Rethinking Baptism

I have always been a believer of credobaptism, or believer’s baptism, specifically that baptism is administered only to those who repent and profess faith in Jesus - His sinless life, His perfect death, and powerful resurrection. Still, this article will not discuss divisions between the paedo (child) and credo (belief) baptism crowds. Instead, we will consider the reasons why someone should be baptized and the importance of it. When growing up and seeking to understand Christianity, I was told many things about baptism and why we administer it within the church. Some of these reasons include:

• It’s a public proclamation of one’s faith.
• It’s an outer sign of an inner change.
• It was performed by Christ, and He commanded that we follow his example.
• It brings a believer into the Christian community.

In the following, we will question some of these concepts and then add something I believe has often been missing from our thoughts on baptism.

Baptism as Public Proclamation Many believe that all baptisms should be performed in public, but it's rarely the general public they desire. Rather, the baptism happens within the church walls where very few non-believers are likely to witness it. What we see more consistently in the Scriptures is not that baptism occurred in public but that it happened immediately after a new believer's repentance and profession of faith. We aren't sure if Scripture is referring to public places or the influence of witnesses (e.g., various believers in households, the eunuch by his chariot, Lydia by the river with other women). The evidence seems to point more to the immediacy of baptism, not the place or those present.   So, while baptism may be a proclamation (as are many other things we do), I’m not sure this expresses the full "why" of baptism.

Baptism as an Outer Sign of an Inner Change Although baptism may be an outer sign, or picture, of salvation, there isn’t a great deal of Scriptural support. We can try and connect some dots between the baptism in water and the baptism of the Spirit shown in Romans 6. But the evidence for an outer sign being the reason for water baptism seems to be lacking. I believe the outer and inner aspects of baptism are interconnected, but as we will see, they are connected in a way that shows baptism as more than a mere outer sign.

Because Jesus Baptized and Commanded Us  I don’t believe this is good enough. As we speak to a postmodern world, the people we seek to disciple won’t believe this is good enough either. Our parents may have conditioned us to do things because they said so, but this isn’t how God usually operates. Our God explains things to us instead of answering, “Because I said so.” There may be times when we do things God calls us to without fully knowing why. However, most of the time God operates as a Father who desires for His children to know the reason why He has a command, not merely, “Do what I say and deal with it.” Because of this, we should ask why Jesus baptized and why he commanded it.

To Bring Someone into the Christian Community I agree with this statement, but I believe baptism to be much fuller than this. If we believe that people should be baptized so they can be in a new community, we're avoiding the argument for why someone should desire this. If we are dealing with God and His ways, baptism has to be larger than a particular culture or time. In this day and age, many believers don’t feel they have to be baptized to be in a community. Most understand, within Protestant circles, that baptism is not an act of salvation. If this is the reason why we are baptized, few will be persuaded. Many may show you the Christian community that they are in without having been baptized. Although they might be kept from some membership rosters, few will care and many might actually be glad that they aren’t considered members - it gets them out of business meetings. Not only that, the eunuch in Acts 8 didn’t return with Philip. He continued in the life and occupation that God had given him. So, maybe this is deeper than a physical community

Why Get Baptized?  Let’s look to the source of Jesus’ command, found in Matthew 28:18-21:

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. “Go, therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Jesus' grand commission involves these elements: seeking His power and presence; going (literally “as one goes along in life”); making disciples; baptizing and teaching.

When questioning baptism and why we are called to do it, we should look directly at this passage and also at Jesus’ baptism found in the gospels.

After being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and lighting on Him, and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased. Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. (Matthew 3:16-4:1)

To those who say, “We get baptized because Jesus did it,” we must ask, “Why was Jesus baptized and how does it relate to our baptism?”

To Show Our New Identity Jesus, from what we gather in the Scriptures, was known as Joseph’s son or the carpenter’s son. Few knew Him to be the coming Messiah or God’s Son (see Matt. 13:55; Mk. 6:3; Lk. 2:25-34). When Jesus came out of the water, God spoke:

This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.

This speaks to a new, revealed identity. I am not saying Jesus wasn’t God’s Son prior to this event, but this is the moment when He is identified as such. This is the fulfillment of Scriptures that spoke of the coming Messiah.

I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You. (Psalm 2:7)

Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations. (Isaiah 42:1)

In a similar way, our baptism makes us new creatures with new identities. Instead of being sons and daughters of Adam, we have become sons and daughters of God. Instead of being servants of this world, we have become servants of the risen King. Instead of being filled with the power of our flesh, being sent to fulfill the kingdom of the world, we are filled with the Spirit and sent to work for the Kingdom of God.

We see this reality as Jesus gives us a new name in Matthew 28. We have a new Father. We have a new King, who is the Son of God. And we now have a new spirit - the Spirit of God whose power abides within us. We are now disciples of Jesus. We are now sons and daughters, servants and sent ones. Baptism reveals this new identity.

Commissioned to Make Disciples with a New Power Notice what else happens at Jesus’ baptism. The Spirit of God descends upon Him. We know that Jesus wasn’t “saved” at this point, nor was Jesus now officially deified (see Jn. 1). But why did the Spirit descend upon Jesus? We should note what happened immediately after this moment. The Spirit led Him to the wilderness. Jesus’ public ministry started. He was now commissioned to make disciples. It was important for Jesus to start by resisting temptation (although He had been doing this in all the years leading up to this point as well), because He wasn’t making disciples of others but of Himself. Part of His ministry was perfection for our sake. He is our perfect high priest. After being led into the wilderness, Luke says this of Christ:

And Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about Him spread through all the surrounding district.

And He began teaching in their synagogues and was praised by all.

And He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up; and as was His custom, He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath, and stood up to read.

And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. 

And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:14-21)

You could say He let the cat out of the bag. Luke starts this passage with, “in the power of the Spirit…” After Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descended and His ministry of making disciples started.

This is what I believe we’ve been missing in our understanding of baptism. When we repent and believe and then are baptized, something miraculous happens. It is not that we are saved, because upon profession of belief we are sealed inwardly by the Spirit (Romans 6; Eph 1:13; 4:10). In baptism, the commission of making disciples under a new name and with a new power is established. Notice the two bookends of Jesus' commission to his disciples: 1) Jesus' authority (Matt. 28:18); 2) Jesus' presence (Matt. 28:20).

Some might ask, “But I know many who make disciples without their being baptized. What are the consequences?” I’m not sure that we’ll ever know the consequences of not understanding this commissioning aspect of baptism. Sometimes these questions cannot reveal the consequences. But it might be better understood if we ask what would happen if the command and deeper truth was realized in that person’s life. What would bring you greater satisfaction: looking at beautiful pictures of Hawaii or stepping foot on the beaches?

Simply put, I believe we should baptize new followers of Jesus because:

• We are commanded.
• Jesus did it.
• It is a proclamation of our new identity.

But I also believe there is a deep connection to the Spirit’s power (because of the authority of Christ) for baptism to commission us to make disciples for our King.

This speaks clearly to why we see every instance of baptism of new disciples happening so quickly after they repent and believe. Those who repent and believe, those who are now followers of Jesus, given a new name, should be baptized to receive the enormous gift given through baptism because in it we are given a new power and a new purpose.

So, yes, we are to be baptized because Jesus was, but if we miss why Jesus was baptized, we miss out on the fullness of following in the ways and purposes of our Redeemer.

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Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife and father of two boys. 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, City Church leader and coach with Soma Communities in Renton, Washington. In his down time, he likes to watch football, cook BBQ, host pancake ebelskiver breakfasts at his home and many other neighborhood events in his hometown of Maple Valley, Washington.

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.

Gospel Centered Parenting

Gospel centered parenting is filled with complexities, mysteries, and endless situations that call for practical advice. As parents, we often get so bogged down in questions of what to do that we lose sight of why we’re doing what we do and how we should do it. My aim here is to take a big picture view of parenting. I will not answer all the questions, but I want to offer a way of thinking about parenting that will help with specific difficulties. The big picture of parenting is the big picture of the Bible because parenting is a depiction of the gospel. Consider the language Scripture uses to describe our relationship to God: Conversion is called being “born again” (John 3:3); our salvation is called an “inheritance” (1 Peter 1:3-4); God disciplines those He loves (Proverbs 3:11-12); we are called “children of God” (John 1:12, 3:1). Our father/child relationship to God is so significant that Sinclair Ferguson says, “This is the fundamental way for the Christian to think about himself: ‘I am a child of God and his people are my brothers and sisters.’” Parenting is a picture of the gospel: to us, to our kids, and to the world around us.

On one hand, this sounds like good news because it roots the everyday, non-stop work of parenting in something big and meaningful. On the other hand, this could be discouraging because we all know that we are imperfect reflections of the gospel. This is an appropriate tension because the gospel is both bad and good news. We are simultaneously doing really well and really poor in our parenting, depending on the day and subject matter. That is our inescapable reality, and nothing speaks to that reality more effectively than the gospel.

THE GOAL OF GOSPEL CENTERED PARENTING

Much of our parenting struggles are about not having the right goal. Every parent wants to raise a good kid, but what is a “good kid”? What shapes our understanding of the stuff that makes a child good … what other people think of them, how well they do in school, how much they obey, how athletic or smart they are? These are all normal desires that parents have for their kids, but to the extent that any of these govern our parenting, they become idols. We bow down to goals of image, performance, control, and the like. We must subject our goals in parenting to God’s goal for parenting. There are probably a number of ways to describe what God desires for our children. I will take my cue from the book of Proverbs: The goal of parenting is to glorify God by raising wise sons and daughters.

“Wisdom” in the Bible characterizes one who loves God and knows how to live life according the priorities and purposes of God. As John Piper counseled the congregation of Bethlehem Baptist, wisdom refers to “practical knowledge of how to attain true and lasting happiness.” The wise person is characterized by humility (Proverbs 11:12) and obedience to God’s commands (Deuteronomy 4:5-6). Piper also insists that wisdom results in a “sensitive, mature judgment or discernment of how the fear of the Lord should work itself out in all the circumstances not specifically dealt with in the Bible.” A good kid, then, is one who is maturing in wisdom, learning to live in submission to God and to His will. This captures what we really want for our children.

