when you release your people back to the areas that God has already place them in, then not only do you have job security as a pastor, but people see the importance of the work God has given them. Some may see what they're doing and adjust because of this simple calling, they might move to be more effective. So discuss what's happening with your leaders as they pursue discipleship wherever God places them.
Think of the power of this. You have stay at home moms, single moms, dads, working parents, college kids, CEOs, garbage men, teachers, politicians, web designers, and accountants all living out the power given to them by the Spirit to make disciples where God has sent them. Doesn't this sound like a fully functioning body that will show off the entirety of Jesus, instead of one small facet?
This is what it means to fill the earth with his glory. Every part of the earth is seeing Jesus because we empower our people, instead of treating them as though they have to be full time pastors to fulfill the job of making disciples.
Start simple. We are told that he who is entrusted with little can be trusted with much. Give them these simple ideas to live out and watch as God calls them to more and more.
Just as you wouldn’t feed an infant steak, neither should we tell our people that to make disciples they must move to Africa in order to make disciples. Let God show them what they should do.
4. Show them how to lead
You can talk about training leaders all day, but if you don't show people how to lead, they’ll never fully grasp it. I believe that you as the pastor cannot do this alone. Know that the people who are not pastors - yet who are already living this out - are your best allies.
Think of this. 99% of your church receives zero income from the church but are still called to make disciples. If this is true, you should be leading them from that perspective, but you also need folks who can lead by example. In other words, instead of saying 99% are not paid to make disciples, we should be saying that 100% of God’s people are paid to make disciples. It’s just a matter of where God directs that money from. (Thank you Jeff Vanderstelt for that gold nugget.)
When you have a missional community meeting and you start going through a study, don’t draw up some study from Leviticus that you created and spend the whole time preaching at the group. Who else is going to have time for that? What about those who hate speaking to groups? Lead your people in a way where they can say to themselves, “I can do that.”
Look for material that is easily transferrable to everyone. If every time you have some sort of a study in your missional community you are the one writing up the questions and leading the study, how will anyone have time to do the same? Set them an example of what they can do.
Some easily transferrable studies can be found with both Porterbrook and BILD (First Principles). I use them with my missional community and this is exactly why our communities have multiplied. People realized they could lead just like I do. There was nothing overtly difficult or time consuming. We just kept speaking and living in a way that demanded that we learn with our heads, be motivated by the new heart given by the Spirit, and walk it out with our feet empowered by the Spirit.
You can do this with the meeting portion of your missional community as well as in the everyday life of making disciples. If you are always trying to make disciples on Tuesdays between 10-2pm, you’ll alienate most of your church. You’ll get the old “Well, you have time to make disciples because you’re the pastor.”
Know your church and work to “do the mission” in the same time frames that they are able. And don’t do it alone…ever. Always be taking people with you or showing it to them as family. This way your people are not only hearing it from your lips, but experiencing it with their feet.
Your people will learn how to make disciples by the way you make disciples. If you only do it with deep studies in a formal setting, then they’ll think they have to copy you. If you show them you can only make disciples by having BBQ’s every Friday, then they’ll think that the road to gospel living is paved by Weber grills. But, if you can show them that it happens in everyday life, in every facet of life, with all kinds of people, you’ll show them the ways of Jesus.
Jesus wants everyone to make disciples, but we have set up our people for failure because we only want leaders who look like full time paid pastors or professional party throwers. (Both of those are awesome by the way.)
I highly recommend taking a look at Creating a Discipleship Environment. This video can really flesh this out for you and for your people.
So, in the end, how do we find and develop leaders?
- Motivate people with the gospel. Making disciples doesn’t gain your favor or acceptance from God, but is the natural fruit born of a child of God.
- Tell them that God has placed them where they are now, doing what they are doing now, to make disciples by his power
- Show them what you mean by living your life in the way the other 99% of your people can succeed in making disciples.
- Do all this by starting simply with small steps. And wait on God to reveal the next steps for everyone in your community.
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Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade Seth is an Investment Portfolio Manager, serving as president of McBee Advisors, Inc as well as a missional community leader, preaching elder with Soma Communities in Renton, Washington, and executive team member of the GCM Collective. In his down time, he likes to do CrossFit, cook BBQ, and host pancake ebelskiver breakfasts at his home. Twitter @sdmcbee
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For more information on taking the gospel to the streets, check out Jonathan Dodson's Unbelievable Gospel.
For more free articles on missional living read: Invite & Invest to Make Disciples by Greg Gibson, Theology is for Everyone by David Fairchild, and The Gospel & Our Neighbors by Alvin Reid.
Gospel-Centered Community
As humans we desire community. We want to know people and be known. We Tweet to tell others about ourselves and follow others on Twitter to know them. Everywhere in our culture we are creating communities. From social media to coffee shops we have a desire as humans to be living in community with others. We want to have meaningful and lasting relationships with other humans. It is not different in the Christian community. We desire to be in community with one another. There is a lot of talk on what it means to have gospel-centered community. The concept is rooted in Scripture. As pastors, community group leaders, and church members, we need to understand gospel-centered community.
The Example of the Early Church
One of the best places to go to understand gospel-centered community is the book of Acts. Acts has been called the “the Church's missional hand-book.” Acts is the story of what a gospel-centered church looks like. It highlights the Holy Spirit’s empowerment in believers, proclamation of the gospel, conversion stories, persecution of the church, leaders being developed, churches being planted, and missionary journeys of the leaders of the church.
The book of Acts defines gospel-centered community as a community of believers who foster biblical teaching, prayer, worship, equality, generosity, shared experience, and mission. The fountain verses read:
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. - Acts 2:42-47
1. Gospel-Centered Communities Devote Themselves to Biblical Teaching
The passage begins, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.”
A gospel-centered community is one where the inspired writings of the Scriptures are taught clearly, accurately, and continually. The driving force of community is the gospel that is revealed in the Scriptures. Gospel-centered communities continue to grow in their understanding of the Scriptures together.
2. Gospel-Centered Communities Pray Together
As the passage continues, we see the members of early church devoted themselves to “the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
Gospel-centered communities pray with, and for, one another. They understand that God has the power to change situations and change peoples hearts. They understand that communion with God and one another is a special thing. Prayer doesn’t get the back burner in gospel-centered community. Rather, prayer becomes pivotal for gospel-centered communities.
3. Gospel-centered communities experience the power and awe of God
“And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.”
Those who are living in gospel-centered community start to experience the power of God and his miracles among them. This might make some people feel skeptical. You might ask “does God still do miracles today?” Answer: YES.
Numerous times in my community group at Vintage 21, we have seen God do awesome things. From saving a family member, to providing a job, and seeing bold prayers answered by our God. Gospel-centered communities become awed by the power of God among his people. They see things happen that only the Holy Spirit can do and in response are in awe of God's power.
4. Gospel-centered communities have everything in common
“And all who believed were together and had all things in common.”
Gospel-centered communities start to have the same God given interests. When a community of people become saturated by God’s gospel and God’s Spirit, they start to have the same common values. This doesn’t mean that everybody in the community group likes a certain food or sport. It means that they have Jesus in common. Jesus is their everything.
5. Gospel-centered communities are generous and sacrificial to one another
“And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.”
This is a beautiful picture of a gospel-centered community. They understand that they have freely been given God’s grace, that they are stewards of his gifts. In response, they are generous to their brothers and sisters in need. They’re not selfish toward one another. Rather, ANY need became met.
6. Gospel-centered communities live life with one another
“And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their home.”
Communities that are saturated by the gospel actually live life together. They love one another, and meet with one another regularly. They eat meals, watch sports events, go on trips, attend church, get coffee, work out, and do other life activities with one another. They enjoy one anothers fellowship and friendship.
7. Gospel-centered communities are missional and reproduce
Finally, we find the early church “praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
Gospel-centered communities are not only inward but outward. They meet the needs of the city. They live on mission in their pocket of the city. They proclaim the gospel to there neighbors, co-workers, and friends. They live out the gospel among the city.
The amazing news is that God actually saves people! He starts to add more people to our communities. More people start to meet Jesus as we live on mission together as a community. What a gift that in Christ we receive all the community we desire. Now, ask God how your community can present the image of heavenly fellowship to your city.
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Garrett Ventry is a church planting intern at Vintage 21 Church in Raleigh. He serves under the regional director of the Acts 29 Network's southeast region. He is also a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife Megan live in Raleigh. Twitter: @GarrettVentry
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For more free articles on living the gospel in community, read: The Harmony of Community by Greg Willson, Taking the Long View by Bill Streger, and We Need Five Disciplers Not One by JR Woodward.
Should We Prioritize Place or People Groups?
Many start down the road of desiring to be a missional community (MC), but one of the first things they ask is simply… ”Who should we reach?”
Many start down the road of desiring to be a missional community (MC), but one of the first things they ask is simply… ”Who should we reach?” There are two modes of thought in this: People Groups
- This could be certain religious groups (i.e. Muslims), ethnic groups or a local elementary school. The idea is that many can come together, regardless of where they live and be part of the mission in a certain context.
Place
- Where do you live? Where do you work? These are the places you are already at and don’t really get a “choice” of being there.
Now, I am not going to be dogmatic of which one you should choose, because I believe we have examples of each in the Scriptures. Paul definitely prioritized people groups and the local churches in the cities were prioritizing place. I think both are important. I do believe there is a better way to start in your journey of living out the mission of God through missional communities.
Prioritizing Place
I believe that this is the best way to start off missional communities in your current church or as you desire to plant the gospel in an area. Notice I said plant the gospel, as I believe that is what we are called to do, but be expectant that the church will grow out of that seed planted through the power of the Spirit.
Here are some quick bullet points why I believe prioritizing place is a good place to start.
1. Paradigm Shift
For most, missional communities are a complete paradigm shift. They are shifting from going to church to being the church in the everyday. Don’t get all up in arms thinking I am trying to downplay the gathering on a Sunday. The point is that most people only see church as a building that sits empty 6 days and 22 hours a week and then is magically transformed into the “sanctuary” where God dwells when we greet people, drink coffee and sing love ballads to him. (Another article could be written on how we structure the Sunday gathering so it equips the MCs instead of being seemingly a total separate entity all together)
Because of this shift, we need to lead people in the shift and show them the difference instead of merely talking about it. When we talk about MCs not being event driven we need to give that to our people. When you are prioritizing place, it gives the chance for people to live among their neighbors (or co-workers) with the intention of showing and speaking the good news. It is easier for them to grasp what we mean by natural rhythms of life if we allow them to actually live that out where they already are at.
In those that prioritize a people group, this will add something to their life if they are not already involved. As an example. If you decide that the local elementary school is going to be the context in which you focus, then there will be meetings to go to, events to plan and things not in your everyday that will be added to your life.
This will seem like a stretch for many just starting out and will be hard for them to see much of a paradigm shift, but will more than likely seem like a focus shift instead. Many will show up to the events and things scheduled, but will remain hard pressed to live life on life with the MC or those they are called to.
I am not saying this has to happen in a people group focus, but I am saying it is far easier to happen when people are just starting out in this new shift.
2. The Everyday
When you prioritize place, mission happens every day. Events don’t have to take place, schedules can be much less rigid, and you’ll notice life on life just happens.
When you start to see your neighbors as image bearers that need to hear and see Jesus and the effects of His gospel, you’ll get to know your neighbors very easily and purposefully. What you’ll notice is that the mission will happen by just being outside, or hanging out where the neighborhood hangs out. (This largely depends on the neighborhood you live in, whether urban or suburban)
Those just starting out will quickly realize why you can’t have church programs, because their lives will be so intertwined with their neighbors’ lives. Dinners, playdates, or merely hanging out - people quickly realize what the mission looks like when you can actually live it in rhythm instead of in programs. They’ll see that it happens “on accident” when they take out their garbage and the neighbor next door engages them in conversation. They’ll see that if they get angry at a neighbor, they’ll have to ask, “How should I respond as a follower of Jesus?” In a people group context, you can just decide to stop going to that group (many new to the MC understanding will think this anyways). In your neighborhood, you’re stuck unless you pack up and move. It requires some serious thought on holistic living that everyone will see.
