Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: IVP
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
Many church leaders, yearning for church growth, look to the latest evangelistic strategies or seeker-targeted worship services. But lack of growth might not be due to lack of concern for new people—it may be because we are not effectively discipling the people we already have. Greg Ogden address the need for discipleship in the local church and recovers Jesus' method of accomplishing life change by investing in just a few people at a time. Ogden sets forth his vision for transforming both the individual disciple and discipleship itself, showing how discipleship can become a self-replicating process with ongoing impact from generation to generation.This revised and updated edition includes a new chapter on discipleship and preaching.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 387
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
REVISED AND EXPANDED
To all those I have had the privilege of doing “life together” with in the journey of discipleship in a microgroup over the last thirty years. You have enriched and blessed my life.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
A Story of Transformation
I admit I stumbled onto a discovery, yet it has become one of the most amazing ahas of my pastoral ministry. This discovery was the result of an experiment. I had written a first draft of a discipleship curriculum, which turned into the final project for my doctor of ministry degree.1 The focus of the project was to use this curriculum in the local church and then to evaluate its effectiveness. Up to this point in my ministry I had equated making disciples with a one-to-one relationship. After all, wasn’t the Paul–Timothy model the definition of discipling? The point was to grow a disciple who would make a disciple, and so on.
My adviser in the doctoral program suggested that I consider a variety of contexts in which I could test the curriculum and then track the varied dynamics of a discipling relationship. One of the options I chose was to invite two other people to join me on the journey to maturity in Christ. I did not anticipate the potency that would be unleashed in what I have come to call a microgroup (a group of three or four).
It would forever change my understanding of the means the Holy Spirit uses to transform people into Christ’s image.
Eric’s Story of Transformation
To illustrate the power of microgroups, let me tell the story of Eric’s transformation. Eric was one of my first two recruits on this discipleship adventure. He had approached me stating his interest in a mentoring relationship. In retrospect Eric’s spiritual ambivalence at the time may not have made him the best candidate for an intensive investment. He was just two years out of college. Looking like a fashion model who had walked straight out of the pages of a men’s clothing catalog, Eric was the envy of his male friends. Because of his chiseled good looks, attracting women was either the least of his problems or his greatest temptation, depending how you look at it. He was making more money than he had ever dreamed possible with a promising future with his new company. All of this was quite alluring to him.
Along with the world’s enticement, Eric also had a strong pull toward following Christ. It was a matter of who would win this tug of war—Jesus or the world. I mentioned to Eric that I had written a new curriculum and was eager to have some people try it. I made sure he knew that to be involved in this relationship would require an intense investment: a topical study of Scripture and its application to daily life, memorization of Bible verses, and weekly transparent interaction with me and one other person. The bar was set high, yet Eric said he was willing to give it a go.
A restaurant located equidistant between our workplaces became the locale where we were joined by Karl, who at the time was an administrator of an engineering firm. Over lunch we laid our open Bibles and study materials on the restaurant table and proceeded to interact over the content. Immediately, I was impressed by the energetic interchange in our conversation. Something about adding a third party to one-on-one discussions made our conversation come alive. Even though I was the only pastor among the three, I didn’t sense that I had to be the focal point or the ever-flowing fountain of wisdom. Our relationship turned into peer discipling in which each of us could honestly share our insights into the Word and its application to our life settings.
Eric was quite open about his divided heart. The enticement of a life of comfort and serial female relationships seemed inviting. He told us about making eye contact with an attractive female motorist while driving through Los Angeles traffic. The next thing he knew, they had pulled off on a side street to exchange phone numbers. Karl and I listened to the story with more than a bit of envy, without any comparable stories to tell. Yet we also understood how seductive sexual power could be for Eric. It was creating a fissure in his heart.
Still, Eric could not get away from the magnetic appeal of Jesus Christ. There was something about the power of the person of Jesus and the life of adventure he has called us to that would not allow Eric to shake him off. In our second lesson we explored Jesus’ normative standard for all who would follow him. Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (Luke 9:23-24). Eric was faced with the same choice Moses posed to the people of Israel: “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. . . . Choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:15, 19).
It was not too many weeks into our time together that Eric announced he was going to quit his job and see the world. He wanted to take the better part of a year for a freelance exploration of this planet. In his young, carefree and unattached years he desired to do what he might not be able to do later when more responsibilities would weigh on him. He reasoned that he could always get a job when he returned, but this stage of his life would come only once. This decision precipitated some forthright interchange. It was evident that Eric was drifting into a life of self-absorption. Searching for a way to speak to his wanderlust, I said, “Eric, at least consider taking a month or two of this time to invest somewhere in a mission opportunity. Pause long enough to immerse yourself in God’s work in your travels and rub shoulders with some amazing servants of Christ who are giving themselves away for the sake of the gospel.”