The gospel starts with God; so we want to start from a God-centered view of parenting, not a kid-centered or culture-centered view. The primary issue is not how well a kid stacks up to other kids or even to our expectations. God is the issue. Are our children oriented toward God? Do they honor Him? That is the starting point. Everything else follows. Dan Allender writes in How Children Raise Parents: “A parent has only one core task: to reveal God.” How do we do that? Well, God reveals Himself to us in the gospel story of creation, fall, and redemption. Let’s consider how the gospel gives us a framework for parenting.

CREATION: Identity and Purpose

In creation, the man and woman are set apart in distinction above everything else because they are made in the likeness of God. People are created in the image of God, which means we are made to live in unhindered fellowship with God and others, representing and pointing to the glory of God in all we do. We have a hard time imagining how great we are made to be. In Created in God’s Image Anthony Hoekema makes this startling statement: “What we see and hear in Christ is what God intended for us.”

Not only does God create us with this unique identity (image-bearer), He also infuses our lives with purpose by giving us the task of subduing and ruling. God put Adam and Eve in the garden and told them to “work it and take care of it” (Genesis 2:15). The story of creation is the story of God preparing the Earth to become His kingdom, and raising kids is at the center of His plan.

In creation, God reveals Himself as Creator and Ruler, and in Him we understand our identity and purpose. The critical point is that we should have a high view of our children. They bear the image of God and are meant to live on the mission of God. So if the core task of a parent is to reveal God, then we must instill in our children a sense of identity and purpose that befits the children of God.

As a point of practical application: How do you talk about your kids? Do you talk as though their identity is based on their performance or failure? Do you convey that they are a burden, as if their purpose was simply to accommodate your lifestyle? Everyone instills some kind of identity and purpose in their children: a child-centered identity or a child-honoring identity, a life lived for self or for the kingdom of God.

A logical question at this point would be: “If my kids are created in the image of God, then why do they disobey so much?” Well, they disobey so much for the same reason we disobey so much. They are corrupted by sin, which is the next part of the story.

FALL: Leaky Vessels

Before the fall, Adam and Eve knew who they were and what they were made for. There was no doubt or insecurity about these matters. It was not until sin entered the world that they began to fear and doubt. After the fall, they began to feel shame about who they were and experience struggle in their work. Their world unraveled, and all the certainties about God and life were clouded by sin.

Our children are born outside of Eden, and from birth onward they are looking for an identity and purpose. A brief survey of parenting wisdom confirms these core needs. Dan Allender suggests that children are asking two questions: “Am I loved?” and “Can I get my own way?” The first question is obviously tied to identity. The second question – though less obvious – is connected to purpose. Children are leaky vessels that need to be constantly filled-up with the answer to these questions. In Grace Based Parenting, Tim Kimmel identifies our children’s three basic needs as security, significance, and strength. We will explore these basic questions and needs in a moment, but first I want to emphasize that the effects of sin in our children are not merely behavioral. These effects are profoundly linked to identity and purpose.

Through a variety of means, Satan attacks our children at the level of their identity and purpose. If he can get them to believe that they are nothing more than a sinner (a message propagated through much of the evangelical church), then he can render them useless in the mission of God. The modern view of the world and humanity belittles both our identity and purpose. The world is so vast. What importance could we possibly have if all we are is a blip on this little planet, which is nothing more than a spec in the vast universe? The modern view is that we are insignificant. If a child sees his or herself as “just a sinner,” then they probably won’t sense much ownership in the mission of God to establish His kingdom on the Earth. But if our children understand themselves to be God’s children and ambassadors, then they will come alive to the mission of God and have a deep sense of fealty to the king and stewardship of His mission.

Sin has also affected our parenting. We demonstrate our tendencies toward legalism and licentiousness, not only in the way we relate to God, but also in the ways we relate to our children. Regarding licentiousness, Tim Kimmel points out that even Christian parents “erase clear moral boundaries” with their children. He adds, “It’s actually quite easy to become a bit desensitized by the boundary-less culture that we were raised in.” Equally dangerous is legalistic parenting, which moves the boundaries in far tighter than they need be. The following chart outlines some of the errors in legalism and license:

Expectations	Legalism requires external “obedience” but not transformation   of the heart	License “loves” a child so much as she is that it doesn’t   require behavioral change
Communication	Legalism talks a lot about what a child should or should not   be doing, but does not adequately addressing a child’s identity	License talk a lot about identity and is concerned with   self-esteem, but does not adequately speak of the actions that flow from   one’s identity.
Motivation	Legalism fosters a culture of performance and seeks to   motivate children by fear of consequences	License promotes a culture of permissiveness and seeks to   motivate children by self-gratification

Another way of thinking about the ways sin has affected our parenting is to contrast functional and formative parenting. Functional parenting is what we do in spite of what we say we believe. It has a short-term focus of doing what works and getting through the day, whereas formative parenting has long-term goal of raising wise children. In the day-to-day, we settle for much less than the glory of God: we abuse our authority; we value the wrong things; and we don’t adequately address the inner world of our children. All of this is functional parenting.

Functional Parenting	Formative Parenting
Focuses on   behavior (external)	Focuses on the heart (internal)
The goal is   to get a child to act a certain way (behavior modification)	Aims to raise   a child who wants to act that way   (wisdom)
Parental   authority becomes an end in itself (tends toward legalism or license based on   which one will secure proper behavior)	Parental authority   is a means toward the end of harnessing a child’s will and imparting wisdom   through instruction and discipline
Children earn   a parents acceptance through behavior or performance	Acceptance is   unconditional and is the basis of a child’s behavior (not the goal of it).
Disobedience   is the problem, and it must be disciplined.	Disobedience   is a manifestation of the problem, and must be disciplined as a means of   getting to the root of sin

When you read the Bible you see God’s law (behaviors and actions that He wants us to exemplify), but a closer look at the Bible shows us that God’s goal encompasses more than that. It’s not merely external conformity that God wants. He wants His children to become the kind of people who naturally live in accordance to His law. God’s goal for us is that we experience transformation in our mind, heart, and will, which then expresses itself in our behavior.

If we want to raise wise sons and daughters, we must have a long-term vision for forming the internal world of our children (heart, mind, emotions) as the wellspring of their behavior. This is the aim of the next part of the gospel story.

REDEMPTION: The Power of Grace

In redemption, God is renewing all things according to His original plan. God sent Jesus to re-establish the beachhead of His kingdom expansion and to redeem a people through whom He would expand His kingdom on Earth. In Christ, we are adopted into the family of God, wherein we regain our sense of identity as His children. In Christ, we are commissioned to disciple the nations, wherein we regain our sense of purpose. The gospel restores us to the life we were made to live – fellowship with God and work in His kingdom.

Just as God meets our deepest needs in the gospel, we must answer our children’s deepest questions of identity and purpose by embodying the gospel of grace in their lives. To do this, we must experience God’s grace ourselves. God loves us unconditionally. He demonstrates His love by rescuing us even though we are proud and arrogant. He reconciles us even though we are His enemies and grants us ongoing access to His presence even though we continue to struggle with sin. Our experience of grace leads us to ask: Do I show my children unconditional love by moving toward them in their disobedience, embracing them in their sin, and inviting them into relationship with me regardless of their condition?

God restores us to live the life we were meant to live. He prepares good works for us to walk in, gifts us accordingly, and supplies the strength to exercise those gifts. Again, we must ask: Do I empower my children by helping them gain a sense of their gifts and place in this world and even by involving them in my work? Gospel-centered parenting is not legalistic. It begins with love and acceptance. It is not licentious because that love compels us to action. Just as Tim Kimmel has written, “grace does not exclude obedience, respect, boundaries, or discipline, but does determine the climate in which these important parts of parenting are carried out.”

With our restored identity in mind, we provide our children a sense of secure love by accepting them as they are, giving them a sense of belonging in our family, and lavishing our affection on them. With our restored purpose in mind, we provide our children with significance by inviting them into the mission of God, affirming their strengths and gifts, and empowering them to take risks.

Gospel-centered parenting begins with understanding what it means to be a child of God. As we experience His grace toward us in Christ, we reveal God to our children.

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After six years as a missionary to college students at the University of Texas and four years as an associate pastor at Coram Deo church in Omaha, NE, Will Walker followed God’s call to plant Providence Church in the fall of 2010. He currently writes for World Harvest Mission and New Growth Press. Will and his wife, Debbie, are the parents of two boys, Ethan and Holden.

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For more resources on applying the gospel to parenting, check out A Beginner's Guide to Family Worship by Winfield Bevins.

For more free articles on gospel-centered parenting, read: Gospel-Saturated Family Discipleship by Mathew Sims, A Child's Gospel by Ben Connelly, and Discipleship is for Young Parents Too by Melanie Yong

The Gospel for Sinners

I'm a big fan of the gospel-centered movement sweeping America. We're reclaiming the gospel from the hands of legalism. We're denouncing the lie that obedience can earn you God's favor. But we must not accidentally make obedience the unofficial enemy of the gospel. I don't want us to find ourselves explaining away verses that tell us to flee unrighteousness on pain of death. I don't want to wave around the gospel like it's a trump card, offering a free pass from any eternal consequences of sin. The Bible speaks about our salvation as if it’s inextricably linked with our obedience.

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5:21)

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)

Jesus talks about obedience as a condition of salvation, but don’t panic. Christianity is a worldview with tons of conditions, and God meets both sides of the conditions. I’m not talking about a works-based view of the gospel. I’m talking about a gospel-based view of works.

The Seriousness of Sin Don't think me a legalist. I have nothing to gain by elevating obedience. Honestly, I have a lot to lose. I’m probably the most disobedient, hypocritical Christian I know. I hang out in the pig pen most of the day. Jesus comes and picks me up, and as soon as I’m clean, I return to the pen.

But I believe the Word of God, even the parts that are inconvenient and don’t fit with my worldview, even the parts that seemingly condemn me. In the Bible it's clear that sin is a big deal to God. As we disciple one another, we must create a culture where sin is a big deal.

How does the seriousness of sin emphasize (rather than diminish) the grace of the gospel?