So now, instead of only seeing people during events, you see them all the time as your life is full of interruptions, not merely planned meeting times.
Not only this, but if you have neighbors who are in your MC, it makes it far easier to live as family in the everyday. Most of the time, when prioritizing people groups, people are spread out and it makes it very difficult to live as family in the everyday. Most of the time, you only see your MC at meetings or at planned events. To ensure this doesn’t happen, you have to be very purposeful on being family or it will slip into event time as though the MC were distant cousins. Again, this isn’t impossible to do, but we must think through this for those new to the MC understanding.
3. Transferable
I highly recommend that the first thing an MC does when they prioritize place is to simply start having meals with not-yet believers. Make it a goal for everyone to have at least two meals a month (out of 84) with a not-yet believer. When you come back together for the MC meeting, take time to pray and share about the people that you are engaging and living life with and then ask the Spirit what’s next for each of those people you had dinner with. This will show the paradigm shift in full effect.
Not only that, but think through this. If you desire to multiply MCs, how hard is it for someone to multiply when they see the simplicity of merely eating with outsiders of the faith? We’ve noticed how easy it is to have meals with people that are in our neighborhood. They are going to eat, they just have to walk over. That’s a far cry if you decided to prioritize a people group, let’s say an elementary school, and now the group wants to multiply but has to figure out which school, how to lead tutoring groups, lead events, etc. I’m not saying these things shouldn’t happen, or don’t happen, but when starting new MCs, prioritizing place makes it very easy to transfer that to new leaders and new MCs. This is something I’ve been thinking through with my MCs lately as I don’t want to prioritize events in the place that I live. Back to basics.
Not only does it make it very easy to transfer, but also think of those that the Spirit regenerates. Remember that they are being discipled on what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus. So, if they see a group of people, sharing life on life in the everyday, what do you think they think a follower of Jesus does? Does this make it easier for them to not only understand what following Jesus entails, but then also lead others in this?
4. The Power of the Spirit
I almost end all my articles with this: we must believe that this is the Spirit’s work. We plant the good news and the Spirit regenerates souls and grows churches from the seeds we’ve planted. We must continually ask the Spirit who he desires for us to reach and how he’d desire for us to do that.
We must be asking the Spirit what is next for us. Listen to what he says. Then do it. Then we push repeat until we die.
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
Acts 17:24-27
The Spirit has placed us where he wants us to be. I actually think the last part when he states, “yet he is actually not far from each one of us” can be alluding, partly, to his church. The Spirit will direct our steps so that people that are seeking God will find him through the church that is living right next to them. The Spirit usually starts us off small, then keeps pressing. It might start with dinners and it might lead to being on the City Council. I’m not sure. The Spirit might start us with dinners and then move us across the world to do the same thing. He might start us with dinners, and then move us on to the local school, religious group, etc.
The point is that it is the Spirit’s work, not ours. Let’s make it as easy as possible for people to understand this paradigm shift of being the church so the Spirit can take that seed and make it grow in our people.
I have seen amazing things come through missional communities by the power of the Spirit. The problem is that many of us have these big stories of what God is doing and many don’t realize we started off small and basic.
I started off by asking the Spirit, “What’s next?” and he told me to move my BBQ from my back yard to my front yard so that it was easier to have an “open door” for my neighbors to join us and be part of our lives. From that, he has my family leading a group of leaders, seeing things multiply and probably moving to another state to do it all over again. But the Spirit knew me. He knew how to take me along. He didn’t start by having me move to another state, but doing something very simple.
We are called to be a living sacrifice, but notice that we aren’t told how that is to happen for everyone.
I believe what this means is to yield our lives to the Spirit, ask him what’s next, listen, then do it. Whatever it is. He loves us. He knows us. He’ll guide us. He’ll empower us.
Know that I am not trying to say one is better than the other when it comes to prioritizing our context. Plus, the same “busyness” and event-driven life can happen when prioritizing place. What I do believe though is that it is easier to start off simply and holistically when prioritizing place, then, from there allow the Spirit to keep pressing into us to show off who he is.
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Cross-posted from GCM Collective.
What is Missional Culture & Why Does it Matter?
The Church is called to be a provisional demonstration of God’s will for all people. - Presbyterian Book of Order
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. - Romans 12:2
I was driving in Columbus, ohio, when I came upon a hitchhiker who alternated between holding his thumb out and clasping his hands together as if he were praying. I picked him up.
His name was Mike, and I soon discovered he was a hardcore Aryan (white supremacist), pointing to a passage in Scripture about being “a chosen people” as the reason for his convictions. I asked if he would be willing to reread the passage in context. He agreed. As I reached in the back seat to grab my Bible, he pulled a gun and pointed it at my head. I assured him I was just getting my Bible, so he put his gun away, and my heart started to beat again.
I realized Mike had no place to stay that night, so I invited him to stay with me.
“You mean you would trust me to stay with you after pulling a gun on you?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said, “because God has given me a love for you that I can’t explain, and he loves you.” As I was saying this, I was saying to myself, Yeah, what am I thinking?
Tears welled in Mike’s eyes.
We got back to the hotel where my roommate Tom and I were staying. I woke up my roommate to ask him if Mike could stay with us, mentioning that he had a gun. He wasn’t favorably disposed to the idea, so I ended up getting Mike another room. Mike didn’t want me to, but I insisted. It gave me the chance to share more of the gospel with him.
We talked until 4 a.m., and I told him about the Jesus the apostles wrote about, this Jesus who had become my hero, my Savior and my example. I told him how Jesus was the liberator of those oppressed, the lover of those rejected and the deliverer of those seduced by consumerism, and Mike responded with tears of surrender.
Later that week he took me to a Chinese restaurant and continued to inquire about Jesus. I told him how Jesus lived his life for the sake of others, how he died so we could live, and how he rose again to show what God was going to do for the world.
Something in Mike changed that evening; he understood in a profound way who Jesus was and what he had done for him and the world. When I left Columbus, Mike had a heart to share with his Aryan friends what he had learned, hoping they would let go of their racism and be part of a community that included people from every race, tongue, tribe and nation.
As I reflect on my encounter with Mike, it reminds me of two realities: we live in a messed-up world filled with violence, prejudice, racism, poverty, greed, pride, envy, lust and gluttony; and Jesus has invited messed-up people like us to partner with God in the redemption of the world.
The Federal Aviation Administration once developed a cannon-like device to test the strength of windshields of airplanes. They actually shot a dead chicken (I’m serious) into the windshield at the approximate speed of a flying plane to simulate a bird hitting a plane while in flight. Well, a British locomotive company heard about this test. So they asked the FAA if they could borrow the device. They had just developed a high-speed train and they wanted to likewise test their windshield.
They loaded the bird up and shot it at the locomotive at its approximate running speed. The bird went through the windshield, knocked over the engineer’s chair and put a dent in the cab of the locomotive. They couldn’t understand what had happened. So they asked if the FAA would please review all the things that the locomotive company had done. The FAA’s final report said, “You might want to try the test with thawed chicken.”
Why did everyone in the locomotive company conclude that a frozen chicken was used in this experiment? There wasn’t even a debate about whether this should be a frozen chicken or a thawed chicken—regular or crispy? No one asked this most basic question.
We often jump to conclusions about how to make the church work better or how to develop a missional strategy—without asking some of the most basic questions. Questions like What does it mean to be the church today? What does it mean to create a missional culture and why does it matter?
Creating a missional culture is more than just adding some outward programs to the church structure. Creating a missional culture goes to the heart and identity of God, to who we are and who we are becoming.
Missio Dei
One of the most influential theologians of the last century, Karl Barth, was instrumental in the reintroduction of the classic doctrine of Missio Dei. We find missio Dei in Scripture: God the Father sends the Son and the Spirit into the world, and the Father, Son and Spirit send the church into the world for the sake of the world. In other words, mission does not originate with the church but is derived from the very nature of God. As Jürgen Moltmann has said, “It is not the church that has a mission of salvation to fulfill in the world; it is the mission of the Son and the Spirit through the Father that includes the church.”
When we read the Scriptures, we learn that it is God’s mission to set things right in a broken and messed-up world. God’s mission is to redeem the world and restore it to its intended purpose. The church exists to fulfill God’s mission, and when we participate in God’s mission we become living signs of God’s intended future for the world, bringing glory to God. In other words, mission exists because God is a missionary God. And “a church which is not on mission is either not yet or no longer the church, or only a dead church—itself in need of renewal.”
If we seek to create a missional culture, it is imperative that we understand that God created the church as a sign, foretaste and instrument by which more of his kingdom would be realized here on earth.
Church as Sign, Foretaste, and Instrument
Sign. The church is to be a sign of God’s coming kingdom, pointing people to a reality that is right around the corner. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world.” We are called to be lights that point others toward God, his Son and his future. So what kind of sign are we? What kind of sign do we want to become?
Foretaste. The church is called to be a foretaste of God’s kingdom, a place where people can get a taste of the future in the present. When the church is a foretaste, it demonstrates what life is like when men and women live under the rule and reign of God, when the people of God love one another, exhort one another, encourage one another, forgive one another and live in harmony with one another. In this way the church becomes a concrete, tangible, though not perfect, foretaste of the kingdom that is to come.
Instrument. Creating a missional culture requires not only understanding that the church is called to be a sign and foretaste of God’s kingdom, but also an instrument. When writing to the church in Ephesus the apostle Paul talks about how the church is God’s chosen instrument to show the manifold wisdom and grace of God to both the visible and invisible world. He says, “His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Eph 3:10-11). We see throughout the letter to the Ephesians that the church is to be like a preview or movie trailer of what is to come. The church is an instrument through which God’s will for justice, peace and freedom is done in the world.
Creating a missional culture helps the church live out her calling to be a sign of the kingdom, pointing people to the reality beyond what we can see, a foretaste of the kingdom where we grow to love one another as Christ loves us, and an instrument in the hands of God to bring more of heaven to earth in concrete ways. For the church is to be a credible sign, foretaste and instrument, it needs to be a community rich with the fruit of the spirit.
The Problem
Yet in our most honest moments we recognize that we aren’t the kind of people that God wants us to be. We aren’t even the kind of people that we hope to be. To be honest, sometimes when I look at the worldwide and local church, including churches I have pastored, I think, God, this is just one big mess! And apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks this.
In March 2009 we received the results from the widest religious survey conducted in the United States, the ARIS (American Religious Identification Survey) study. There is much to gain from this report, which is based on over 54,000 interviews conducted from February to November 2008. This survey was a continuation of the ARIS surveys in 1990 and 2001, which are part of the landmark series by the Program of Public Affairs at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
The report indicates major shifts in the American landscape in the past eighteen years, including the fact that the percentage of people who call themselves some type of Christian has dropped more than 11 percent in a generation. One of the most widely cited results from this survey is the significant rise in the number of those who claim no religious identification or faith. This group has grown from 8.2 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 2008. Ariela Keysar, the associate director of the study, says that the none’s (nonreligious) are the only group to have grown in every state of the union.
So why are more and more people in the United States no longer identifying themselves as Christians? What is turning people off to the church, or at least some forms of the church? And why is the digital generation the least involved?
While there is no simple answer to these questions, I want to suggest that at the heart of the matter is the lack of mature missional disciples, not just as individuals but as communities of God’s people. We need to be more like Jesus.