I don’t remember the exact sequence of events or steps in the shift, but before I knew it, Eric decided to abandon his vagabond plans. The shift of focus was startling and dramatic. He signed on for a summer mission opportunity with Campus Crusade for Christ (now CRU) in Hungary and Poland. This was prior to the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. I have often reflected on the power of being able to speak a word of truth or challenge into a life. If we had not had the regularity of relationship and the trust that had been built in those few months, I doubt that Eric would have had a context in which to hear a confrontative word that had the potential to redirect his life.
When Eric returned that summer from his adventures, he was transformed. His divided heart had become singularly subsumed under the lordship of Jesus. Eric regaled us with stories of sharing the gospel on the lakeside beaches of Hungary and stealthy forays into Poland. People were hungry for the good news, and he saw Jesus Christ grab hold of and redirect lives, not the least of which was his own.
Upon his return Eric immediately joined the Campus Crusade staff with the intent of taking business people into the Eastern-bloc countries in order to crack open their hearts to the work of the life-changing gospel in these barricaded regions. At the same time he reconnected with a high school sweetheart, who also was a passionate follower of Jesus. It seemed only a matter of months before they were engaged and Betsy was ready to join Eric on staff with Campus Crusade. These two lit up rooms with their radiant joy in service to Christ and their love for each other. They honored me by asking me to perform their wedding in Portland, Oregon, alongside Betsy’s pastor.
A number of weeks prior to the wedding, Eric was experiencing debilitating back pain, which he assumed was caused by a recent motorcycle accident. Even with physical therapy, however, he was showing no improvement. On the Monday prior to their Saturday wedding, the source of the back pain was discovered. A tumor was pressing against Eric’s spine. Testicular cancer had spread to multiple parts of his body. The prognosis was not good. He was admitted to the hospital that same day and began a heavy regimen of chemotherapy.
Of course, Eric and Betsy had some immediate decisions to make. Would the wedding proceed? Yes, Eric and Betsy’s spirits were undaunted. Where should the wedding be held? This called for a quick change of venue. The church wedding was replaced by the hospital chapel, which could hold a standing-room-only crowd. The scene could have been something out of a made-for-TV movie designed to manipulate emotions. But this was real life. Eric’s hospital bed was rolled into the chapel with Eric propped up at an almost ninety-degree angle. The bed covers came up to his waist, with his upper torso appropriately dressed in his tuxedo. Betsy, his bride, stood bedside, holding Eric’s hand in her right hand and her bouquet in the left. The wedding party flanked the bed on either side. There is usually considerable anticipation at weddings, but rarely is the air as thick with lump-in-the-throat emotions as it was in this packed chapel. Now three decades after this event, I have no trouble remembering the thickness in my windpipe and the struggle to focus on my notes through my misty eyes.
In the ensuing months the chemotherapy took a toll on this handsome man. On his better days Eric was able to travel. I still have vivid images of him walking into our Southern California church with his knit cap covering his billiard-ball head, and looking gaunt. Yet his spirit was undaunted. He radiated the indwelling presence of Jesus Christ. I knew that this was a man living the words of the apostle Paul, “So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16).
When things took a turn for the worse and Eric had to go back into the hospital for further treatments, I flew to Portland to visit him. As I was walking toward Eric’s hospital room, some of his buddies from high school were exiting. These young men, who could normally make light of anything, were unusually sullen. One of them said to me, “You know what Eric said? He said this cancer is the best thing that ever happened to him. Can you believe that?” Eric obviously would have preferred it otherwise, but he had come to cast his entire hope upon Jesus Christ, and his Lord and Lover had not let him down.
In a note to me, Eric said of his discoveries,
God is helping me grow closer to him. It [the cancer] has made me realize whom I have to depend on. And I have seen through these experiences that when I do call upon God that he really helps in his way. It may not mean that he will relieve the pain or that he will cure the cancer immediately. It may mean that I die, or live . . . that does not matter. What is important is that I keep my eyes on him.
One morning a doctor came in when Betsy was with me and said, “I want to tell you the X-rays are not very encouraging. You may want to consider getting things in order and stopping treatment.” This was the first time it occurred to me that I might die. I might not live through this.
It really caused me to reassess what I am placing my faith in. Am I placing my faith in the doctors and drugs, or am I placing my faith in God? If I am placing my faith in God, I have the assurance that he will deliver me out of the situation I am in. . . . It may not mean that he will cure the cancer or that I will survive. . . . But that is not what is important. It goes back to keeping my eyes on him.
On April 25, 1986, seven months after his marriage to Betsy, Eric died at the age of twenty-five. Here was a man who in a short time went from ambivalence about following Jesus Christ to wholehearted trust and devotion.