The Destructiveness of Sin In the last year, the part of Texas where I live has been ravaged by fires. As a result, our firefighters go nuts if there's even a hint of flames. A fire the size of my hand will be surrounded by 18 fire trucks dousing it with water. People in Texas right now understand that fire kills - whether it’s 3 feet or 3 miles wide.

If you want to create a gospel-centered culture of fighting sin through discipleship, then you have to accept that the potential destructiveness of sin is not determined by its size. Often we think the fight with sin is a fight to keep it under control. We think that as long as we keep our lustful thoughts to ourselves and don’t let them burst out into adultery, we're doing okay, but according to Jesus, lust in our minds is just as deadly as outward adultery. Both can kill just as easily.

We can’t fight the sin inside our hearts, and we certainly can’t help the person we're discipling if we don’t acknowledge that Jesus isn't kidding when he says that thoughts are as deadly as actions. The secret and acceptable sins are terrifyingly deadly. Like a gas leak, they can be killing us slowly and silently while we carry on with our days.

What would change if we believed that all sin was equally deadly? What would be different in our lives if we viewed a lustful thought in the same way as adultery? How would this impact our discipleship conversations?

The Success of Repentance There are days when I wake up and stretch and, for 15 glorious seconds, I forget about all the sin in my past. For 15 wonderful seconds, I forget that every inch of my being is covered with burns. Then I’ll feel the twinge of an old injury, or the sting of a fresh scar, and I’ll remember who I am. I am the worst of sinners.

In my moments of insecurity, that realization makes me afraid. But when I’m truly gospel-centered, it fills me with worship. God defines success and failure a little differently than we do.

Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. (Luke 22:31-32)

Jesus prayed that Peter's faith would not fail. Then Peter walked out the door and denied him. What happened? Did Jesus’ prayer not work?

Both Judas and Peter turned their backs on Jesus at critical moments, but only one of them truly failed. Jesus prayed for Peter’s faith not to falter, and no matter what it looks like to us – Peter’s faith won the day. Repentance is the fruit of Jesus’s prayer for Peter. Repentance is success.

The failure we should fear most is not the failure of external sin, but the failure of an unrepentant heart. The thing we should fear most is not our sin, but our inability to repent for our sin. Our merciful God is willing to do what it takes to lead us to repentance so that our faith will not fail.

The Gospel for Sinners When I first started working for a church, I believed that I had finally 'arrived.' I never would have said it, but a part of me thought I was finally a 'good Christian,' and now I could lead all those other folks who were still struggling. In His great grace, God ordained that my first months in ministry be dedicated to showing me how tremendously sinful I am. I ran smack into sin that shocked me to my core, but God saved me through that sin.

I remember nights of literally lying on the floor face down. I had no strength to stand. There was nothing left in me to give me any hope. I had trashed my righteous resume. In those moments, the gospel came alive. I realized just how desperately I needed Christ's resume. I needed the good news of the gospel.  Not the kind of good news that makes us smile. The kind of good news that enables us to breathe and sob and dance and dream and live. The kind of good news that leads us to true repentance.

God saved me through my sin. In John Owen’s book, Overcoming Sin and Temptation he says this: "Here is one, if he could be rid of this lust I should never hear of him more; let him wrestle with this, or he is lost."

God ordains that we walk through sin in our lives because He's not willing to let our faith fail. He lets our sin lead us to true success: repentance.

Why is it hard for us to believe that sin might be a means of perseverance? If you believed that success was repentance, what would change in the way you worked through sin with yourself and those you disciple?

Disciples Need a Savior Our sin goes deeper than we can imagine. Maturity in a believer isn’t having less sin; it’s seeing our sin more clearly. The more we mature in Christ, the more we can see our sin, and the more we can understand our need for a Savior. The gospel was made for sinners. The blood of Christ is made to heal the scars of our failures - not just past injuries but also the present.

The people who love the blood of Jesus are those disciples who know how desperately they need it. Jesus is our only hope. When we judge the sins of others, it's because we don't have eyes to recognize the target demographic for the gospel. Jesus came for the sick.

We cover our self-righteousness with proclamations of gratitude. We praise God that He hasn’t made us screw-ups all the while missing the glaringly obvious fact that we are worse than screw-ups.

Jesus told this story: two men went to church. One thanked God that he wasn't an adulterer or a thief like those 'big' sinners. The other couldn't even lift up his head to heaven. He just said to God, 'be merciful to me, a sinner.' Only one of the two was justified by the blood of Jesus.

May God in His great grace reveal our own sin to us that we may better see the power of the gospel.

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Fabienne Harford lives in Austin, Texas, where she serves on staff at The Austin Stone Community Church. You can find more thoughts from Fabs at fabsharford.com

Video: Justin Taylor interviews Jonathan Dodson about his New Book

In this video Justin Taylor interviews Jonathan Dodson about his new book Gospel-Centered Discipleship. Jonathan responds to questions such as: What is discipleship? What is gospel-centered? Where have you failed in disciple-making? Justin Taylor is vice president of book publishing and an associate publisher at Crossway. He has edited and contributed to several books, including A God-Entranced Vision of All Things and blogs at "Between Two Worlds," hosted by the Gospel Coalition.

Jonathan Dodson is the lead pastor of Austin City Life church and provides directional leadership in several organizations including PlantR, The GCM Collective, Gospel Centered Discipleship.com. He recently published Gospel-Centered Discipleship with Crossway.

Questions Asked During the Interview 0:10 – What do you want GCD to accomplish?

2:31 – What does it mean to be a disciple?

5:08 – So many people are using the term “gospel-centered” that it can seem like a buzz word or a fad. Why did you choose to use this phrase in the title of your book?

7:44 – Looking back at the last ten years of discipling others, how has your disciple-making changed? Where did you drop the ball?

11:35 – How are “Fight Clubs” different from the typical accountability partner or accountability group?

14:50 – Justin Taylor: “I had a hard time putting the book down, and I hope other people not only pick it up but read it and then apply it.”

Preview Gospel-Centered Discipleship

• Download free Holy Spirit chapter
• GCD Book Discussion Guide
• Also available at Crossway & Christian Book.com

Replacing the Center of Youth Ministry

To truly disciple is to realign our affections - and those of the person we're discipling - to a greater Person. Unfortunately, many youth ministries do not focus on making disciples or the heart change of their young people. Instead, behavior modification, moral change, or intellectual assent are often emphasized. This method of enacting change will never bring about true, joy-filled change. It will merely adhere to dutiful rules and regulations. Our hearts and minds must desire something of greater worth. We need something that moves beyond and replaces the previous holder of our affections - something of supreme meaning and power. Thomas Chalmers puts it this way in The Expulsive Power of a New Affection: "We must address to the eye of his mind another object, with charm powerful enough to dispossess the first of its influence, and to engage him in some other prosecution as full of interest, and hope and congenial activity, as the former." (Emphasis mine) In other words, the Christ of gospel must replace the thing that holds the place of highest esteem and honor in the hearts, minds, and the eyes of those who we disciple.

Replacing Our Affections If we do not replace these objects of highest affection with the Gospel, Chalmers says, we're in essence putting our young disciples through torture. We're removing their greatest joy and pleasure, their deepest happiness - the very thing that makes them who they are. We're stripping them of their identity and replacing it with a new “nothingness.” It’s no wonder our disciples struggle. The Jesus we preach is not worth replacing any of the desires of our hearers' hearts. The Jesus we preach is more like a guidance counselor than a Savior; more like a baseball coach than their Lord; more like a friend than a conquering King.

The Jesus we preach is not the Jesus of the Bible. The Jesus we preach may be great for saving us from the fires of hell, but He most defiantly will cause us to live a hell here on earth because He is not something that can fill our affections. This is not to say that the true Jesus cannot fill these voids, it’s that the Jesus we preach of cannot fill these voids. The Jesus we preach is a moralistic therapeutic Jesus. He is a Jesus for the future not for the present. He is not a Jesus that cares about our lives, our parent’s divorce, our grades, or our basketball team. All He worries about is how good we are, or if we're looking the part. It’s no wonder students don’t want to follow this Jesus.

Securing Our Affections We must not point our youth toward empty religion but to a love-filled cross, a beaten and battered Savior, a King who defeated His foe, a risen Lord who rescues our hearts. To the one who beckons us, “Come, rest, and be accepted not because of what you have done but because I love you.” The cross secures our affections to the one who was placed on it. All other affections will fail us. The cross and resurrection are not only the focal point of all of human history, they're the only lasting thing that can eternally hold our affections. Because of this, the cross is the one and only place where we can point our young disciples that will replace their highest wordly affections. Only a true view of what Jesus has done will cause a student to, in the words of Paul, “Count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Phil. 3.8). Because of His life, His death, and His resurrection, we can turn our eyes toward ultimate worth.

Ultimate Truths For too many of us we simply do not have a big enough view of what Jesus can - and has - done. Because of this disbelief in the power of the Gospel we have moved away from pointing our hearers to Jesus, the Gospel and a big God. Youth need to know three ultimate truths are central to affection-stirring discipleship:

1.  Jesus The Jesus we teach, preach, and worship matters. Sadly, we teach a Jesus who is more concerned about our happiness than his glory - a Jesus who wants you to have your best life here and now. This thinking and teaching is not true. Yes, Jesus did come to give us joy and hope. He even came to guide us, much like a guidance-counselor. But many times what Jesus has called us to do is the exact opposite of what is comfortable, easy, or fun in our own eyes.

2. The Gospel Once we understand Jesus, our view of the Gospel needs an overhaul. We have relegated the central truth of the Scriptures to “a one and done” deal and removed the power from the Gospel by preaching it merely as the mechanism for salvation. The Gospel calls us to more then just intellectual knowledge that Jesus died in our place. It calls for allegiance to the King. An allegiance that brings about change in the world through the power of the Gospel (Rom. 1.16; Col.1.6).

Once students grasp the centrality of the Gospel to Christian life, they will no longer be tossed to and fro by every movement, thought, or idea that is thrown at them. No, they will have affections that are firmly rooted in the only place that can bring them lasting joy. This is something worth living for.