Neil Cole makes a good point when he says,
Ultimately, each church will be evaluated by only one thing—its disciples. Your church is only as good as her disciples. It does not matter how good your praise, preaching, programs or property are; if your disciples are passive, needy, consumeristic, and not [moving in the direction of radical obedience,] your church is not good.
Stanley Hauerwas says the same thing in another way, “[The most important social task of Christians] is nothing less than to be a community capable of forming people with virtues sufficient to witness to God’s truth in the world. . . . [T]he task of the Church . . . is to become a polity that has the character necessary to survive as a truthful society.”
So why do we lack mature disciples and mature communities of faith? One reason is that we fail to understand the hidden power of culture in life transformation.
Individualism saturates American culture to the point that we no longer notice it. Individualism tells us we can become more like Jesus by ourselves, through a self-help program or more effort. But the gospel tells us transformation happens as we embrace the work of the Spirit in our lives together. Becoming more like Jesus is not a matter of trying but yielding, setting the sails of our lives to catch the wind of the Spirit. It happens when we develop a communal rhythm of life—a collection of thick, bodily practices (liturgies) that engage our senses, grab our hearts, form our identities and reshape our desires toward God and his kingdom. As we collectively engage in grace-filled spiritual practices, we cultivate particular environments that help to create a missional culture, which in turn reshapes us. As coworkers with God, we create culture and culture reshapes us. Understanding the transformative power of culture is vital if we want to have mature communities of faith.
Phillip Kenneson, in his book Life on the Vine, gives a vivid picture of what it means to be a mature community of faith. Using the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians, he offers a picture of what Christ is seeking to do in and through us. A mature community cultivates a lifestyle of love in the midst of market-style exchanges: a lifestyle of joy in the midst of manufactured desire, peace in the midst of fragmentation, patience in the midst of productivity, kindness in the midst of self-sufficiency, goodness in the midst of self-help, faithfulness in the midst of impermanence, gentleness in the midst of aggression, and self-control in the midst of addiction.
The Power of Culture
In Theories of Culture, Kathryn Tanner makes this remarkable statement, Although less than one hundred years old, the modern anthropological meaning of “culture” now enjoys a remarkable influence within humanistic disciplines of the academy and within commonsense discussions of daily life. “In explanatory importance and in generality of application it is comparable to such categories as gravity in physics, disease in medicine, evolution in biology.”
In other words, the idea of “culture” shapes everything we do as humans, from our thoughts while alone to how we develop family systems, to our interactions at the workplace, to the ways a specific country does its politics.
Kenneson understands the power of culture in the development of character. Culture has particular narratives, institutions, rituals and ethics that shape us as people. The dominant culture seeks to squeeze us (the church) into its mold of market-style exchanges, manufactured desire, self-sufficiency and addiction. The apostle Paul puts it this way:
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. - Romans 12:2 (The Message)
Paul tells us that the dominant culture shapes who we become. According to cultural theory, culture is largely made up of artifacts, language, rituals, ethics, institutions and narratives. In other words, the language we live in, the artifacts that we use, the rituals we engage in, our approach to ethics, the institutions we are a part of and the narratives that we listen to have the power to shape our lives profoundly.
As we look at the culture around us, here are some questions to help us understand how we are being shaped:
• What is the guiding narrative of our host culture?
• Which institutions most shape our lives?
• What ethics are we developing in light of the stories and narratives that bombard us from every side?
• What rituals, practices and liturgies are we engaging in that shape our desires, our idea of the “good life” and the kind of people we are becoming?
If we take a quick look at American culture, we can see that an individualistic and consumer narrative shapes much of our culture and thereby socialized us. We are all socialized beings.
Socialization—the process of growing up within a culture—involves internalizing our culture’s way of seeing things. . . . The result is that we do not simply “see” life, but we see it in enculturated ways. . . . We are likely to feel good or not good about ourselves on the basis of how well we live up to the messages and standards of culture internalized within us.
Our narrative of growth and success includes the ability to purchase comfort, security and stability. We are socialized from a young age to believe that fulfillment comes through products. Research indicates that children can identify a brand as young as eighteen months, and youth influence about $600 billion of adult spending.
Some of our strongest institutions are chain stores. We create rituals around product consumption and hold closely to our brand-name artifacts.
If we hope to experience transformation, we need to develop a culture in the congregation that encourages people to live in the world for the sake of the world, without being of the world. Gerhard Lohfink, in Jesus and Community, makes a strong case that it has always been God’s intention to work through a visible, tangible concrete community that lives as a contrast society in the world for the sake of the world.
Tim Keller concurs when he says, “Christians are truly residents of the city, yet not seeking power over or the approval of the dominant culture. Rather, they show the world an alternative way of living and of being a human community.”
When we grasp the power of culture, it gives both perspective and fresh hope for transformation.
Leadership and Culture
Leaders of God’s people uniquely contribute to the cultivation of a culture distinct and different from the dominant culture. For it is the role of Spirit-filled leaders to create a missional culture within the congregation. If we hope to create a missional culture, we must understand the power of culture in shaping the life of the congregation, and learn the basic elements of culture.
In addition, we must examine our very approach to leadership. For an individualistic approach to leadership often leads to an individualistic approach to discipleship, while a shared approach to leadership often leads to a communal approach to discipleship with an appreciation of the life-shaping power of culture. To change the ethos of the church we also need to change our approach to leadership.
(Editor's Note: This article is an excerpt from JR Woodward's new book Creating a Missional Culture: Equipping the Church for the Sake of the World)
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JR Woodward is a church planter, activist, missiologist and author of Creating a Missional Culture: Equipping the Church for the Sake of the World (IVP 2012). He cofounded the Ecclesia Network where he serves as the Director of Leadership and Congregational Formation. He currently resides in Hollywood, California. Starting in 2013, he will be serving with Rhythm Church Miami, Florida as well as pursuing a PhD at the University of Manchester (UK). You can find him blogging here.
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For more resources on authentically living out the mission of the gospel, check out Unbelievable Gospel by Jonathan Dodson.
For more free articles on missional living, read The Neighborhood Mission Start Up by Seth McBee, Street Grace by Jake Chambers, and Living the Mission by Winfield Bevins.
The Neighborhood Mission Start Up
People in our age often want to be told what to do so they can follow the directions. The dangerous thing is that if we just tell people what to do, then we not only become their functional savior for mission, we also avoid training them as leaders. This enables followers to stay followers and keeps leaders as their idols. We become the Holy Spirit for them, and when something in their life isn’t working, they don’t go the King. They come to another finite servant for direction. They become our disciple, not a disciple of Jesus. I’ll actually be speaking more on this understanding of leadership development at the GCM National Conference in September. So, what do I tell these people that inquire about how to live Christ's mission in their neighborhood (without making them feel stupid for asking a question that was prodded by the Spirit)?
Jesus tells us to love your neighbor as you love yourself.
He also tells us in Acts 1:8 that he’ll send us power by way of the Spirit to empower us for mission… to be his witnesses. (Notice witness is a noun, not a verb. You are the witness. It’s not something you do, but someone you are by His power.)
If we take these two principles to the neighborhood, what might that look like?
What would you attend if you were invited by a neighbor?
This seems very simple, but most don’t do this easy task. There is a great list given over at Verge by Josh Reeves - good dude by the way - called 25 Simple Ways to Missional to Your Neighborhood. Over at the GCM Collective there is a great document by Jeff Vanderstelt called Contextualization Assessment Starter. These are two great tools to start your mind thinking, but I have a very simple way to start. Simply ask yourself and your family, what would you attend if a neighbor invited you?
Would you attend a church service?
Would you attend a picket line?
Would you attend a “school” during the summer at another place in the city?
Some event where someone is trying to sell you trinkets?
Maybe some of you are thinking…"Yes I would!"
If so, try it out. See if it works. If not, think through other things that you might attend.
A front yard BBQ? A Saturday morning breakfast? An ice cream party? A UFC fight party?
What you will find through this process is the demographics of your neighborhood. When I started, one of the things I tried was inviting over people for a UFC fight. Literally no one showed up. Most of the folks I talked to afterwards said that they just weren’t interested in the UFC. That was the pits for me, because I dig me some ultimate fighting, but that gave me a better understanding of the neighborhood. Also, I got a chance to ask the next question to my neighbor:
What do you enjoy doing?
Now I get ideas, plus some ways to engage my neighbor for their story.
Neighbor: I really enjoy things I can do with my whole family.
Me: Oh, you have kids? How old are they? What are their names, etc.? What do you guys enjoy as a family?
Just with that small question, you're already beginning your contextualized understanding of your neighborhood.
You’ll also notice you'll start to engage your neighbors, whether they are in your “demographic” or not. This doesn’t simply “work” if you are in a neighborhood surrounded by people like you. It will also work in those neighborhoods where you are not like your neighbors. You can try some things you like. They might fail. But that just gives you a chance to engage neighbors to see what they enjoy and what would draw them out to engage the community as a whole.
How would you like to be invited to engage community?
The next question people ask me is this:
I have an idea to engage neighbors. How should I invite them?
I just turn the question back on them:
How would you like to be invited to something from someone you don’t know? What kind of invitation would you ignore? What kind of invitation would cause you to engage?
I don’t know about you, but I would ignore most things sent to me in the mail or something just left on my doorstep. For me, I would respond positively from a face-to-face interaction, with something left behind with the information.
This is exactly what I decided to do three years ago in our neighborhood. I took flyers around to our neighbors, knocked on their doors and introduced myself to them and invited them to our 4th of July party. This created many opportunities for conversation and many have come to our community events because of a simple introduction.
For others, email might work, Facebook (I have a community Facebook group now that we’ve built relationships), evite, etc. Think through different ways to communicate to people, to engage them in the ways that your neighborhood is comfortable with.
Sent by His Power
This is the greatest part. You have the power of the eternal God, the embodiment of wisdom, inside you for his glory.
After thinking through the first two questions of how we can love our neighbors like we love ourselves, we must not forget the first part. The commandment to love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.
We need to go to our God to simply ask him what he’d like us to do next with his power. When we go through what things we are going to do to engage our neighbors, or any other group, we must first ask our Dad. "Dad, what’s next with this neighborhood to show off your glory?"
Then listen…
Then do what he tells you.
It might be huge, or it might be small. The important thing is to be obedient to him after he tells you what he desires. This doesn’t mean it will “work” in your eyes (such as the UFC thing above), but it means you're allowing your eternal Dad to determine what you NEED to do to make you more like Jesus and for others around you to see his glory and fame.
I fully believe if we think through these three easy steps, we’ll engage our neighborhoods and other groups around us much more often with more power and positive response from those around us.
Yes, you’ll end up sacrificing your time, your money and your possessions, but in the end isn’t this what we are called to do as followers of Jesus?
Love others as you love yourself by the power of the Spirit, and watch the work God will do.
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Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade Seth is an Investment Portfolio Manager, serving as president of McBee Advisors, Inc as well as a missional community leader, preaching elder with Soma Communities in Renton, Washington, and executive team member of the GCM Collective. In his down time, he likes to do CrossFit, cook BBQ, and host pancake ebelskiver breakfasts at his home. Twitter @sdmcbee
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For more information on taking the gospel to the streets, check out Jonathan Dodson's Unbelievable Gospel.
For more free articles on missional living read: Invite & Invest to Make Disciples by Greg Gibson, Theology is for Everyone by David Fairchild, and The Gospel & Our Neighbors by Alvin Reid.
Living The Mission
The church is rooted in the concept of the Missio Dei, which recognizes that there is one mission, and it is God’s mission. The Missio Dei is a Latin theological term that can be translated as "Mission of God." The word missio literally means sent. The church is not an end in itself; the church is sent into the world to fulfill the mission of God.