Our Journey of Transformation
I introduce this book with Eric’s story because in essence the change in Eric is what this book is about—the process and context for transformation into Christlikeness. What I stumbled into with Eric and Karl opened up for me an exploratory journey into the optimum settings and ingredients necessary to create the conditions for being conformed to the image of Christ. Since this initial experience I have witnessed repeatedly the power of microgroups. They provide the setting to bring together the necessary elements for transformation or growth to maturity in Christ. What have I observed in this setting?
Multiplication or reproduction: empowering those who are discipled to disciple others
Intimate relationships: developing deep trust as the soil for life change
Accountability: lovingly speaking truth into another’s life
Incorporation of the biblical message: covering the themes of Scripture sequentially to create a holistic picture of the Christian life
Spiritual disciplines: practicing the habits that lead to intimacy with Christ and service to others
This book will introduce to you a missing tool in the arsenal of disciple making that will lead to life-transforming experiences such as Eric’s. For three decades I have had at least one microgroup as a part of my weekly schedule. Never do I feel more fulfilled as a pastor than when I am sharing my life with two or three others who are on an intentional journey to maturity in Christ. Seeing these same partners empowered to disciple others so that multiple generations of Christians are firmly rooted and reproduce is about as good as it gets!
I am excited about the discoveries that lie ahead for you. In the ensuing pages you will learn a simple, reproducible approach to making disciples. This approach is grounded in the biblical model of Jesus and Paul, who intentionally grew followers into responsible, reproducing disciples and disciple makers.
In chapters one and two we will examine the urgency of this issue. Bill Hull has prophetically written, “The crisis at the heart of the church is a crisis of product.”2Disciple making, discipleship and discipling are hot topics today, because we see such a great need for this focus in our churches. A sign of the felt need for intentional disciple making was the response that occurred the first time I co-taught a course titled “Growing a Disciple-Making Congregation.” Usually it takes some time for new classes to catch on, because students don’t want to be lab rats in new course development. Students usually wait to hear from others how it went. Not so with this class. We had one of our largest classes during my tenure as director of this program. Why? There is an evident discipleship deficit in our churches and ministries that we know needs to be addressed, but we are not sure how to do so.
Chapter one examines the symptoms of the discipleship deficit, while chapter two will attempt to unearth the root causes of these symptoms. The intent of this rather sobering discussion is not to air the church’s dirty laundry or condemn Christian leaders. Who needs more self-flagellation? Yet the first step toward recovering Jesus’ mission statement for the church, “Go and make disciples,” is to evaluate the scope of the need. A sober assessment of the gap between Jesus’ stated end and our practice will define the cost for completing the task. The first two chapters provide tools for you to assess the symptoms and causes of the discipleship deficit in your church or ministry.
In chapters three through five we will explore Jesus’ and Paul’s approaches to making disciples as a guide for our disciple making. In spite of highly readable and insightful works on Jesus’ and Paul’s strategies of growing followers, Christian leaders do not seem to translate this into workable ministry practice.3 In all of my teaching through seminars and courses on making disciples Jesus’ way, I still sense that a small percentage of pastors and church leaders emulate Jesus’ and Paul’s models. So it is worth asking again, how did transformation take place in those who traveled with Jesus and Paul on their itinerant ministries? Jesus staked the future of his ministry on his investment in a few. Do we do the same? Why did Jesus choose the Twelve and spend so much time with them? If we were to follow this model, what would it look like? Today, we can name those who were trainees and partners in Paul’s ministry. What does this say about the way we should carry out our ministry? When we can make evident connections between the scriptural models and our ministry practice, the people of God get the picture in a powerful way.
Once the biblical model of Jesus and Paul has refreshed our theological vision, we will see how the imperative to make disciples a few at a time can be become integral to our church- or ministry-based approach. Chapters six through eight will examine three of the critical issues that need to be addressed in any disciple-making strategy. First, disciple making is about relational investment. It is walking alongside a few fellow travelers in an intentional journey together over time. You will hear this constant refrain: Disciple making is not a program but a relationship.
Second, we rightly associate disciple making with multiplication. Yet the promise always seems to far exceed the results. Discipleship programs are sold to us with the promise that disciples will be multiplied through intergenerational transference from life to life. The reality is that we rarely get beyond the first generation. Yet we have not made disciples if we only help people grow to maturity without also seeing them reproduce. I have lived the frustration of not seeing those I have invested in go on to disciple others. I have also witnessed some wonderful breakthroughs of empowerment. I am eager to share these discoveries with you.