3. Big God A clearer understanding of Jesus and his Gospel leads us to a clearer understanding of God. We must teach students about our BIG GOD - a God who is bigger then their parents' divorce, their friends' suicide, their failed relationships, or the wars in the world. We need to teach a sovereign, all powerful God. A theologically correct view of God, who is all-powerful and all-knowing. This God is worthy of our very best. He gave His very best, Jesus His only son. When the God that we teach is better, more powerful, more glorious than what they see here on earth, then and only then can they endure the trials and sufferings of this world. When they lose what they have here on earth, they have only lost something of temporal joy and pleasure that pales in comparison to their God.

We must set our hope on Jesus who will lead us to denounce all other things upon which we have, or could, place value. Is the Jesus you're pointing your disciples to worth giving one’s life for? Or are you calling them to an empty hope, events, or moral change? Nothing truly changes until the object of our affections have been replaced with a big God, in the person of Jesus, through the hope of the gospel.

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Josh Cousineau was a youth pastor for over 5 years and is now the lead pastor of Redemption Hill Community, which launched in Auburn ME in 2012. Josh is married to his high school sweetheart, Anna. They have 3 amazing children (2 boys and 1 girl). Their daughter was adopted from Uganda in 2011.  Josh blogs at http://joshcousineau.com

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.

The Gospel Frees Us to Be Ourselves (&Free Stuff)

Gospel-Centered Discipleship is a mix of gospel theology, personal story, and discipleship practice…and I think it works! My wife has been making fun of me all week because I’ve been sitting around the house reading my own book (making noises while I read). Weird, I know, but there really is something to stepping back from a staggered, creative process and taking in the whole for the very first time.

Jesus Frees Us to Be Ourselves

The gospel frees me to enjoy reading my own book, provided I don’t enjoy it inordinately. It frees all of us to be authentic ourselves in Jesus (a theme I discuss in chapter 3). Upon conversion, Jesus does not replace us with an otherworldly version of ourselves. Instead, he renews our existing self, which is why all Christians should not look the same. Jesus didn’t die to make hyper-religious versions of our former selves. Rather, he rose to renew our existing selves with resurrection life. Jesus wakes us up from the dead, so to speak, so that we can truly live the way he made us to be. The gospel injects our personality and gifting with steroid-like grace. The more we take it in, the more our true selves are liberated to live a whole life wholly under the reign of Jesus.

Integrating Divided Things in Discipleship

Living a whole life wholly by faith in Jesus Christ as Lord is integrated discipleship (chapter 1). When the gospel is central in life, it integrates things that we typically keep divided in Christianity. Holiness and mission, worship and vocation, church and craft come together when our faith is in Jesus Christ as Lord. (This does not mean that everything should be explicitly Christian.) As Lord, Jesus reigns over every sphere of life, calling disciples to honor him with everything, not just “spiritual” things. As Christ, he forgives us for our every failure in any sphere of life, and calls us to press on in a very public obedience. The gospel does not permit an inauthentic division between “work” life and “church” life because it reminds us that Jesus is Lord over all of life.

This means that things like writing, music making, art, business, mothering, crafting, sports, teaching, technology, and product creation can take on a more meaningful role in our discipleship. Faith in Jesus does not mean we should abandon the things we love to do. As disciples, we don’t have to make excuses for the things we love; rather, we get to run them through grace in the service of God. We learn how to worship with them not without them (nor should we worship them). The gospel also teaches us to take our faith out of what we love, and from our faith in his love, use what we love for Him. This should not translate into cheap, Christian art or proselytizing instead of working. Rather, it should motivate art and work that stands out, reminiscent of the excellence and beauty of Christ.

If it is true that Jesus is Lord of all creation, and that he has made us for a very public obedience and devotion in every sphere of life, then disciples should be among some of the most vibrant, creative, excelling, joyful people in the world.

FREE Gospel-Centered Discipleship Stuff

• Check out the Table of Contents and preview book
• Download free Holy Spirit chapter
• GCD Book Discussion Guide

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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He 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.

Discipling the Disillusioned

They are lingering around the margins of our ministries. Some of them have been shoved from the pews to the periphery, but most of them have withdrawn on their own. Cynics.

Disillusioned with the people of God and often with God himself, these jaded souls are licking their ecclesial wounds while lobbing criticisms from a safe distance. Haunting the fringes and taunting those in the center, their audacity in asking the hard questions threatens to spread skepticism. It would be easier if the cynics would just step back into line and slip back into the pew. It would be easier if they would just repent of the gloomy naysaying and try some cheery optimism. Maybe it would be even easier if they just fled the fringes and left the church altogether.

But we need them. Desperately.

The church is in dire need of the disillusioned. Pop-theology and idealistic slogans are rife among God’s people today. But as a society committed to truth, the church can harbor no illusory notions about God or itself. Dis-illusionment is the dispersal of illusions. Those whose rose-colored glasses have been crushed under the foot of grim realities are powerful resources in an age of spin and empty promises. Cynics have powerful insights the church needs.

What we do not need, of course, is their cynicism.

So how do we embrace the cynics and not their disposition? How do we disciple the disillusioned? Reports abound that disenfranchised young people are leaving the church en masse. The future of the church hinges on whether or not we can engage and minister to the cynics hovering dangerously close to the edges of the church. Here are some suggestions.

Show Compassion The dispersal of illusions is often painful. Truth hurts. The caricature of cynics above may capture our perspective toward them, but it fails to comprehend that a great deal of jarring pain may have landed cynics on the church fringes in the first place. Legions of us are harboring deep wounds from severe disappointments in regard to our faith. The pastor had an affair. The church split. The small group leaked our confession. Even more painful are the wounds that seem to be inflicted by God himself. The miracle never came. He refused to heal our loved one. He seemed content to permit tragedy. He hid himself in our grief. Some cynics delight in being ornery irritants in the church. But so many of them—so many of us—have had our hopes brutally dashed and we are simply wounded souls. When the spiritual wounds begin to fester, the brokenness turns to bitterness.

For healing to come, cynics need compassion more than they need ostracism that reinforces their assumptions about church-folk.  Not the drippy sort of compassion that looks more like self-righteous pity—cynics can smell this from a long way off. The sort of compassion required is a sincere concern seeped in the sobering awareness of another’s pain.

Debunk Idealism The reason many of us are disillusioned is because we espouse happy ideals about our faith which are simply incompatible with ex-Eden reality. We make all sorts of promises and platitudes that are not only unsustainable in a fallen world but contrary to the worldview found in Scripture. Powerful hopes are certainly found in those holy pages, astonishing hopes that seem too good to be true. But there is an eschatological sensibility to the bold promises of the Bible. God is certainly working wonders in the here and now. He rips open seas for the deliverance of his people. He heals and restores to life. But the prophets, Evangelists and apostles encourage us to orient our hopes toward the future. That future has been displaced a bit, parts of it taking place in the present through the work of Christ (see below), but the grim realities of a sin-wrecked realm still abound. To ignore those realities is to promote a faith on sand which will eventually shift and sink.

Lament Worship befitting a holy people amidst a sinful world includes lament. Injured souls cannot sing in a major key. So when we ask with a big smile that the congregation stand to sing some cheerful tune, we instantly marginalize the hurting among us. When the worship selections are upbeat and full of merry optimism, the inadvertent messages are that the church cannot accommodate pain, that the church is the last place you turn if you have problems. Even worse—when worship is always happy, the messages are that God himself wants nothing to do with our suffering, that God is the last person we turn to in distress.

Lament poetry makes up roughly a third of the Psalter. Right in the middle of our Bibles are the gut-wrenching pleas, the bellowing cries, and the haunting groans of the disillusioned. These laments make up the largest genre of psalms in the worship book of Israel.

Weeping can be worship.

The lament songs give voice to the jaded and disenchanted, conveying that God is indeed the one to whom we turn when our souls are shredded to pieces. The wounds of a cynic cannot heal on the margins. But the cynic will not march back into the pews to a soundtrack of perky praise music. When we recover the worship of lament, we will offer downcast souls biblically sanctioned language suitable for addressing God in their frustration and misery.

Preach a God of Biblical Proportions “God will never give you more than you can handle.” This theological sentiment has almost become sloganized. But say it to Job while you pat him on the back and see what he says in response. Tell it to Paul and his companions while they endured that mysterious affliction in Asia and felt “so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor 1:8).

Cynics have been failed by shallow, sentimentalized pop-theology. When God does not live up to our expectations, we feel betrayed. But maybe the betrayal is sourced in the church’s proclamation of false expectations.

An idealized God is an idolized god.

But when we are presented with the mystifying God of Scripture, all the theological categories are rocked. The theological boxes are exploded. In a theology of biblical proportions we encounter a God dense enough and high enough to mystify and astound, but also to comfort and console. Such a theology presents a King both lowly and exalted, a Deity both tender and terrifying, a cosmic Lord in whom nails were found. No other vision of God will do for those who have faced harsh realities for which their limited theology failed to suffice.

Proclaim Resurrection  Rather than idealism or cynicism, our call is to “hopeful realism.” This is a perspective that acknowledges and grieves ex-Eden miseries while recognizing and awaiting Eden’s restoration. As we have noted, God will make all things new and restore paradise (Rev 21-22). But the Resurrection of Jesus signifies that new creation has already begun. When Jesus climbed out of his tomb, a cosmic interruption took place. New life from the Age to Come leapt into the present sphere. And that Resurrection power infuses our own existence (Rom 6:4). The empty tomb of Jesus is a hole in the system, the system of Death, the system of all that makes us cynical. Hopeful realism groans in the suffering of this present age, but rejoices in the inevitable collapse of sin’s power. Resurrection makes cynicism obsolete.

Truth hurts…but it also heals. Disillusionment is actually a gift that leads to new life. Can our churches and ministries accommodate the dispersal of illusions and the resulting new life? Can we welcome redeemed cynics into our midst and gladly heed their insights? The future of the church in the Western world may indeed depend on whether or not we can answer such questions in the affirmative. An exodus is underway, and it is leading in the wrong direction…

This article is adapted from Andrew Byers's book, Faith Without Illusions: Following Jesus as a Cynic-Saint.

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After a decade of pastoral ministry, Andrew Byers is working on a PhD in New Testament at Durham University (England).  He is the author of Faith Without Illusions: Following Jesus as a Cynic-Saint (IVP) and his blog is Hopeful Realism. 