God is a Missionary
Understanding what it means to be a part of the mission of God begins with understanding that God is a missionary God. The very being of God is the basis for the missionary enterprise. God is a sending God, with a desire to see humankind and creation reconciled, redeemed, and healed. God’s mission can be seen throughout the pages of the Bible and history. Nowhere is the mission of God better understood than in the person and work of Jesus Christ. John 3:16 tells us that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
Many Christians and churches teach and preach that missions are something we support or do, such as sending or supporting missionaries in other countries. This was the case 20 to 30 years ago. However, in the 21st century the mission field has come to us.
We live in a post-Christian world where people simply don’t know the gospel anymore. Therefore we are all called to be missional disciples and share in the mission of God. Ed Stetzer says, “Being Missional means actually doing mission right where you are. Missional means adopting the posture of a missionary, learning and adapting to the culture around you while remaining biblically sound.”
Jesus: The First Missionary
Being a missional disciple is simply following the way of Jesus. Jesus Christ was the first and greatest missionary. The Bible tells us that He came from heaven to earth to die for a lost and dying world. The following scriptures reveal how the mission of God was fulfilled through Jesus Christ and how we are called to continue and complete the Missio Dei in our culture.
- Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to accomplish His work." - John 4:34
- "I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." - John 5:30
- "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me." - John 6:38
- "I know Him; because I am from Him, and He sent Me." - John 7:29
- "And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do thethings that are pleasing to Him." - John 8:29
- "We must work the works of Him who sent Me, as long as it is day; night is coming, when no man can work." - John 9:4
- And Jesus cried out and said, "He who believes in Me does not believe in Me, but in Him who sent Me. And he who beholds Me beholds the One who sent Me." - John 12:44-45
- "For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandment, what to say, and what to speak." - John 12:49
- "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me." John 13:20
- "And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." - John 17:3
- "For the words which Thou gave Me I have given to them; and they received them, and truly understood that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou didst send Me." - John 17:8
- "As Thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world." John 17:18
- Jesus therefore said to them again, "Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you." - John 20:21
Sent on a Mission
As the church we are called to care for a lost and dying world that is in desperate need of a savior. Too many times we compartmentalize the different ministries of the church. We have viewed social ministry as something we do on one hand and evangelism on the other. God is calling the church to rediscover the biblical model of holistic ministry.
Jesus met both the physical and spiritual needs of the people He ministered to. As the Body of Christ on earth, we are His representatives to a lost world. Therefore what we do and say are of eternal importance. Being missional disciples is not an either or situation. It means that we care about people’s souls and their bodies. It means that because we care about the gospel we should care about social and environmental issues. Being missional disciples brings all of life together under the banner of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Dr. Winfield Bevins serves as lead pastor of Church of the Outer Banks, which he founded in 2005. His life’s passion in ministry is discipleship and helping start new churches. He lives in the beautiful beach community of the Outer Banks with his wife Kay and two daughters where he loves to surf and spend time at the beach with his family and friends. Twitter: @winfieldbevins
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For more on living the mission of Christ, check-out Winfield's book Grow: Reproducing Through Organic Discipleship.
For more free mission resources, see: Relationships First: Reasons it's Difficult to Share Our Faith by Jonathan Dodson and Messy Discipleship Jake Chambers.
Transformative Grace
One of the most helpful and practical discipleship concepts that I’ve learned came from a seminary professor who was describing the difference between what he called “excusive grace” and “transformative grace.” In brief, “excusive grace” is what happens when we easily shrug off irresponsibility and unfaithfulness in others by saying, “That’s OK. It’s really not a big deal.” This seems incredibly gracious, but it represents a soft attitude that can enable sin patterns in others’ lives.
Before I describe “transformative grace,” let me add my own third image to the scene that was being described by my professor. This category, which I call “militant ‘grace’,” is one that I’ve often observed in the world of discipleship. Militant “grace” (which often really isn’t grace at all, thus the quotation marks) responds to irresponsibility and unfaithfulness with a boot camp attitude that screams, “My way or the highway. Call me when you grow up.” This philosophy has a good heart behind it (a standard to be attained), but the line-in-the-sand is often drawn arbitrarily and individual situations aren’t taken into account in a loving way.
If these first two options are extremes at either end of a spectrum—excusive grace on the soft end and militant grace on the hard end—“transformative grace” is a more gospel-centered approach that falls somewhere in the middle and should be the aim of our discipleship relationships.
The Ends and Means of Grace
Transformative grace enjoys the understanding of excusive grace but rejects the cavalier attitude towards maturity, growth, and accountability. Likewise, transformative grace maintains the same goal of militant grace but rejects the path that is taken along the way.
Another way to state this may be to see discipleship as having a means and an end. The end is growth, maturity, and Christlikeness. The means is loving discipleship where life and truth transference happen in the context of real relationships. If this is the case, we should embrace the means of exclusive grace (if the “means” = understanding and love) and reject its end (if the end = no challenge to true growth). We should embrace the end of militant grace (if the end = a strong challenge to true growth) and reject its means (if the means = lack of understanding and love).
Grace Applied
Allow me to illustrate how each of these positions might handle a common discipleship issue.
The Situation: You’re supposed to meet with a guy regularly for about six weeks to walk through a problem he is having. Because of his busy work and family schedule, you decide to meet for breakfast at a local restaurant on Wednesday mornings. Since he has to be at work relatively early, he tells you that 6:00 am is the only time that works for him. The problem, however, is that the first week he arrives at 6:10 and the second week at 6:25. The third week he is a no-show and was clearly still asleep when you called to check on him at 6:30. How do you respond?
The Excusive Grace Response: “That’s alright, brother. I know it’s hard to get out of bed early in the morning. Don’t worry about it – it’s good for me to get up early anyway and I just use the time I’m waiting on you to have a longer personal time in the Word.”
The Militant “Grace” Response: “Drop and give me 150 pushups. When you’re finished, I want 10 wind sprints in the parking lot. Then—after you pay for my breakfast—don’t let the door hit you on the way out. My time is too valuable to be wasted. You have my phone number; call me when you’re serious about committing to this relationship.”
The Transformative Grace Response: “You know I love you, right? That’s why I need to be completely honest with you. It’s not easy for me to get out of bed in the morning either. In fact, I had to leave a warm bed with my wife to be here by 6:00 am, and I had to stick her with getting our kids ready for school by herself when I would normally help shoulder the load. I’m willing to help be part of the solution for you in whatever way I need to be, but we can’t keep going on like this. Do you need me to give you a wake-up call in the mornings? Should we change the time of our meetings? Do I need to swing by your office so we can meet during your lunch break? Let me know and I’ll do what I can to help make this happen.”
These aren’t hypothetical situations and responses – this is an actual situation and three actual responses I’ve seen various disciple-makers give (minus the pushups and wind sprints). Do you see the difference the three approaches?
The excusive grace response may even be true. It might not be a big deal to you and you might have enjoyed the extra time in the Word those mornings, but that’s not the point! The point is that this person will never grow and mature as long as you keep enabling them and making excuses for their irresponsibility.
The militant grace response may be what you want to say to the person, but will it ultimately be helpful? Will you help the person develop a changed heart that values commitment, responsibility, and self-discipline? Or, will you help them have a fear of disappointing you and/or having a lighter wallet? This approach might even produce what looks like obedience, but the impetus can often be man-centered and not God-centered.
The transformative grace response should be a healthy mix of both grace and truth. It has a goal in mind for the person but is loving and nurturing in how to get there. The means is as important as the end goal.
This doesn’t mean that there’s never a time to say “That’s OK, it’s not a big deal.” It also doesn’t mean that you won’t occasionally have to “cut someone loose” and break off a relationship with a slothful disciple. But, both of these should be the exception, not the rule. Let’s disciple in such a way that we see changed lives through the Holy Spirit and the Word, because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to the glory of the Father!
Domain of Influence
Those who have been laid hold of by Jesus Christ have the same mission. Jesus gave it to us. He gave us his gospel, his Holy Spirit, and his commission to make disciple-making disciples of all peoples. We are called to take the gospel of Jesus into our neighborhoods and into the nations. However, one’s specific involvement in that mission is unique with regards to one’s role and one’s reach. You have a specific task or role to play in this mission. The Holy Spirit has equipped you for that role. It might be preaching and teaching, or pastoring, or administration, or mercy, or hospitality, but God intends you to use that gift, faithfully carrying out your role in the mission to make disciple-making disciples.
You also have a reach in this mission, a context that we might call your “domain of influence.” Your domain of influence is the sphere in which your ministry role is carried out. Some domains of influence are broader in scope; they are far reaching. Some people are given smaller spheres with a localized influence. This is fairly obvious to us. Some people pastor large influential churches and are invited to preach before great crowds, while others live in obscurity, faithfully pastoring small churches. The role of pastor is the same, but the reach one has in carrying out that role is different. Two pastors may have a similar calling, but different God-given capacities that bring with them differing spheres of influence and impact.
We see this principle of domain throughout the Scripture. One example is found in 1Corinthians 12. When Paul addresses the Corinthians about spiritual gifts, he highlights not only the variety of the gifts but also the differing impact that each person has in the exercise of his or her gift.
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. - 1 Corinthians 12:4–6
But we will not boast beyond limits, but will boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us, to reach even to you. For we are not overextending ourselves, as though we did not reach you. For we were the first to come all the way to you with the gospel of Christ. - 2 Corinthians 10:13–14
We see this same principle in Jesus’ parable of the talents. A master goes on a journey and entrust differing amounts of his possessions to his servants. To one he entrust ten talents. To another he entrusts five talents. To the third, he entrusts one talent. Jesus tells us that each was given an amount according to his ability. Each was entrusted with an amount that was in keeping with that person’s potential for functioning at a certain level. In other words, each would have a differing domain of influence and varying degrees of accomplishment with what they were entrusted because each had different capacities.
The Temptations of Domain
There are two great temptations in ministry with regard to domain. First, it is possible that we can under-reach our domain out of fear, sloth, or lack of faith. God may very well desire to expand our influence and reach, but our own timidity or laziness can keep us from moving into God’s intentions. This may be what Timothy struggled with. He was appointed and given a platform of great influence in Ephesus. As we read through Paul’s letters to Timothy, it is clear that he struggles with insecurity, timidity, and possibly even a lack of faith. In 2Timothy 4:5 Paul tells him to fulfill his ministry, to be faithful to his domain.
There are some that are not dreaming enough. God has greatly gifted them, but they are not reaching for what God has for them due to insecurity, fear, or sloth. But I believe the bigger temptation that most in ministry face is that of over-reaching for a domain out of pride, envy, or comparison. When we see the ministry success of others, we can enviously aspire for a similar platform and the visibility that comes along with it. John the Baptist provides a good case study for this temptation.
John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized (for John had not yet been put in prison).
Now a discussion arose between some of John’s disciples and a Jew over purification. And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him. - John 3:23–26
If I am John, I am immediately faced with the temptation to comparison and envy. “All are going to him...” John has been at this longer and yet, Jesus shows up on the scene - endorsed by John at that - and John is losing his following. There is a constant temptation in ministry to ask, “How am I measuring up? Am I keeping up? Am I standing out? Is my church growing at a similar or quicker pace than others?” But notice how John responds.
John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. He must increase, but I must decrease.” - John 3:27–30
John understands that God sovereignly appoints his role and sets boundaries on his domain (v27). His ministry is received, given to him from God, and he cannot add even one thing to what God has appointed for him. John knows his role is the forerunner. He is not the groom but friend of the groom. John gladly accepts his shrinking platform. His only real concern is that Jesus increases, which means his domain must now decrease. John is not trying to over-reach his domain here; he is submitting to his God-given role and reach.