8 Ways to Fight Consumerism

Whether you are part of a new church plant or an existing church, here are a few things to bear in mind as you make disciples in the midst of consumerism: 1. Consumerism only exists where it’s allowed to exist. So, to change people’s orientation from going to church to consume a presentation or program to becoming a part of a people who give their lives for the gospel, you must begin by removing things they don’t need. It’s actually a theological impossibility to “go to Church,” so begin changing the paradigm with language and stop referring to your Sunday gathering as “Church.”  Start by only using the word “church” for the people, or activities that take place during the week. Change your weekend lingo to reflect what you actually do on Sunday. Maybe call it “Teaching time/The gathering/seminar.” Of course, the best way to root out consumerism is at the heart level, to replace our consumer identity with a servant identity. Acting as rescued servants of Christ, not demanding consumers, comes by turning away from self-centered demands and turning to Christ-centered, church-blessing service.

2. Begin the non-consumer paradigm by changing your own role from doer of ministry to equipper of the saints to do ministry. The only reason anyone should get paid for ministry is if they equip others to do the actual work. So if your role right now is teaching on Sunday, start pulling together your best potential teachers either of small groups or missional communities and start a monthly “teaching training.” If your role is shepherd or pastor, start a monthly shepherding training. There’s always more bang for the buck when you spend your time developing leaders instead of developing messages or programs.

3. Deliberately spend 50% less time on your own sermon as a starting point. That should immediately give you an extra 10 hours a week to work with leaders.

4. Move from nebulous ministry time coaching ministry relationships. View every appointment as a means to an end. The end is that they will do the work of ministry. Have a plan of basic coaching questions for each meeting. For example: What is on your heart to do? What is hindering you from doing this work of ministry? How can I help you overcome these obstacles? What is the one thing you can do this week to move forward? As you view your role as a coach/consultant/ and connector of people, you’ll immediately begin decentralizing ministry to people who are desperate to find their place in God’s kingdom calling.

5. Move from maintaining present ministries to modeling new forms of missional leadership. There’s no easy way to say it; missional leaders must lead by example. You don’t have to be the best at cultural engagement, evangelistic relationship, service to the poor, but you must be in the fight so that your life can inspire others. Just as your people have to work a full-time job and then learn to give an evening a week or a few hours on the weekend to missional community, you must do the same. If you have to, begin redrafting your own job description to free up space.

6. Consider part-time salaries instead of full time pay. Most of the jobs we traditionally pay full time salaries for can easily be done in half the time. So only pay for equippers. This includes you!

7. Consider outsourcing basic functions like “set up/tear down/nursery/financial services.” We often spend more than we need to on services that don’t directly relate to ministry.

8. If you’re going to pay staff, only pay and staff to your greatest need. Most churches can actually find people who have a passion and gifting to teach or lead worship, or work with kids without any financial remuneration at all. If you don’t pay for these roles, it may open up financial space for people and ministry ventures outside the church. Many missional churches now staff “community developers,” “business for mission” ventures, and other outside the box roles. Ask yourself, "What would be good news to my community and if we were to be good news," and "What types of people and roles do we really need?" Have the courage to put money into speculative ventures that bless the culture around you instead of just propping up the same ol’ roles that haven’t been producing fruit for years.

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Hugh Halter is the national director of Missio and pastor of Adullam in Denver Colorado. You can find out more about Hugh at his blog or follow his thoughts on Twitter. His previous writings includeThe Tangible Kingdom, And: The Gathered and Scattered Church, and The Tangible Kingdom Primer (Workbook).

Meditating on God's Word - Reading and Prayer

This article is part of the ongoing series Meditating on God's Word. How should you fill your mind with God’s Word? What are the ways in which we should “let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly?” If you are going to become a student and lover of God’s Word and the God of the Word, then you need to plan to answer some specific questions. What are you going to read and pray through in the Word? What book or passage are you going to study in detail? What biblical sermons or talks will you listen to? What do you want to memorize? When and where will you read, study, listen and memorize?

The exercise of meditating on Scripture is like the other disciplines. If you think they will come without any planning and intentionality, you’re wrong.

If you don’t have a plan, chances are, you will meditate on Scripture sporadically. You will look back on your year and realize you’ve consumed very little Scripture, as opposed to a lot of other stuff from the culture.

Meditate on the Word by Reading It Obviously, the first place to start for meditating on the Word is by reading it. Sadly, few Christians actually seek God for daily spiritual bread. A recent survey reported that more people remember the ingredients on America's favorite burger than remember the Ten Commandments. Kelton Research conducted a poll of 1,000 people to determine basic knowledge of the Ten Commandments. Eighty percent of those polled knew that a Big Mac had two all-beef patties and sixty-two percent knew that it had pickles! But less than fifty percent could remember even seven of the Ten Commandments. Other statistics show depressing reports about how Christians neglect God’s Word. But surely these would do better if they were in a Bible-teaching church, right? Not necessarily. One incredible Bible-preacher surveyed his congregation about their daily Bible reading practice and he said it was one of the most discouraging discoveries of his ministry. He wanted to quit.

Meanwhile, there are others who are literally dying for the Bible. When I went to Nigeria for the first time, we gave away reading glasses and Bibles. It was amazing to see these dear people so overjoyed with their own copy of the Bible. Their church services were long and filled with many readings of Scripture. In other parts of the world, the same hunger is happening. A friend of mine was asked to teach a group of pastors in a house church. After going through Nehemiah, they said, “That’s great. Can you teach the whole Old Testament?” To which he said, “That will take some time.” They said, “Ok.” For the next week he proceeded to teach for six hours a day to pastors who walked, rode their bikes significant distances. They were eager to know God’s Word. It is a privilege to have a copy of God’s Word.

Augustine said, “Where Scripture speaks, God speaks.” If we believed this, then maybe we wouldn’t mind sitting under God’s Word for six hours either through hearing or reading.

There are many ways to read through the Bible and I’m not trying to create a legalistic form for you. Many people can’t read at all. Fortunately, there are other ways to fill your mind with the Word (and the essential thing is just that, filling your mind with God’s Word). I’m concerned with people meditating on the Word, not with a prescribed method for doing it. But I’ll share a few ideas.

I’m currently reading through a chronological Bible reading plan. It consists of two or three chapters per day. I usually begin my morning here. Other plans that I’ve used include reading five Psalms a day and one Proverb per day. This takes you through the Psalms and Proverbs once per month. You may then consider also reading a portion of the Old and New Testaments with your Psalms and Proverbs reading. Some prefer to pick a book and read it each day for a month. There are a variety of ways to read the Bible, but just make sure you’re filling your mind with the Bible. You might consider one of the plans mentioned here. All of God’s Word is important.

“You can never have a Christian mind without reading the Scriptures because you cannot be profoundly influenced by that which you do not know.”[1]

Meditate on the Word by Praying It Jesus makes a relationship between abiding in his Word and prayer. He says:

If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. (John 15:7)

When we read the Word, we hear from the Savior. When we pray, we communicate back to him. Praying back the Word of Christ should be natural.

Why is it good to pray the Scriptures? Praying the Scriptures will help you pray in God’s will. As the Word abides in you, then you can ask whatever you wish – and whatever you wish should be in close alignment with God’s purposes if his Word is truly abiding in you. When you read the Scriptures about particular virtues and values, pray them for your children, family and church. When you read verses about God’s global mission, pray for God to use you and your church among the peoples for Christ’s namesake.

Praying the Word will also keep your prayer life from being routine. Have you ever heard the guy that prays the exact same way before every single meal or before taking up the offering? Do you ever feel like you are just repeating the same things yourself? Does prayer feel cold and lifeless? I suggest that you take your daily reading plan and pray it. I love praying the Proverbs for my kids. Here, I come across many things that I probably would not have thought to pray otherwise.

Praying the Word will also keep your Bible reading from becoming routine, as well. People sometimes ask, “How do you spend an hour with God?” You would be surprised how quickly an hour goes by when you are reading and praying. Your reading time will be energized as you pray as you read.

Pray for God to open your eyes to behold his truth and then pray these truths for yourself and others that God may write them on your heart.

[1] R. Kent Hughes, Disciplines of a Godly Man, rev. ed. (Wheaton: Crossway, 2001), 77.

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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.

7 Reasons People Don't Meditate on God's Word

This article is part of the ongoing series Meditating on God's Word. 1. Pride will keep you from God's Word Many arrogantly go through a given day without thought of reading God’s Word. They act as though they have no need for the Bible and are sufficient in and of themselves. However, the person for whom God is looking is one with a humble dependency on his Word. Consider Isaiah’s words:

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

God looks favorably to the one who places himself or herself under God’s Word daily.

Even the simple act of opening the Bible in the morning, before you leave for your daily labor, is a humble expression that you need God.

2. A misguided fear will keep you from God’s Word I’ve met some who are intimidated by God’s Word, thinking only the clergy and professional ministers can get it. Let me encourage you with the doctrine of “The Clarity of Scripture.” This is the belief that God gave his Word to be understood by all God’s people. Interpretive principles are important. Scholarship has a place. But make no mistake, Scripture claims that it is written for the “simple” everyday Christian (See Ps. 19:7; 119:130). Have you ever considered that Paul wrote a letter like Romans to “laypeople,” not seminarians? He expected farmers, blacksmiths, tentmakers, shopkeepers, mothers, and other Christians to understand his letter. God’s people can understand God’s Word if they approach it with a heart of humility, seeking to obey it. Theologian, Wayne Grudem says, “No believer should think himself or herself too foolish to read Scripture and understand it sufficiently to be made wise by it.”[1]

3. A lack of understanding as to how you should study the Bible will keep you from God’s Word At the end of this series, I want to help resolve this problem, giving you some practical steps in meditating and studying the Scriptures.

4. A belief that the Bible is boring will keep you from God’s Word Perhaps you’ve used this excuse, or heard this excuse. Maybe it has grown out of experiences with boring worship services or boring preachers. But still, the fault is not with the Bible. The reason I had no desire for Scripture prior to conversion was my heart was hardened. The problem was never with the Bible. The problem was with me.

Sometimes people come up to me and say things like, “You really know how to make the Bible come alive in your teaching?” I know what they mean. They are trying to encourage me, usually. But one day I want to say, “Alive? I didn’t know the Bible was dead! In fact, I didn’t even know it was sick!”[2] God’s Word is living and active (Heb. 4:12).

If you think the Bible is boring, let me encourage you to do the following:

1. Test yourself to see if you are truly born again (1 Peter 2:1-3).
2. Test your lifestyle to see if you are addicted to entertainment to the point that you can’t slow down enough to read quietly and meditatively. If so, unplug for a season and read.
3. Consider selecting a fresh reading plan and study plan. Ask a pastor or a mature Christian for some good study resources to recommend.
4. Pray hard for the Spirit to illuminate God’s Word so that it burns in your heart (Luke 24:32).

5. Busyness will keep you from God’s Word Of course, this is not a good excuse, but it’s all too common. Part of the exercise of meditating on Scripture is making time. One must plan to spend unhurried and unhindered time with God.

No one oozes into Christ-likeness. You don’t accidentally become a student of Scripture. Prioritize sitting at the feet of Jesus like Mary, who chose what was best (Luke 10:38-42).

Whenever someone presents this problem of busyness to me, or if I feel myself trying to use this excuse, I’m reminded of a particular cartoon. An overweight man is looking at the doctor who is obviously hearing from the patient that “he’s too busy to exercise.” To which the doctor responds, “What fits your busy schedule, exercising one hour a day or being dead twenty-four hours a day!?” We will prioritize things that matter.

6. Laziness will keep you from God’s Word R.C. Sproul says, “We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy.”[3] Like the “sluggard” in Proverbs who refused to go outside because “there’s a lion in the road” (Prov. 26:3), we often make bogus excuses as a cover for our indolence.

7. Unbelief in the value of Scripture will keep you from God’s Word Indeed, a fundamental problem is that many don’t value Scripture and believe its own claims about its potency. What would happen if we really believed that the Bible was “more valuable than gold” (Ps. 19:10)? What if someone would give you one hundred dollars for every verse you memorized? Would that motivate you? And yet, the Scripture itself is more valuable than any earthly treasure.

Consider the powerful benefits of Scripture:

• The Psalmist declared that God’s Word brings revival, wisdom, joy, understanding, warning, reward, cleansing, purity, and guidance (Ps. 19; 119:9-11, Ps. 119:105).
• Jeremiah claimed that God’s Word brings joy and assurance (Jer. 15:16), along with brokenness and humility (Jer. 23:29).
• Jesus explained to the disciples on the Road to Emmaus that God’s Word points to Him, and their hearts burned as he taught them (Luke 24:27).
• Jesus prayed that his followers would be sanctified by God’s Word, which is truth (John 17:17).
• Paul affirmed that faith comes by hearing from God’s Word (Rom 10:17).
• Paul told Timothy that the Scriptures were sufficient enough to produce wisdom for salvation; content for instruction and reproof, and the necessary equipment for ministry (2 Tim 3:14-17).
• The author of Hebrews stated the Scripture searches the soul and examines the heart (Heb 4:12).
• The Apostles declare that the Word creates spiritual life, that is new birth (Jas. 1:21; 1 Pet 1:22-25)
• Peter added that Scripture produces spiritual maturity (1 Pet 2:1-2).

[1] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 116. [2] This response is mentioned in R.C. Sproul’s Knowing Scripture, 14-15. [3] Ibid., 17.

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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.

Meditation: Letting the Word Dwell in You Richly

This article is part of the ongoing series Meditating on God's Word. Conversion is about turning from our idols to the Living God (1 Thess. 1:9). The Living God graciously gives us a new heart for him and his living Word. In other words, our desires change when we become Christians. Peter says that when new birth happens we begin to crave Scripture like a baby craves milk (1 Pet. 1:22-2:2).

So, we don’t “have to read Scripture.” We get to read Scripture. We want to read Scripture. No one should tell me, “You have to kiss your wife, don’t you?” No. I get to. I love her.

I didn’t always crave Scripture because I didn’t become a Christ-follower until I was in college. Before that time, I had no desire for the Word. I remember leaving for college and listening to my mom saying, “Take your Bible with you.” I replied, “Why?” She said, “You might read it one day.” But I didn’t open that Bible until I was a sophomore when God radically changed my life. Soon after, I purchased a massive study Bible, and began reading the Bible like crazy. Prior to this, I had a reading problem. I couldn’t remember anything I read in books. I was getting tutored in reading! But when I became a Christian, everything changed. I couldn’t get enough of the Word. I believed in its power. God gave me the ability to retain what I read and began transforming my mind. I even wrote on the outside edges of my Bible, “It’s alive!” And it is. If we are going to have a living faith, then we need to consume the living Word.

The appropriate place for us to begin a study on how a Christian grows up, then, is by considering how to develop the discipline of meditating on the Word of Christ. Surely Donald Whitney is correct in saying, “No spiritual discipline is more important than the intake of God’s Word.”[1]

In this article, I’m going to refer to “meditating on Scripture” broadly. Later, I will talk about “meditation” in a specific sense. But for now, think of meditating on Scripture as a way to describe the act of thinking on God’s Word – through exercises such as reading it, praying it, studying it, hearing it, and memorizing it.[2]

To say it another way, meditation on Scripture is the act of filling your mind with the Word of God. In contrast to some Eastern religions, where meditation is about emptying your mind, Christian meditation is about filling the mind with divine truth.

The need for meditating on Scripture is communicated in a number of places in Scripture. Paul urged the Colossians, “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col. 3:16). That is, live in the Word like it’s your spiritual house. Abide in it. Let it saturate your soul. Let it affect you through and through.

Jesus says a similar thing with the vine and branches analogy in John 15. He tells his disciples to “abide in the vine” or “abide in him” because apart from union and communion with him they (and we) can produce no spiritual fruit. But Jesus never tells us how to “abide” specifically. But I think he gives us a clue in verse 7, where he says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you” (emphasis added). D.A. Carson says, Jesus is “getting at the same truth,” that is, we commune with Jesus by abiding in his words.[3] Abiding in Jesus entails a growing absorption of his teaching, which leads to fruitful living. Carson says, “Such words must so lodge in the disciple’s mind and heart that conformity to Christ, obedience to Christ, is the most natural thing in the world.”[4]

The belief that you need to meditate on the Word of Christ continually stems from some important theological convictions. A primary conviction is that the Word and Spirit are the primary means God uses to shape us into the image of Christ. This is the belief often called “The Sufficiency of Scripture.” God uses his Word to “equip us” or “complete us” for “every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17). At times his Word comforts us, at other times it instructs us, and often it rebukes us and corrects us. All of these encounters with God’s Word are good for us. God disciplines those whom he loves in order to make them like Jesus, and his instrument for shaping us is his Word.

Another conviction is referred to as, “The Necessity of Scripture.” This the belief that we need the Word of God for knowledge of the Gospel, for spiritual health and certain knowledge of God’s will.[5]

While people may know that God exists through conscious and creation generally, we need the written Word of God to show us what God requires, and to teach us how to know the Gospel and grow in Christ specifically.

We have been given such a gift in the Word of God! Like the people of Israel in the Exodus wanderings, we need to collect manna every morning because we do not live by “bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” (Matt. 4:4; see also Deut. 8:2-3). But if the Bible is indeed the inspired, sufficient, necessary Word of God, then why don’t people pursue Scripture with more passion? More personally, why don’t you crave God’s Word? Why don’t I?

In Part Two of this series, I will mention some “pits, thorn hedges and man traps” we must avoid and overcome.

[1] Donald S. Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (Colorado Springs: Navpress, 1991), 28. [2] In chapter 4, I will discuss the need to meditate on God’s Word by discussing it with others in Gospel-centered fellowship. [3] Jesus’ “words” refers to his teachings, which taken all-together makes up his “Word.” [4] D.A. Carson, The Gospel According to John. The Pillar Commentary Series (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 517. [5] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 116.

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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.

Confession is the New Innocence

Men have died, countries have gone to war, and marriages have been destroyed because of the human aversion to admitting our own error and sin. The act of confessing is humiliating. It threatens self, exposing it to the one who hears the confession, and makes agreement with the “enemy” that the unfavorable ideas about us are actually true. This tears at the very walls of self, threatening to shake it to the foundation. How many times have you seen a politician avoid confession for fear of losing a position, or a parent resist confession for fear of looking weak in a child’s eyes? The resistance to confession promises to protect us, to keep up the charade, to help us maintain our power and our image.

Confession is a dangerous thing to a life built on the goodness, rightness, and excellence of self. Without confession of guilt there is no innocence for the sinner. That means confession is a requirement for us all.

Confession Precedes Forgiveness First John 1:9 clearly states that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” The two things go together. Confession precedes forgiveness, just as our first confession precedes our salvation. As it says in Romans 10:10, “For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” So our confession leads to our salvation. Confession is of ultimate importance in the life of faith. In fact, without it there is no faith. Only those who fail to confess their sin miss out on the grace and forgiveness of God.

Our resistance to confession does two things: it keeps us from the forgiveness our sins need, and it also calls God a liar because to fail to confess is to say “I have not sinned.” And “if we say we have not sinned, we make him [God] a liar, and his word is not in us” (1 John 1:10). He says, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

If this is the case, then how is confession not a daily part of our lives, from sunup to sundown? Surely if our sin requires confession, then each day must have its own time of confession.

But confession isn’t much talked about in the modern church, meaning the body of believers, beyond the confession of salvation and confession of crimes prosecutable in a court of law. Why do you suppose that is? What is our fear in the area of confession? Could it be all that it requires of man? Of the confessor it requires certain humility, embarrassment, and shame, especially when sin is confessed to or in the presence of another human being. The pain of failure and shame can be overwhelming. Just getting the words out can feel like death. So is it any wonder that we all avoid the act of confession as much as we do?

The Anatomy of Confession What is confession, exactly? Is it simply saying, “I’m sorry”? Confession of the biblical sort is the act of verbalizing not only error and remorse but also truth. When we confess our sin we admit that we were wrong and that God was right. We admit our weakness and his strength, and we admit that we agree with God.