I often meet pastors and leaders who are over-reaching and trying to operate in a way that is not in keeping with how God has gifted them and that is not in step with the sovereign boundaries he has put on their reach of influence. For example, they see Driscoll, Chandler, or Piper preach hour long sermons, so they preach for an hour. But they do not have the capacity to hold an audience for an hour. Many assume that they should be doing multi-site because other pastors are doing it. It is not a decision grounded in inspiration from God but imitation of another church. These over-reaching pastors feel the pressure to keep up with other churches. But if they are honest, they know God has not given them the leading, discipling, and preaching capacities for a broader domain than one healthy, local church. I recently had a conversation with a pastor struggling for years to move his church beyond the 40 or so people who were attending. He said he had a vision to plant more congregations all over his city out of that congregation. What if God does not intend his domain to go beyond one healthy congregation. Pastor, God might be calling you to plant a church and get it healthy and lead it well, and that might be the reach that heaven sets for you. And if so, that is OK. Remember the parable of the talents. Each servant is given a measure of responsibility in keeping with his ability and the commendation comes in response to his faithfulness to their role, not the expanse of their reach.
Faithfulness to Your Domain
If you are going to be faithful to your role and reach, you need first and foremost a passion for Jesus. John was content with growing obscurity because Jesus was increasing. As long as Christ is trusted and treasured, we can be content. Second, we need a Gospel-Identity. John sees himself as a friend of the bridegroom - a person in a privileged position. When we know who we are as those privileged by the gospel, loved by God, adopted into his family, set aside for his purposes, then we begin to break free from trying to establish an identity through achievement. Third, we need self-awareness. By self-awareness, I simply mean knowing how God has gifted you and wired you. John knows who he is and who he isn’t, and he does not try to be someone the Lord has not made him to be. Self-awareness comes from the Lord by means - assessment tools, giftings, passions, fruitfulness, and the affirmation of other leaders. Through these means, the Lord often reveals the reach of our domains. In this sense, domains seem to me to be an unfolding awareness - more of a discovery than an announcement. It is not about reaching for what you want to do, but discovering what God has gifted you to do and then being faithful with it as he reveals it. And, as we are faithful over a little, he makes us faithful over much.
I’m afraid that we may have bred in the hearts of pastors today a desire for greater platforms instead of greater faithfulness. Humbly accepting our domains of influence and being faithful to them is the key to being content in the ministry God gives us.
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JR Vassar is the founding and lead pastor of Apostles Church. He and his wife Ginger have three children and make their home in NYC's Upper East Side. Twitter: @jrvassar
Plant the Gospel, Plant Churches
As I write this article, the core team for our new church has been gathering for a grand total of three weeks. We currently have about twenty people on the team and several children. We are filled with excitement, joy, anticipation, and nervousness. I have served as an itinerant evangelist, a camp pastor, a succession pastor, and (still am) a seminary professor. But I have never planted a church. Where should I begin? The answer is, of course, the Bible. But does the Bible actually say anything about church planting? I often hear people, even my friends, say things like, “Church planting is not in the Bible” or, “Jesus never told us to plant churches.” To which I say, “Are you sure about that?”
Standing on the shoulders of wise missiologists, let me point out two New Testament convictions and one New Testament example that provide a basic biblical understanding of church planting. The biblical foundations for church planting are not limited to these, but these three particular items are essential and memorable.
Two New Testament Convictions
First, the Great Commission points to church planting. This doesn’t mean that Jesus gave us a command to “plant churches” explicitly. Admittedly, you will look in vain to find such a command. However, Jesus told us to “make disciples of all nations” by “baptizing them” and “teaching them.” What do you call making of disciples by baptizing and teaching them? I call this incorporating them into the life of a church.
In my view, baptism is an ordinance of the church, which serves as a public profession of faith for believers. It identifies them with the body of Christ. Therefore, Christ’s orders in the Great Commission seem to have the church in view.
After Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost, about 3,000 were converted, and then baptized. Immediately following this, we read about these believers gathering in Acts 2:42-47 for worship in this new church. These baptized believers gathered for worship and to, among other things, teach all that Jesus commanded. I would argue, then, that the Great Commission points to the idea of church planting – not church planting with a building, a budget, and a website – but church planting in terms of identifying new believers in baptism and equipping new believers through sound teaching.
Another way to say this is that we are called to “plant the Gospel” and then see that healthy churches are developed. This is our goal at Imago Dei Church. We want to plant the Gospel in Raleigh. Even though Raleigh is in the South, it is, at best, 16% evangelical, and is currently one of the fastest growing metro areas in the nation. There are people studying in RDU from all over the world, in an area that boasts more "Ph.D.’s per capita" than anywhere in the nation. We want to plant the Gospel in this influential city, and then make disciples through the local church.
Second, Paul’s basic ministry methodology was urban church planting. Again, the goal was “plant the Gospel first, then help the church get established,” but nevertheless, it was a church planting movement. In Acts, we find Paul preaching the Gospel in major cities, then establishing the church in which elders were appointed for the purpose of spiritual growth and health. Many of these new congregations are described for us in the New Testament letters. In fact, the New Testament is basically a collection of new church plants.
Certainly, there are practical reasons to plant churches today. Around the world, more people are moving to urban centers, filled with throngs of people and few churches. The ethnic diversity of America is growing, also, which calls for new churches. In some unreached places, various people groups have little or no biblical church. These are all important notes to consider, which add weight to these two New Testament principles. Not only do we have biblical reasons for planting new congregations, but we also have a context in which we need to apply them urgently. People need the gospel and a church in which to belong.
A New Testament Example: The Church in Philippi
Consider the church in Philippi (Acts 16:6-40). Paul, in response to the Spirit’s call, plants the first church on European soil! How did it happen? Again, the same pattern: plant the Gospel; plant the church. In joyful sacrifice, Paul reaches three different types of people.
He first goes to a place of prayer where a lady named Lydia is converted and baptized. She then invites Paul and the missionaries to her home. Later, she apparently allowed her home to become the gathering place (new church) for the entire group of believers in Philippi (v. 40). Next, Paul encounters a fortune telling slave girl who is delivered from an evil spirit. Finally, there is a jailer who is present when Paul and Silas are put into prison. Here we have three different classes of people: Lydia (wealthy), the slave girl (poor), and a jailer (middle class?). We have three different avenues for reaching them: Lydia (with teaching at a religious gathering), Slave Girl (through deeds of mercy), and a Jailor (through example). They also represent three different nationalities: Lydia (Asian); Slave-Girl (Native Greek); Jailer (Roman). Moreover, each had different spiritual backgrounds: Lydia (Religious); Slave-Girl (spiritual turmoil), and a Jailer (indifferent?). Paul faithfully ministers the good news in the city to various types of people, and as a result, the first church in Europe - probably meeting in Lydia’s house - is formed (v. 40).
About ten years later, Paul writes to the Philippian church from a Roman prison. His epistle to the Philippians radiates with joy. They were his partners, his brothers and sisters. The apostle continued to labor for “their progress and joy in the faith” (Phil. 1:25).
In response to the Great Commission, and in light of the missionary methods of Paul, let’s plant the gospel all over the world; and let's plant healthy churches for the glory of Christ and the progress and joy of all peoples.
I’m indebted to Tim Keller’s Church Planter Manual for the outline of this article. Other helpful resources include Ed Stetzer, Planting Missional Churches.
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Tony Merida serves as the Lead Pastor of Imago Dei Church, Raleigh, NC and as the Associate Professor of Preaching at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is married to Kimberly, with whom he has five children. Tony is the co-author of Orphanology and author of Faithful Preaching. He travels and speaks all over the world at various events, especially pastor’s conferences, orphan care events, and youth/college conferences. Twitter @tonymerida
Taking the Long View
A few years ago I read A Narrative of Suprising Conversions by Jonathan Edwards, and there is one particular paragraph that God used to shape and change my heart. Edwards is talking about his grandfather, Solomon Stoddard, who preceded Edwards as pastor of his church. Listen to how Edwards describes him: “He was eminent and renowned for his gifts and grace; so he was blessed, from the beginning, with extraordinary success in his ministry, in the conversion of many souls.” Edwards explains that this happened in five seasons or “harvests" spread over Stoddard's 60 years in ministry. Edwards tells us exactly when they happened:
Harvest one erupts, and many are saved… Four years pass… Harvest two comes, and a great number of people are converted… Thirteen years pass… Harvest three happens, many come to know Christ… Sixteen years pass… Harvest four comes about, people flock to faith in Jesus… Six years pass… Harvest five errupts, and many are saved.
Years passed - sometimes more than a decade - between the times in which this church saw God bless them with great seasons of numerical growth by conversion. This great man of God pastored in the same place for nearly 60 years, pouring his life out for the sake of Jesus, working hard to make disciples, and was blessed to see amazing things.
We like to talk about those periods when growth is happening. It’s exciting. It’s energizing. We love to tell stories of churches that are seeing many people coming to faith. New services are started. Locations are multiplied. Baptisms are happening. But my question is: what about the seasons in between? What was happening in Stoddard's congregation then?
For every harvest there must be a sowing. When you add up the numbers, for 39 of his 60 years in ministry Solomon Stoddard didn’t see extraordinary growth. To be sure, people came to faith. Undoubtedly, the Spirit of God was at work. But, by most standards today (at least those we use in the American Church), Solomon Stoddard wasn’t much of a success.
At the heart of his ministry is a quality that is unfortunately all but forgotten by many: faithfulness. If Stoddard had been evaluated today, he might have been told to give up. To reevaluate his call. To change things up, try something new, adopt another strategy. Why? Because we are so tempted to trade the call to faithfulness for the allure of success. It is not sexy or glamorous to spend decades faithfully preaching the Word of God, investing your life in the people God has entrusted to you while seeing very little visible fruit.
But for a true harvest to come, there must be seed sown. Cared for. Watered. Tended to. Protected. Nourished. It is only after this hard work of faithful care has been done that a lasting harvest can come.
My prayer today is that God would give us the long view of ministry, and that our desire would be to give our lives in faithful service – trusting God to bring a tremendous harvest!
Bill Streger serves as the Lead Pastor of Kaleo Church, an Acts 29 Network church in Houston, TX. Born and raised in Houston, he attended Houston Baptist University and is currently pursuing his M.Div. from Reformed Baptist Seminary. Bill is a husband to Shannon, daddy to Mirabelle and Levi, and a life-long Houston Rockets fan. Twitter @billstreger
Over-Parenting Vs. Missional Parenting
Over-Parenting Okay, I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m an overprotective parent. I have a tendency to overdo it and obsess over the little things that don’t really matter. I guess that’s why I was intrigued by TIME magazine’s cover story a couple of years ago, "The Case Against Over-Parenting: Why Mom and Dad Need to Cut the Strings."
Nancy Gibbs begins her article with these provocative words: "The insanity crept up on us slowly: we just wanted the best for our kids."
Ironically, a good desire has led many parents to become obsessed with their kids’ safety and success. Gibbs calls them “helicopter parents” as they hover over their children’s lives from the classroom to the ball field protecting them and pushing them to succeed.
The result? By worrying about the wrong things, Gibbs says, “we do actual damage to our children, raising them to be anxious and unadventurous.” (Pediatricians have also found that this hurried lifestyle of constant pressure and stress can contribute to health problems like childhood obesity and depression).
So what’s the solution? Well, if the problem was simply hovering over our children’s lives, the solution would be to simply back off and lighten up. And there’s some truth to that! But the problem goes much deeper.