Confession isn’t a general statement like, “I’m sorry I was a jerk,” or “I’m sorry if I hurt you.” Confession gets specific. Thomas Watson puts this idea more poetically when he says, “A child of God will confess sin in particular; an unsound Christian will confess sin by wholesale—he will acknowledge that he is a sinner in general.” So proper confession calls out the sins we committed and not just the pain we inflicted. When we are honest and specific about sin, then we make agreement with God and confession is made.

Confession is best done instantly. Why wouldn’t it be? The sooner you can confess, the sooner you find your innocence.

As Thomas à Kempis didst say, “Spit out the poison with all speed, hasten to take the remedy, and thou shalt feel thyself better than if thou didst long defer it.”

Confession, like submission, is best done immediately.

In the life of the Christian there are two kinds of confession. There is the confession that we make to God regarding our guilt and need for his forgiveness. This is the saving kind of confession, the kind that saves us from our guilt and makes us innocent. And then there is the confession that we make to man regarding our guilt and our need for healing. In James 5:16 this kind of confession is explained: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” So confession both provides for our forgiveness and our healing.

Confess to God First, let’s look at the confession we make to God for the forgiveness of our sins. The Bible is filled with God’s words about confession and forgiveness. In fact, the entire book exists for this purpose, to provide the sinner the forgiveness through Christ that is needed for eternal life. It’s no wonder that confession is talked about so much throughout the Bible.

And certainly our confession, when heard by man, reveals not only a fellow sinner who understands our own struggles, but God’s redeeming power in the life of that sinner. Your confession, when made and then redeemed by the forgiving power of the blood of Jesus, allows onlookers to see God at work and to get firsthand proof that he does heal our diseases and take away our sins (Ps. 103:3).

Another beauty of confession is the power that gets behind it. 1 John 2:1–2 reveals that when you confess, you don’t do it alone, but Christ confesses with you as an advocate for you and your forgiveness. We are promised that “if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” So our confession is not done alone or in our own strength, but with the power of Christ himself.

Confession leads to peace. There is nothing more nagging than our feelings of guilt. Guilt can haunt. But unconfessed guilt can also lead to turmoil of a more physical kind. Family problems, enemies, interpersonal relationships are greatly strained by the presence of unconfessed sin.

God wants your confession; he wants you to acknowledge your guilt and in the words of Hosea 5:15 to earnestly seek his face. Confession breeds earnestness. It reminds us not only of our rejection of God, but also of our need for him and his amazing grace.

God’s grace takes away the guilt of man in exchange for the innocence of Christ. It’s his exchanging his death for our life, and our willingness to offer up our death for the life that he lives in us. Those who die young confess this truth eagerly, “I am nothing and you are everything.” This confession repeats the words of Ephesians 2:8–9 and allows us to breathe a sigh of relief. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” In this kind of economy of faith, confession is the new innocence because of the grace that rewards it.

Confess to Man Now let’s look at the confession we make to man that leads to healing. Isn’t it interesting that God provides confession not only as an avenue for the protection of our humility, but also as an avenue for healing? And this healing isn’t only the healing of physical and emotional pain, but of spiritual pain as well. God’s best exists for the believers in community in relationship to one another (Gen. 2:18).

Community is a part of who God is as seen in the Trinity. So life for believers is best lived in community, and one of the blessings of community is the gift of confession and prayer that we can share with one another. As we confess our sins to each other, we share God’s forgiveness with each other in a tangible, audible, maybe even tactile way that reminds our souls how true it is. God allows for our need for human interaction and assurance that God is who he says he is, and that forgiveness is available for all, in spite of what the world might say about our sinfulness.

But in our failure to confess to one another, many of us retreat to the comfort of confessing to a God we cannot see.

As much as we don’t like admitting we were wrong, it is somehow easier to say that to God than to man. Many times our confessions to God might be more statements we make to ourselves about being better next time and thankfulness that God is forgiving. They might never get to the heart of a confession that states the sin and accepts the responsibility for it. But in the presence of another human being we are less likely to be unsure of our confession. As we confess to another we are forced to come face-to-face with the ugliness of our sin and to voice our guilt as a semipublic testimony of our imperfectness and his perfect trustworthiness.

On the heels of confession comes the prayer of those believers who heard it. They are standing in the gap, praying for our healing from the crippling pain of sin and its effects on our bodies. Not that all suffering is caused by sin in our lives, but God promises to relieve our suffering as we confess our sin. It might not be the sin that we confess that caused our pain, but our feelings about the pain, our resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, worry, or doubt need confession.

No matter the case, confession of our sins and the transparency and authenticity that it brings is healthy for the soul and for the community. Your confession allows another person not only to have insight into their own sin but also to have the grace of God on that sin as well.

This is an excerpt adapted from Hayley and Michael DiMarco's book, Die Young: Burying Yourself in Christ.

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Hayley and Michael DiMarco are the best-selling authors of a combined total of over 30 books, including God Girl, God Guy, Dateable, Cupidity, and B4UD8. Their Nashville-based company, Hungry Planet, is focused on producing books that combine hard-hitting biblical truth with cutting-edge design.

What to Say When Someone Says "The Bible Has Errors"

Most people question the reliability of the Bible. You’ve probably been in a conversation with a friend or met someone in a coffee shop who said: “How can you be a Christian when the Bible has so many errors?” How should we respond? What do you say? Instead of asking them to name an error, I suggest you name one or two of them. Does your Bible contain errors? Yes. The Bible that most people possess is a translation of the Greek and Hebrew copies of copies of the original documents of Scripture. As you can imagine, errors have crept in over the centuries of copying. Scribes fall asleep, misspell, take their eyes off the manuscript, and so on. I recommend telling people what kind of errors have crept into the Bible. Starting with the New Testament, Dan Wallace, New Testament scholar and founder of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts, lists four types of errors in Understanding Scripture: An Overview of the Bible’s Origin, Reliability, and Meaning.

Types of Errors 1) Spelling & Nonsense Errors. These are errors that occur when a scribe wrote a word that makes no sense in its context, usually because they were tired or took their eyes off the page. Some of these errors are quite comical, such as “we were horses among you” (Gk. hippoi, “horses,” instead of ēpioi, “gentle,” or nēpioi, “little children”) in 1 Thessalonians 2:7 in one late manuscript. Obviously, Paul isn’t saying he acted like a horse among them. That would be self-injury! These kinds of errors are easily corrected.

2) Minor Changes. These minor changes are as small as the presence or absence of an article “the” or changed word order, which can vary considerably in Greek. Depending on the sentence, Greek grammar allows the sentence to be written up to 18 times, while still saying the same thing! So just because a sentence wasn’t copied in the same order, doesn’t mean that we lost the meaning.

3) Meaningful but not Plausible. These errors have meaning but aren’t a plausible reflection of the original text. For example, 1 Thessalonians 2:9, instead of “the gospel of God” (the reading of almost all the manuscripts), a late medieval copy has “the gospel of Christ.” There is a meaning difference between God and Christ, but the overall manuscript evidence points clearly in one direction, making the error plain and not plausibly part of the original.

4) Meaningful and Plausible. These are errors that have meaning and that the alternate reading is plausible as a reflection of the original wording. These types of errors account for less than 1% of all variants and typically involve a single word or phrase. The biggest of these types of errors is the ending of the Gospel of Mark, which most contemporary scholars do not regard as original. Our translations even footnote that!

Is the Bible Reliable? So, is the Bible reliable? Well, the reliability of our English translations depends largely upon the quality of the manuscripts they were translated from. The quality depends, in part, on how recent the manuscripts are. Scholars like Bart Ehrman have asserted that we don’t have manuscripts that are early enough. However, the manuscript evidence is quite impressive:

• There are as many as eighteen second-century manuscripts. If the Gospels were completed between 50-100 A.D., then this means that these early copies are within 100 years. Just recently, Dan Wallace announced that a new fragment from the Gospel of Mark was discovered dating back to the first century A.D., placing it well within 50 years of the originals, a first of its kind. When these early manuscripts are all put together, more than 43% of the NT is accounted for from copies no later than the 2^nd C.

• Manuscripts that date before 400 AD number 99, including one complete New Testament called Codex Sinaiticus. So the gap between the original, inerrant autographs and the earliest manuscripts is pretty slim. This comes into focus when the Bible is compared to other classical works that, in general, are not doubted for their reliability. In this chart of comparison with other ancient literature, you can see that the NT has far more copies than any other work, numbering 5,700 (Greek) in comparison to the 200+ of Suetonius. If we take all manuscripts into account (handwritten prior to printing press), we have 20,000 copies of the NT. There are only 200 copies of the earliest Greek work.

• This means if we are going to be skeptical about the Bible, then we need to be 100xs more skeptical about the works of Greco-Roman history. Or put another way, we can be 100 times more confident about the reliability of the Bible. It is far and away the most reliable ancient document.

What to Say When Someone Says “The Bible Has Errors” So, when someone asserts that the Bible has errors, we can reply by saying: “Yes, our Bible translations do have errors, let me tell you about them. But as you can see, less than 1% of them are meaningful and those errors don’t affect the major teachings of the Christian faith. In fact, there are 100 times more manuscripts of the Bible than the most documented Greco-Roman historian by Suetonius. So, if we’re going to be skeptical about ancient books, we should be 1000 times more skeptical of the Greco-Roman histories. The Bible is, in fact, incredibly reliable.”Contrary to popular assertion, that as time rolls on we get further and further away from the original with each new discovery, we actually get closer and closer to the original text. As Wallace puts it, we have “an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the biblical documents.” Therefore, we can be confident that what we read in our modern translations of the the ancient texts is approximately 99% accurate. It is very reliable.

For Further Study (order easy to difficult):

• My sermon & manuscript “Is the Bible Inerrant?”
• Can I Trust the Bible? (free preview)
• Understanding Scripture: An Overview of the Bible’s Origin, Reliability, and Meaning
• The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible
• Text of the New Testament

This post originally appeared at www.jonathandodson.org

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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He 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.

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.

We Need Five Disciplers Not One

Why do you think more and more people in the United States no longer identify themselves as Christians (see this ARIS Study)? 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 in the church? While there are no simple answers 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 also as communities of God’s people. We need to be more like Jesus as a body. More and more people are beginning to recognize that the most significant measurement of success needs to move beyond how many people come to a church service to how many mature missional disciples are living in the world for the sake of the world.