The problem is that we are afraid. If our greatest aim as parents is to protect our children and prepare them to receive some kind of academic or athletic recognition, than most likely we are parenting out of fear. Why? Because deep down we’re scared if they don’t succeed. We feel like we’ve failed as parents. So we work hard to prepare our children to make the grade or make the team so we would look good. It’s like our children are little trophies that we, as Paul Tripp says, “secretly want to display on the mantels of our lives as visible testimonies to a job well done” (Age of Opportunity, p.35).
If we were honest, we would admit that much of our parenting is motivated by fear. That’s what keeps us from lightening up and letting go of the reins. And what’s more, as Christians we spend so much time protecting our children from the world that we fail to prepare them to make a difference in this world. Biblical parenting, however, pictures parents as courageous warriors getting ready to release their children into battle. Psalm 127:4 says:
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior so are the children of one’s youth.
Arrows were made to fly. They can’t sit safely in the quiver or rest on the bow forever. They must be released! That’s what our preparation is ultimately for–to release our children into this world equipped with the gospel of Jesus Christ to serve people for the glory of Christ.
So lighten up all you helicopter parents! (me included). Let go of the reins. Parent your children as God parents you. Protect them, yes. But all the while prepare them … so you can release them … to fly into the battle with the glory of the gospel.
Missional Parenting
Much of our parenting is motivated by fear. Consequently, we’re more concerned with protecting our children from the world than preparing them to make a difference in this world. Gospel-centered, missional parenting is much different. It pictures parents as courageous warriors getting ready to release their children into battle. Psalm 127:4 says,
I see missional parenting happening in 3 stages. Of course these stages are fairly fluid with some overlap to be expected.
Gregg Harris says that in the time Psalm 127 was written, there were no arrow factories. Consequently, it took time for each arrow to be crafted with care and precision. The arrow had to have a good sharp tip on one end–that might deal with academic training and biblical instruction; and it had to have a good set of the fletching on the other end–which might apply to discipline. This would provide the arrow with a guidance system. So as parents, we must see ourselves as warriors shaping our young children during their formative years with doctrine and discipline driven by the gospel.
As children grow and mature we must give them opportunities to see the sinful reality of the world around them. Under our guidance and supervision we must expose our children to fallen creation and the crying need for restoration. Instead of an “us vs. them” mentality, we must teach our children to see and serve our culture through the lens of the gospel. We could picture this stage as the arrow being pulled out of the quiver and onto the bow.
Arrows were made to fly. They can’t sit in the quiver or rest on the bow forever. They must be released! Yet the point of release is often the most difficult time in parenting. As Gregg Harris says:
When you aim the arrow and release the arrow, beware–the greatest tension in your relationship with your children will often be just before you release them. Because it feels to the arrow like it’s going backwards when it wants to go forward. The tension is building in the bow, the warrior is aiming, and then there’s the release. From that point on, the guidance system that is in the arrow itself is what keeps it on track.
There comes a time when we must release our children into the battle. This is the purpose of the arrow as well as the purpose of parenting. We cannot be scared of this sinful world. Indeed, this is the world Jesus entered into and told us, “As the Father sent me, so I send you” (John 17:18). So let us follow our Savior with the attitude of a warrior as we prepare our children for the battle.
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Doug Wolter served for eight years as family pastor at LaGrange Baptist Church in Kentucky. He is now senior pastor at Oak Hill Baptist Church in Humboldt, Iowa. He has an amazing wife and three incredible kids who continue to humble him and fill him with joy. He enjoys drinking coffee, reading, exercising, and blogging at life2getherblog.com.
Discipling through Anger [video]
This part 5 in a series of video interviews about the book Gospel-Centered Discipleship.
A Story Of Gospel Community
In two weeks, in a suburban town outside of Seattle, we'll celebrate God's grace and the Spirit's work through baptizing a new disciple of Jesus. This is the story of how a neighborhood can look like the book of Acts, where disciples are made and we teach and preach from house-to-house, an example of how to make disciples in our sphere of influence... in today's context. We moved into our housing development 7 1/2 years ago, and for the first 6 years, we didn't know anyone who didn't live next to us. I’m serious. I didn't know the guy across the street. By the way, his name is Trevor, and he's getting baptized in my backyard. But, for the first 6 years, the extent of our reaching-out to our neighbors was leading a youth group and handing out bibles door-to-door and singing Christmas carols in the dark because people shut off their lights on us. Sometime while standing in the cold singing "O Come All Ye Faithful," I started to think, "Maybe we need a different modus operandi for bringing the gospel to my neighbors."
I decided to leave my one church to seek out help from people who have done this before, and I landed with Soma Communities. Truth be known, I am very prideful in the way I do things. Whether it is my orthodoxy or my orthopraxy, I feel like I have it down to some degree, which is a spillover from my success in business. It is wrong thinking, but I know this about myself. When coming to Soma Communities, I purposed to be a learner. What I asked myself was, "If you know so much, how come no one around you is repenting and being baptized?" So, even though I was soon asked to take a lead role in a Missional Community out in my suburban city, I decided to just sit back and learn. As I learned, as I listened, I began to be intrigued, and I finally had to act on it.
I asked a new friend of mine, Caesar, "How should I start? Where should I begin in my community?"
He suggested, "Ask the Spirit, 'What's next?'"
At that time, I rarely asked the Spirit to guide and empower me for mission because I was doing nothing that would require the Spirit. I was insular, hanging around only Christian people, and rarely ever engaging anyone with the Gospel or showing them the effects of the Gospel and how that might look in our community. There was no reason to pray. It would have been like asking God to help me flip the channels on my television.
Well. My wife and I prayed... Spirit, what's next?
If you want to open the power of the Spirit like freeing a hungry lion from its cage, then ask the Spirit what's next with a desire to show others what He's like for the sake of making disciples.
The Spirit answered by simply telling my wife and me this: On July 4th, instead of having your BBQ in the backyard, move it to the front yard.
This isn't earth shattering, but as Luke 16:10 puts it, he who can be trusted with a little, can be trusted with a lot. We agreed with the Spirit and decided that would be a good idea. Then He pressed. We ended up putting together a 4th of July wiffle ball tournament and cook off and going door-to-door handing out flyers. The response was overwhelming. This was the first time I met Trevor, my neighbor from across the street. He entered a wiffle ball team, and they won. Whatever. In the end, we had about 40 people play in the tourney and around 150 people at the 4th of July festivities. People continued to come up to me and tell me it was the best 4th of July party they had ever been to. It reminded us all of the Wonder Years. We didn't want this to only happen once a year. So, we started throwing BBQs all the time and inviting people over to have dinner from the connections we made on the 4th.
As summer was drawing to a close, my wife and I knew one thing: we needed help to build this community to reflect the community of God. We started praying that God would send helpers and had other leaders within Soma praying for us as well. God answered. He ended up moving another couple to our city from a different Soma Expression and then sent us another couple from our old bible study. It was beautiful. We came together with a plan that we felt was from the Spirit. We sought to continue the dialogue with these new couples by hosting Saturday morning breakfasts at our house. We wanted these other couples to be there with us to engage our neighbors and become part of our community. To do this, they had to be willing to lay aside some of the things they might have been more comfortable with to pursue our neighbors. But, our goal was to have these breakfasts with an eye on going through the Story of God at some point with those people with whom we were building relationships. We figured this might take a year or so to build these relationships strong enough to engage them on a deeper spiritual level.
This whole time, my wife and I kept asking the Spirit, "What’s next?" Now, we were able to put names to these prayers. We started the breakfasts in October and by the end of the month the Spirit was opening doors for the Gospel like I've never seen. People were asking us, "Why do you do all these things for the community? (We had also arranged a Halloween party, game nights, etc.) Do you sell Avon? Are you Christians? What church do you go to? etc."
We answered those questions, and then asked, "Would you be interested in walking through the story of what the Bible says about God and why we feel compelled to bring about this type of community? We can do it our house and have fun and eat like we always do anyways and then have this story time with dialogue among friends.”
We ended up asking about 6 couples from our neighborhood and 4 said yes, including Trevor and his wife. After 10 weeks of engaging in story and having a lot of fun, summer was back. We told those who went through the story that if they wanted to continue with us to dig into the Scriptures to see what the Gospel says about making disciples, we'd be happy to have them. Trevor and his wife agreed and really started to delve in. We again threw a huge 4th of July party with wiffle ball, cook off, and fireworks, and kept following up with BBQs and studied the word together as a Missional Community.
Now, this entire time, we had, as a group, been praying that God would put on our hearts those people in our lives who seemed to be pushing into the kingdom. We'd been praying (and are still praying), because we were going to once again be doing the Story of God coming up in January. We then had a study on baptism, and two things came out of Trevor's mouth: 1) I want to be baptized 2) I've been praying and talking to my brother and his fiancé and they desire to not only come to the BBQs but also to the Story of God when we start it.
Praise God!
In two weeks we'll be having Trevor's whole family, some friends, and our Missional Community in our backyard for a BBQ and a baptism. He's being commissioned to make disciples, but because he’s been watching me, and I've been walking this out with him day-to-day in normal everyday life for a year and a half, he's already doing it. To him, a disciple of Jesus naturally makes more disciples.
Our Missional Community started the day I put aside my own comforts and moved my BBQ from my backyard to my front yard. We went 6 years without knowing anyone. Now, if we throw a BBQ, we have 70 people show up. We have 6 couples in our Missional Community. We are doing pre-engagement for one couple and trying to save another couple from going through a divorce. We think we might have to multiply coming up in January because we could have close to 40 people that desire to go through the Story of God with us.
I'm no saint. I'm nothing special. I'm not paid by the church. I'm not paid by the community. God pays me money through my business - not to hoard it, but so I can be making disciples who make disciples in the neighborhood where I live.
This story isn't crazy. This story isn't outlandish. It's pretty normal. My family is pretty normal. That's the beauty of it. This is a small taste of what has been happening in our neighborhood and also in our own spiritual development. You’ll notice as you live this out, life, as usual, isn’t perfect. There are times of much difficulty. As a dude in our Missional Community put it, “You only get really irritated with people if you actually get to know them. It’s hard to get irritated at others if you merely wave at them when putting your garbage at the curb.”
If you're reading this, what’s holding you back from going to your knees tonight and just asking God, "What's next?" Be careful. Once you’ve let this Lion of Judah out of the cage, He'll take over the neighborhood.
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Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade Seth is an Investment Portfolio Manager, serving as president of McBee Advisors, Inc. Today, he’s a missional community leader, preaching elder with Soma Communities in Renton, Washington, and executive team member of the GCM Collective. In his down time, he likes to do CrossFit, cook BBQ, host pancake ebelskiver breakfasts at his home and many other neighborhood events in his hometown of Maple Valley, Washington. You can find him on twitter @sdmcbee or at www.gcmcollective.com.
Messy Discipleship
In our house, we used to have a beautiful set of drinking glasses that were made of translucent artsy green glass. Notice I said we “used to"... A few weeks ago our house was full of the life, laughter, and mess of sharing our home and table with our community; after everyone left and my wife and I were cleaning up, we noticed one of our beautiful green glasses had a huge chip off the top. We now officially have only three of these nice glasses. They've moved from the threatened dishes list to the full-fledged endangered dishes list. I don’t have much hope for their survival either as they have yet to breed.
Just the other day a neighbor broke another one of our glasses, and as I was cleaning up the glittery shards, it hit me - if you have a complete set of dishes you just might not be on mission.
God’s mission is messy and costly. Think about it. In order for us to be a part of God’s family, to be his disciples, to get to live in eternity with him in his home, it cost him his comfort to the point of a dirty, torturous execution on a cross. Yet I often want to be his follower and have a life of comfort.
I want to do hospitality my way, on my time, around my schedule, with the people that are easy for me to be around, and I want to have a complete set of dishes when I am done. But this just isn’t the life God has called us to. God calls us to not just have hospitable events but to have an open door and hospitable life. Jesus was available for the sick. He fed the hungry crowds when it was inconvenient. He hung out with the drunks, tax collectors, lepers, and sinners. His way of discipleship was dirty and probably smelly.
I have a friend that has modeled this hospitality well and as a result often has men in his home that are so drunk and out of it they sometimes foul their pants. He and his wife have literally cleaned man-poop off their floor. This grosses me out and makes me want to think twice about the people I let into my house, but oddly enough it also inspires me. It looks so much like Jesus. A couple of weeks ago my neighbor’s daughter had a little present slip out of her diaper while they were visiting. We saw the log on the floor, and all of us wondered where it came from. I immediately checked my son's diaper, and people were diaper checking all around until we found the culprit. I instinctively cleaned up the poop, de-sanitized the floor, and went on with what turned out to be a wonderful evening.
Sometimes discipleship means people are going to poop on your floor. If we are servants like Jesus, we get to clean it up. Jesus modeled this when he washed his disciples feet. At the time, everyone traveled on dirty, smelly roads in sandals and often were hopscotching around camel dung. Washing smelly feet was reserved for slaves, yet Jesus, the master, took the lowliest task and washed his disciples' feet.
I like my things to stay nice, and I don’t like doing disgusting jobs. But I do want to follow Jesus, and I do want to be his disciple and make disciples. To do this all the time means I am going to have to do some things I don’t like and lose some things I do like.
So again, if you have a full set of dishes and nobody has ever pooped on your floor, you might want to stop and examine if you are really on God’s mission.
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Jake Chambers: A member of Jesus’ bride - the church, husband to his beautiful bride Lindsey, and a daddy to his boy Ezra. Jake is passionate about seeing the gospel both transform lives and create communities that love Jesus, the city, and the lost. He currently serves Red Door Church through leading, preaching, equipping, and pastoring. You can read more of his writing at reddoorlife.tv.
Relationships First: Reasons It's Difficult to Share Our Faith
This is part two of the series The Difficulty of Sharing Our Faith. We often find it difficult to share our faith because we want to first form relationships with people. Avoiding preachy self-righteousness, we try to get to know others before talking about Jesus. We prefer to talk about work, culture, and ordinary stuff first. This springs from a proper concern to not come off as stiff evangelists but as real, caring people.
Love Not Proselytize Your Neighbor
This concern to have a relationship before sharing the gospel has some biblical warrant. Jesus said: “Love your neighbor,” not proselytize your neighbor. To proselytize is to coerce or induce people to believe what you believe. The person who proselytizes coerces by forcefully defending and advancing their beliefs. Remember the film The Big Kahuna? Grabbing evidence and opportunities, Christians back their co-workers into a theological corner, expecting them to throw up their hands and say, “I believe!” Other times, proselytizing takes the form of recruitment. We might try to convince people to join our moral or political agenda, as if Jesus wants to add to his numbers to strengthen a political constituency.
When we proselytize people, we reduce discipleship to an intellectual enterprise. In effect, we replace the gospel with doctrinal agreement (or just being right). When we focus on recruitment, we make Christianity about power or morality. This replaces the gospel with religion or rightwing politics. But Paul shared a gospel that was all about Jesus, preaching Christ and him crucified (1 Cor 2:1). He resolved to preach Christ not politics. Similarly, when sharing our faith, we need to make Jesus the stumbling block not morality or politics. When we put doctrinal, moral, and political blocks in front of the gospel, we proselytize instead of love. Proselytizing requires the mind and the will, but love requires heart, mind, and will.
"When sharing our faith, we need to make Jesus the stumbling block not morality or politics."
I’ve had countless conversations with non-Christians in which I’ve had to remove these stumbling blocks in order to get to the heart with the wonderful news of the gospel. Getting to the heart takes time. We need what Michael Frost calls “Slow Evangelism.” We need faith in God and love for people that slows us down to listen to others well, so that we can learn how to make the good news good to their bad news. For many, hearing that Jesus died on the cross for them is entirely irrelevant; we have to show the relevance of Jesus to their real need. Relationships are essential to discerning and meeting real needs. It was Francis Schaeffer who said: “Give me an hour with a non-Christian and I’ll listen for forty-five minutes. Only then, in the last fifteen minutes, will I have something to say.” We often hesitate to share our faith because we want people to know that we value them, regardless of their response. But if we truly value them, we wont simply “wait” to share the gospel; we will embody it by listening well.
Wonderful Doesn’t Wait
Have you ever noticed when you encounter something truly wonderful, you don’t always wait for a relationship to tell someone? There are things that are so urgent, so weighty, so wonderful that we burst out to talk about them whether we have a relationship or not! When our sports team scores to win the game, we don’t look around the stadium and think: “I can't tell people how happy I am about this win. I don’t even know them!” No, we don’t wait to express our joy; we burst out when our team wins. We celebrate with strangers and go nuts on social media. When we’re at a concert and our favorite song is played, and the band is really rocking, we don’t wait to sing along or comment. We sing and chat it up with strangers. After reading a book or seeing a great movie, perhaps the Hunger Games, we strike up conversation with people at work about how great the movie was.
When something is truly wonderful, we often don’t wait to talk about it. Is the news about Jesus so urgent, weighty, and wonderful that we can’t help but share it? It is, but often it's not as fresh as the game, concert, or movie. Why? Very often this is because we aren't immersed in the goodness of the gospel. It is old, memorized, fading news because we haven’t had a fresh encounter with Christ in weeks! The wonder is lost because we haven’t plunged ourselves into Christ-centered worship, prayer, or Bible meditation. We are most likely to talk about the gospel when the good news is good news to us.
"We are most likely to talk about the gospel when the good news is good news to us."
Have you ever considered what would have happened if Jesus had waited until he had a relationship with the thief on the cross to offer him eternal life? What if authors, pastors, and preachers waited to tell you the good news until they had a relationship with you? Sometimes there are things that are so wonderful, they don’t deserve a wait!
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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and has written articles in numerous blogs and journals such as The Resurgence, The Journal of Biblical Counseling, and Boundless. Dodson has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others.
Preachy Christians: Reasons It's Difficult to Share our Faith
This is the first in the series The Difficulty of Sharing our Faith. Very often we find it difficult to share our faith. Whether we’re in the workplace, neighborhood, or a social setting, talking about the person and work of Jesus doesn’t come naturally. There are some good reasons for this.
After spending almost fifteen years in creative class cities, where Christianity is typically marginalized and misunderstood, I’ve noticed that each city possesses its own unique challenges to communicating the gospel. Some of these challenges have led Christians to quiet down and let their actions do the preaching. Yet, there remains an intellectual and spiritual responsibility to communicate what we believe to those who would hear us. Whether it's cold, diverse Minneapolis, intellectually charged Boston, or creatively weird Austin, I’ve noticed that some reasons for not sharing my faith have travelled with me from city to city. In brief, I’d like to describe five reasons why I think we find it difficult to share the faith. Each reason will reflect a constructive concern and a critical response.
What if I’m Viewed as Preachy?
One of the reasons Christians find it difficult to share their faith is because we’re rightly concerned about being perceived as preachy. Preachy Christians often turn people off not onto faith in Christ. Think of Angela from The Office, the street preacher, or maybe the free speech fundamentalist yellers on campus in college. I remember watching them. They stood on a box to yell. Leading out with hell, fire, and damnation not grace, forgiveness, and salvation.
These Christians all share something in common—self-righteousness. If we’re honest, we all have a bit of this in us, but with these figures it’s amplified. We hesitate to talk about Jesus because we don’t want to be associated with them. We’re concerned it would turn others off. But preachy self-righteousness isn’t just a turn off; it’s the opposite of the gospel. This brings into focus our first, principal concern:
We should avoid preachy self-righteousness because it communicates something opposite to the gospel.
Preachy self-righteousness says: “If you perform well (morally or spiritually), God will accept you.” But the gospel says, “God already accepts you because Jesus performed perfectly on your behalf.” There’s a hell of difference between the two. The gospel sets us free from performance and releases us into the arms of grace. Self-wrought performance is a death sentence, but the obedience of Christ on our behalf is eternal life. What people need to hear is grace, audacious, seems-too-good-to-be-true but so-true-its-good, grace. Grace is God working his way down to us, so that we don’t have to work our way up to him. He comes down to us in Jesus. We need to make Jesus the stumbling block, not preachy self-righteousness or spiritual performance.
How Do We Change the "Preachy" Perception?
Now, there’s also a critical response to this concern. While it’s true that we should oppose preachy self-righteousness (because it obscures the gospel of grace), it is also true that the gospel offends our own self-righteous sensibilities. The gospel reminds us that we don’t have what it takes before a holy God, that Christ alone has what it takes, and that he’s died and risen to give it to us.
The gospel is offensive; it lifts up a mirror and shows us who we really are, but it’s also redemptive; it lifts up Christ to show us who we can become.
In the shining light of God’s glory, our darkness becomes quickly apparent. We can feel it. Deep down, something is wrong, bent, even broken. We’re in need of repair. We spend most of our lives trying to avoid this inner sense, which distorts us even more. The gospel helps us see ourselves as we are, but offers us an entirely new image, the image of the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ. If we’ll give up on ourselves and give into Jesus, he’ll exchange our darkness for his light, our distortion for his beauty. This is news worth sharing. The problem, however, isn't just that people think “preachy self-righteousness” when they hear the word “gospel.” It’s that our concern mutes the gospel. In thoughtful concern, we quiet down to let our actions do the preaching but, in the end, people hear nothing. When Christians press mute, people are left to make up their own versions of Christianity. We think our silence will remedy the perception of self-righteousness but silence, instead of sharing, does not remedy the preachy perception.
One day I was having a congenial chat with a man in Starbucks, until he asked what I was doing. I responded, “I’m working on a sermon.” He replied by waving his hands, one across another, saying “Oh, no. I don’t want to hear the sermon.” This was followed by a nervous chuckle. A sermon isn’t meant to mound up all your woes and make you feel guilt; it is meant to relieve your woes and remove your guilt through faith in Jesus. Similarly, the gospel doesn't just show us who we really are; it shows us who we can become in Christ. Sure, it lifts up a mirror but it also lifts up Christ, lifting us up with him in hope. Our concern to avoid preachy self-righteousness is good, but we have not gone far enough to remove this religious visage.
How will this incorrect view of Christianity be corrected? Actions might remedy a perception of personal self-righteousness, but they can’t correct a religious view of the gospel. Only words can clarify the meaning of the gospel. Yet, there remain more difficulties in sharing our faith. In the next article, we will consider the concern that we first have a relationship before sharing the gospel with others.
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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He is the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship and has written articles in numerous blogs and journals such as The Resurgence, The Journal of Biblical Counseling, and Boundless. Dodson has discipled men and women abroad and at home for almost two decades, taking great delight in communicating the gospel and seeing Christ formed in others.
IMITATION: Getting Beyond Information-Based Discipleship
Karl Weick, in his book Making Sense of the Organization, says, “…whenever you have what appears to be successful decentralization, if you look more closely, you will discover that it was always preceded by a period of intense centralization where a set of core values were hammered out and socialized into people before the people were turned loose to go their own ‘independent, ‘autonomous’ ways.”* Weick is pointing out an important ingredient here when it comes to decentralizing the church for missional ventures. As much as we would like to see the church decentralized for mission, we cannot successfully de-centralize for mission until we first go through a period of centralization where the necessary foundations for movement are embedded within the community.
Centralized or Decentralized for Mission?