So how can the church become a faithful sign, a rich foretaste and powerful instrument bringing more of heaven to earth?

A passage that I have been reflecting on for the last 12 years has much to offer us. The Apostle Paul when writing to the church at Ephesus says, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:11-13).

For Paul, the maturity of the body is directly linked to the five different equippers living out their ministry in the body. Under the inspiration of the Spirit, Paul is letting us know that if we hope to have mature disciples we must be willing to recognize, receive and nourish each of the five equippers that Christ has given the church. For as the equippers incarnate their lives and ministries within the body, the whole body will be aroused and awakened to live out their sacred potential, and the body will grow in faith, hope and love.

Part of what this means is that our approach to discipleship must involve a communal dimension. We must include, but also go beyond the individualistic one-on-one approach to discipleship if we hope to develop mature missional disciples and communities. We need to let Paul’s wisdom guide us as we think about how to approach discipleship in such a way that the community become mature disciples.

This means we need to understand how each of the equippers uniquely disciple the congregation, so that we can identify and cultivate equippers in both our missional communities and congregation as a whole.

So what are the distinct ways that each of the equippers disciple missional communities and the church? What kinds of practices might they encourage the congregation to engage in, so that the community will reflect the full character and ministry of Christ?

Apostles as Dream Awakeners The apostles, who I have nicknamed dream awakeners, equip people to discover and live out their calling, in the world for the sake of the world. They help to cultivate a discipleship ethos and call people to participate in advancing God’s kingdom. They help individuals and communities live out the answer to Jesus’ prayer, “May your kingdom come, and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Mt 6:10). Dream awakeners disciple people by helping them discover their primal passions, skills and gifts, and match them to needs in the church and the neighborhood. Apostles encourage people to engage in the thick practices of disciple-making and Sabbath. Sabbath is key because as we take time to be still, we are more likely to hear the call of God on our lives, amidst the many other voices that compete for our attention.

Prophets as Heart Revealers Prophets, who I have nicknamed heart revealers, seek to help people walk with God. Through their actions and words they reveal the heart of God and the heart of the congregation. They help the community live out God’s new social order and stand with the poor and oppressed. They train disciples to grow in sensitivity to the Spirit as well as develop hearts for those that the society and/or the church have branded as outcasts. Heart revealers help people become conscious of God through silence, solitude, prayer and fasting, and they help people to be devoted to the breaking of bread where the community remembers Christ’s death, celebrates his resurrection and lives as a resurrected community.

Evangelists as Story Tellers Evangelists, or whom I call story tellers, equip the congregation to incarnate the good news in the neighborhood. They equip the congregation to proclaim the good news by being witnesses and being redemptive agents, redeeming the various spheres of society. Evangelists disciple people by helping them turn their “secular” jobs into sacred callings. They encourage and equip people to practice hospitality in all its depth. They also help people engage in sharing the good news of God’s grace in such a way that the focus is more on transformation than decision; to share the good news in a way that not only talks about the after-life, but the missional life; and in a way that people see the individual, communal and cosmic implications of the gospel.

Pastors as Soul Healers Pastors, or whom I call soul healers, equip the congregation to pursue wholeness in the context of community. They help the congregation embody reconciliation and live emotionally healthy lives. Soul healers create a healing environment where people can take off their masks and be real. They help to create a family environment where people not only pray together, but play together. They disciple people by helping them engage in habits that refresh them physically, recharge them emotionally and renew them spiritually. They encourage people to engage in the thick practices of confession and peacemaking. They help people practice confessing both their failures and victories.

Teachers as Light Givers Teachers, or whom I call light givers, equip the congregation to inhabit the sacred text. They encourage people to immerse themselves in Scripture as well as live faithfully to the story of God and the God of the story. They disciple people by helping them approach the word of God as a voice to be heard and not just a book to be read. They equip people to approach the scripture for transformation, not just information. They encourage people to regularly participate in sacred assemblies, including weekly gatherings, regional gatherings, national conferences and international assemblies. They help people engage in future-oriented living, where they partner with God to bring his future into the present.

As we examine some of the ways that the equippers uniquely equip and disciple the body, we better understand why Paul strongly links the five equippers to the maturity of the church.

Until we understand, identify and nourish the various equippers that Christ has given the church, we are likely to have immature churches that are tossed back and forth by the latest spiritual craze.

But when we release the equippers to incarnate their lives and ministries in the church together, then the entire church will awaken to use their gifts in such a way that the whole body builds itself up in love and the church rises to her sacred potential, living as if Christ were living in them.

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JR Woodward is a dream awakener and co-founder of Kairos Los Angeles, a network of neighborhood churches in the Los Angeles area. He serves on the board for the Ecclesia Network and GCM. He has a Master of Arts in Global Leadership from Fuller Theological Seminary and will be pursuing a PhD in Europe. JR enjoys coaching and consulting with a number of churches and church planters. He blogs @jrwoodward.net and tweets @dreamawakener. He recently finished writing Creating a Missional Culture: Equipping the Church for the Sake of the World, with InterVarsity Press, which is due to be released this summer (2012). 

The Image Conscious Disciple

As a wayward college student, I needed a cause more noble than piety, and a beauty more breathtaking than any woman could offer. I needed to fight for the nobility of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, and to be ravished with the image of his glory shining in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:6). Although I was unaware of it, I was fighting for an image that was far from noble and breathtaking. Image Consciousness We are all concerned about our images. We are image conscious. Hipsters work hard to look like they don’t care about image. Professionals work equally hard to look like they do care about image. We all project our values through the way we present ourselves. In writing this book, I am tempted to make writing decisions that reflect an intellectual image, instead of writing in a way that will best serve you. We all face the temptation to project false images of ourselves because we find the real image inadequate. This is easily done with social media. Our online image is often different from our offline image. With our Facebook statuses, we can project how we want others to see us, not who we truly are. Blog posts can be shrouded in airs of intellectualism, edginess, or humility.

If we are honest, our real image is nowhere near as attractive as we want it to be. We want to be more beautiful, more successful, more creative, more virtuous, more popular, and more intelligent than we actually are. We all have an image problem. The problem, however, is not that we lack beauty, success, creativity, virtue, popularity, or intelligence. The problem is that we believe the lie that says obtaining those images will actually make us happy. Believing the lie, we fight rigorously to obtain (or retain) our images of choice.

Only after we realize our tendency to build our identity on things that are untrue and unreliable, can we begin to sink our identity into what is truly reliable. 

We discipline ourselves to lose weight, climb the vocational ladder, learn new techniques, make moral decisions, or strive to be in the know, all to gain the images we so desperately want. We fight and scrap to obtain our desired perception. Why? Because we believe that being perceived a certain way will make us truly happy. We fight with whatever it takes—money, time, sacrifice, overworking, and the occasional white lie. In doing so, we believe a lie. We express faith in what is false. We rely on the unreliable. Only after we realize our tendency to build our identity on things that are untrue and unreliable, can we begin to sink our identity into what is truly reliable. Nobility and beauty travel along the lines of truth. If none of the images above truly satisfy, what kind of image should we be striving for? What offers true beauty and a truly noble cause?

God Wants Us to Have a Better Image  Christianity is about image. It affirms that we were created in God’s image (Gen. 1:26–28), disfigured in our fall with Adam (Rom. 5:12–21), and are in desperate need of renewal. This image constitutes our essential dignity as human beings. It is an imprint of the Creator’s divine nature, which includes our abil- ity to rule and relate. Apart from the redeeming work of God to restore our image, we rule and relate in very distorted ways. We rule over instead of for one another, and we relate out of a distorted sense of what will truly make us happy. As a result, we treat God and others with contempt and disregard.

This gospel knowledge corrects our vision so that we not only behold but also become the image of the glory of God in Christ.

The good news is that God wants to restore our image in Christ (2 Cor. 3:18; Col. 3:10). God wants to give us a better image. He promises a restored image in Jesus, who is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). He holds up the image of Jesus as most glorious, and through the gospel, opens our eyes to his never-ending beauty (2 Cor. 4:6). Only by looking to Jesus can our disfigured image be restored and our contemptuous disregard forgiven. When we look away from ourselves and into the face of Christ, we behold “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). This gospel knowledge corrects our vision so that we not only behold but also become the image of the glory of God in Christ. True nobility and beauty converge in the image of Jesus.

Becoming What We Behold Everyone should be image conscious, but we need the gospel to change our image of choice. How, then, does our actual image change? It is a fundamental truth that we become what we behold.3 Children become like their parents; interns become like their mentors. If we behold the beauty of Christ, we become beautiful like Christ.While it is true that our first glance into the face of Christ restores our image (Rom. 5:1–3; 8:29–30), it is also true that we drift back into fashioning our own distorted image.We slip into our own distorted forms of masculinity and femininity. The gospel calls us back to look at Jesus over and over again.

A disciple of Jesus is a person who so looks at Jesus that he or she actually begins to reflect his beauty in everyday life. 

A disciple of Jesus is a person who so looks at Jesus that he or she actually begins to reflect his beauty in everyday life. The gospel gives us the eyes to see Jesus as well as the power to look like him. It changes us into the image of his glory: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.” (2 Cor. 3:18). This transformative vision comes from the presence and power of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17–18), who we will discuss at length in chapter five. For now, suffice it to say that gospel-centered disciples rely on the Spirit, who focuses our hearts’ attention on Jesus, where beholding results in becoming like him. This is a goal worth fighting for.

The gospel also offers the hope of final transformation. One day our dusty image of Adam will be transformed entirely into the heavenly image of Christ: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor. 15:49).This transformation, however, does not come without a struggle. Any image takes hard work, and in the words of J. P. Moreland, “Grace is opposed to earning not to effort.” If we are to enjoy the breathtaking beauty of Jesus, we must put effort into the noble fight of faith.

This is adapted from Jonathan Dodson's forthcoming book, Gospel-Centered Discipleship (Crossway, March, 2012).

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Jonathan K. Dodson (MDiv; ThM, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) serves as a pastor of Austin City Life in Austin, Texas. He 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.