This is exactly what we see taking place in the life of Jesus, the revolutionary founder of a global movement. For 3 1/2 years Jesus discipled the twelve and modeled for them what discipleship, community and mission really looks like. When it came time for the disciples to launch out into a decentralized mission of disciple making and mission, they had the necessary training and tools to lead the movement. You can’t get to Acts without passing through the gospels. And you can’t make it through the gospels without passing through discipleship. The reality is, Jesus did not expect the 12 to know how to be or make disciples, live in community, or be on mission with God until he had modeled and trained them for 3 1/2 years.
Trying to catalyze a decentralized movement without laying a good foundation of discipleship is just trendy new-speak. In fact, if you try to decentralize without first going through a period of centralization where the core practices of being and making disciples along with living as an extended family on mission, you will not end up with movement at all. What you will end up with is a fragmented group of disillusioned people with no point of reference for how to move forward. To put it another way: Decentralization before discipleship equals diaspora. Decentralization after discipleship equals movement.
Imitation as the Missing Link
Most churches find themselves stuck in a stage of centralization, but it is not the kind of centralization Jesus has in mind. Instead of centralizing around the core practices of being and making disciples, and living as an extended family on mission, the church often centralizes around teaching and information. In this model of centralization, discipleship and mission take a back seat to the centralized gatherings that are primarily focused on preaching and the band. If there happens to be any mission minded leaders in the bunch, they typically challenge the church to go and do mission, but in essence they are wanting people to spontaneously go out and do mission on their own.
The only problem with this approach is that people tend to do what you model for them. So if you give only give them information, then challenge them to do mission, they will most likely equate mission with giving people information…about the centralized gathering where you receive…thats right….more information.
The missing link in this informational approach is discipleship; specifically, the principle of imitation. In order for me to learn how to be and make disciples, and live on mission, then I need to be invited into a relationship where I can have access to someone who actually lives it out in their own life. To get me going I need something to imitate. My friends at 3DM use this triangle to illustrate the proper relationship between information, imitation (discipleship) and innovation.
It starts with information, then leads to imitation, and finally moves into innovation. Centralization takes place during the first two phases. Decentralization takes place as you move towards the edge and innovate with new expressions of ecclesia. The order is really critical if you want to see a decentralized movement of disciple making and mission to emerge. The missing component, for most church plants (and churches for that matter), is the phase of imitation where a leader invites people into a relational process where they model for them how to be and make disciples and live like an extended family on mission. If the leader is aiming for decentralized mission where people move towards the edge and innovate new expressions of ecclesia within every nook and cranny of their context, then they need to invest the necessary time and energy to centralize around the patterns of Jesus’ ministry. Those who take the time, like Jesus, to build a discipling culture will always get what Jesus got……a movement. If we want a movement like the one Jesus started, then we need to do it the way he did it. There is just no way around this.
It is true that anyone can start a movement, but the sustainability of that movement will hinge upon whether or not the leaders of the movement can be and make disciples…that make disciples…that make disciples. Imitation is the portal through which all successful movements travel.
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Tim Catchim co-authored The Permanent Revolution: Apostolic Imagination and Practice for the 21st Century Church with Alan Hirsch. He grew up largely in the metropolitan region around Washington D.C. His leadership experience revolves around urban and semi-urban church planting, discipling, and working with at-risk youth. Tim functions as a multi-vocational entrepreneur. In order to support his church planting habit, he started a curbside recycling business. He is the founder and director of Generate, a coaching and consultant agency for apostolic ventures. As a practitioner of grass roots church planting, he brings a unique perspective that can only be forged through experimentation, failure, and success.
Gospel Centered Leadership - Ambition
My wife, Lindsey, is an incredible baker. Her apple cake tastes like fall and her sugar cookies are the stuff of legend, particularly because her creative and detailed decorations show up in various designs during holidays and birthday parties. I am amazed by how she takes a squeeze bottle of icing and creates a masterpiece. I hesitate to bite into it. It's art. While her skill is considerable, her ability to create would be severely hampered without tools. It’s one thing for her to have talent but when her sense of space and attention to detail are combined with something as simple as the plastic tip on the lid of a squeeze bottle, then what was once merely an idea or the stuff of possibility becomes a gift for family and friends.
Artistic Leadership
The idea of leadership as art is not a new concept. More than a few books have been written to articulate how leadership cannot be reduced to science, shrunk down into a series of paint-by-number steps that applies universally to anyone who wakes up with the opportunity to lead. Art takes many different forms - sculpture, music, cuisine - and each form requires a specific medium - stone, a Gibson SG guitar, my wife's royal icing. Similarly, leadership works in different environments using a particular medium that puts one’s leadership on display.
While much of leadership is contextual - a mother doesn’t lead her 18-month old twins the same way that a football coach leads 87 high school boys - there are some elements that show up wherever leadership is needed. Consider this the icing that brings color and shape to a family or to a football team.
Ambitious Leaders
Ambition is one type of icing that shows up in leadership, the medium that brings leading to life. So much of what I do in developing leaders begins with the basic question, ‘Do you want to lead?’ It is unsettling to encounter someone whose capacity to lead is uncoupled from a sense of ambition. As a pastor in a university town, capturing and unleashing ambition is one of my most significant challenges. The University of Georgia is a world-class institution and the students who arrive on campus are bright and possess a breathtaking capacity for leading others but it is rare to find a student with a sense of ambition - and even more rare to find a student with ambitions bigger than the size and scope of their life.
When I think about how the gospel influences leadership and, in particular, the ambition needed to lead, I have in mind the plastic tips on the end of the squeeze bottle that my wife uses to turn a tube of icing into an intricate design. It’s not enough to have ambition - every tyrant in the history of the world possessed a strong sense of ambition. No, the gospel takes ambition and funnels it with great precision into ordinary and everyday life.
The Context for Ambition
Gospel-centered leaders are ambitious - passionate about the glory of God shining brightly in the everyday places where providence has landed them. In Romans 15, Paul articulates his apostolic calling as an ambition to preach the gospel where it had not yet been proclaimed. While the particularities of our life and calling differ from a first-century Jewish missionary, what we do share in common with him is a God-given desire to see the glory, greatness, goodness and grace of God declared and displayed in our context.
When such ambition is applied to leadership, it shapes the passion needed to turn what’s possible into a vision that inspires people into action. And while one only needs to look at churches across the Western world to see the unique and particular visions God gives to different groups of people, it should not surprise us that underneath our vision statements is a deeply theological foundation. It is not too much to say that our desire for community and mission - however that desire is communicated - is under-girded by a radically God-centered view of life in this world. As Paul reminds the Corinthian church, everything we do ultimately takes place in an effort to glorify God as we show and tell the world that He is all-satisfying and infinitely valuable.
The Ambition of the Gospel
Our vision for ambitious, gospel-centered leadership is far bigger than leadership within the church. This is kingdom work that shapes leadership in every sphere of life - business, medicine, education, service industries, politics, homemaking. Because of the grace we have in common, given to us as broken image-bearers of God, it should not surprise us to find places in the life of our organization where kingdom values are already on display. It is here that the task of ambitious leadership begins, rallying people around a shared vision for a better future that in time can only be explained by and accomplished through the regenerating, renewing, reviving work of the Holy Spirit expressed in the gospel for the fame of King Jesus.
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Matt Adair is the lead pastor of Christ Community Church in Athens, GA, area director for Acts 29 in the state of Georgia, and the U.S. Director for The Porterbrook Network.
Invite & Invest to Make Disciples
As Jesus completes his public ministry and prepares for his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, he spends his final moments with his disciples--teaching them what it means to abide in him and be his disciples on mission in the world. John 14 -15 provides a clear understanding of what it means to abide in Jesus. Based on this text, I use two questions to develop a common language for discipleship within my church community: “Are you abiding in Jesus Christ?” and “Who are you teaching to abide in Jesus Christ?” When we teach others to abide in Christ, we follow a very simple pattern of inviting them into relationship, investing our time and lives in them, and imagining with them what their lives would look like if lived in light of the gospel.
Inviting In John’s gospel, you see a very simple yet profound practice that Jesus employs in order that his mission will continue on after his death and resurrection: the practice of invitation. In John 1:35-51, Jesus extends the invitation to Andrew, Peter, and Phillip by simply calling them to “Come and See” and “Follow Me”. Although these would-be disciples have no idea what is in store for them, they drop what they are doing and begin the journey of learning from Jesus.
If your aim is to make disciples, this practice is essential for you as well. I believe the simple and intentional practice of extending an invitation to another person in order to teach them the truth of Christ and model for them a life in Christ is what is often missing in our attempts to make disciples.
We may talk about making disciples and even hope to make disciples, but until we actually invite someone to become a disciple, we have only a stated value, not a true value.
If you were to invite someone to be a disciple and teach them what it means to abide in Christ, who would it be? Perhaps a struggling couple in your church, a neighbor down the street, an unbelieving co-worker, or even the barista at your local coffee shop? Begin to pray and ask the Holy Spirit to lead you to someone you can disciple--and when He does, extend an invitation.
Investing Jesus spends an inordinate amount of time in John 13-17 alone with his disciples. Since he has completed his public ministry, and since he knows that he will soon be put to death publically, he takes a large amount of his time investing in his disciples.
The practical impact of this text cannot be overlooked. Think about all of the “good” things the Incarnate Son of God could have been doing with his last few moments of “free time”: he could have continued healing the sick, he could have continued calling the masses to faith and repentance, he could have even continued pleading with the Pharisees to turn from their religion and embrace Him as the Messiah. But he doesn’t do any of these things.
Instead, Jesus invests the fading moments of his earthly existence with 11 (Judas has departed) half-hearted disciples--whom he knows will soon abandon him in his greatest time of need. He gives them a symbol of his purifying blood by washing their feet. He models for them a life of service and love. He teaches them how to abide in him.
All of this shows us that if we want to make disciples of Jesus, we must invest our time and lives in a similar fashion.
We must be willing to invite people into our lives even when it is inconvenient.
We give away our time and experiences to others in order that they will grow in their faith in Christ and learn what it looks like to follow Jesus. We invest in others because he invested everything in us! As Paul says,
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:5-8 ESV)
Imagining One key concept that should not be overlooked in John 14-17 is Jesus’ expectation of what his disciples will become after he has departed. In other words, Jesus paints a picture for these disciples about the possibilities that are in store for them if they abide in him. He tells them they will receive the Holy Spirit (14:16, 26), they will be adopted into his family (14:18), they will be one with him and the Father (14:20), they will bear fruit (15:5), they will experience true joy (15:11), persecution (15:18), and a deeper knowledge of the truth (16:12-13), just to name a few!
I believe the most overlooked aspect of teaching someone to abide in Christ is this work of “imagining” a different future for them. Life in Christ is full of joy, freedom, and satisfaction.
Knowing and living out your identity in Christ is the work of discipleship, and this leads to re-creation and renewal in the life of a disciple.
We must show others what this life can look like.
As you teach someone to abide in Christ, point to the great and glorious promises that Jesus gives his disciples. Help them imagine a different reality--one where King Jesus rules over them as the Servant King, extending grace upon grace to his followers. Help them see how this affects their work, their relationships, their marriages, the future of their children, the well-being of their neighborhood and of their city. Show them how a good and gracious God can wash the feet of sinners and rescue them from their own selfish ambition and self-hatred.
Discipleship is giving them a new story, with a new plot, and a new Hero, so that they can see the incomparable alternative to their current way of life.
In order to teach others what it means to abide, we must invite them into our lives, investing our time and experiences in them, and imagine a different future for them. My hope is that these simple steps can assist us all in our calling to make disciples of Jesus, through the power of the gospel.
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Greg "Gib" Gibson (@gibgibson) is an elder and teaching pastor at Living Hope, a church in the suburbs of Memphis, TN. Gib and his wife, Jill have three adorable kids.