Third, making disciples is a transformative process. I will identify the convergence of the key ingredients that make transformation of a life by the Holy Spirit possible, as in Eric’s case. What ingredients placed Eric’s life in the transformative laboratory of the Holy Spirit? When we bring together transparent relationships and the truth of God’s Word in the context of covenantal accountability for life change around a missional focus, we have stepped into the Holy Spirit’s hot house that makes life change possible.
The three elements of relational investment, multiplication and a transformative process come together powerfully in the model of reproducible microgroups.
In chapter nine we look at the steps necessary for a church- or ministry-based discipling strategy. The following practical questions are addressed: What is a workable disciple-making model? Whom should we invite into the discipling process? How do we get started? How can we grow a multigenerational network of disciples? How do we keep up the motivation for multiplication through the generations?
Finally, in chapter ten we will explore the critical contributions and limitations of preaching in the disciple-making process.
Some of you don’t need to be convinced that there is a disciple deficit in your churches; neither do you need to revisit the biblical vision for how disciples are made. You are looking for a practical strategy to make it happen. I will not be offended if you leap over the first two parts of the book and go directly to the last section, which is designed to assist you in practical implementation of a disciple-making strategy.
Since first stumbling on the power of microgroups with Eric and Karl almost three decades ago, I have had the privilege to walk with many others in this life-altering relationship and observe the growth of multigenerational discipling networks in three churches. Over this period I have heard from people across North America and around the world whose lives and ministries have been radically changed because they employed multiplying microgroups. In spite of the enormous discipleship challenge facing the church, I am encouraged by the considerable desire to make disciples. When the urgency for disciple making can be fanned by the vision of the biblical pattern of investing in a few at a time and then translated into a practical strategy, there is the hope that we can truly fulfill Jesus’ mission statement for everyone in his church, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).
PART ONE
THE DISCIPLESHIP DEFICITWhat Went Wrong and Why
1
THE DISCIPLESHIP GAP
Where Have All the Disciples Gone?
I was intrigued by the cover story of the June 2013 edition of Christianity Today, which asked “Does Child Sponsorship Work?”1 Since my wife and I have sponsored children for forty years and are currently engaged with three different organizations, I had a vested interest in the answer. The author of this article, Bruce Wydick, professor of economics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, was responding to a question he would often get: “What can the ordinary person do to help the poor?” He reflexive response was, “Sponsor a child.” Then he realized that as an economist he had never scientifically tested whether sponsored children were any better off in the long run than unsponsored children. This prompted him to search for a graduate student who would take this on as a PhD project. He found the student, but was surprised with how difficult it was to do the research. When Wydick’s PhD student approached several relief organizations, only one agreed to be evaluated. Even this lone organization would only do so under the condition of anonymity. I frankly was more than miffed when I read this article. I wanted to call up one relief organization I had been with for almost forty years and give them a piece of my mind. What do you mean you don’t want to know whether your organization is actually making a difference?
But then it dawned on me that it requires courage to face the truth about myself or even the churches I have served. Have you ever asked someone for honest feedback, and he or she says to you, “Well, do you want the truth or would you rather I make you feel good?” Everything in me screams, “Lie and make me feel good!” But once I have settled down, I sheepishly say, “Okay, break it to me gently.”
Bill Hybels, founding pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, often says, “Facts are your friends.” Willow Creek Church lives up to this motto. Among the many things I admire about them is their desire to live in reality, no matter how painful that may be. In 2004 they did an internal audit, which later became the REVEAL Spiritual Life Survey.2 It revealed some glaring gaps in their self-image. Ministries and programs they thought were effective were, in fact, ineffective.3 But they had the mettle to allow the truth to provide course corrections.
The State of Discipleship Today: You Are Here!
This chapter is designed to help you do the sober work of finding out where you are. Unless we can see the gap between current reality and our desired destination, we won’t be able to assess what it will take to get there. Business leader Max DePree says, “The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.”4 Jesus himself commended this approach, saying, “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?” (Luke 14:28 NIV). When I was directing a Doctor of Ministry Program, the counsel I would give students at the final project phase was to spend a considerable amount of time defining the need, challenge or problem they were trying to address. I told them to write, rewrite and write again a one-paragraph summary of their focus until the need they were addressing was crystal clear. Similarly, only as we get the need internalized will we be motivated to marshal the necessary resources to complete the disciple-making call.
Most of us have had the experience of searching for a particular store in a shopping mall. In order to find our desired location, we first look for the mall directory. Once the store is pinpointed on the map, we need to identify where we are in order to plot our course. Usually a red dot marks our location with an arrow and the words “You Are Here.” Only when we know where we are can we see where we are going.
My own one-word summary of our current state of discipleship is superficial. Tim Stafford, senior writer for Christianity Today, asked the late John Stott how he would evaluate the enormous growth of the church since he had been ordained sixty-one years earlier. Stott replied, “The answer is ‘growth without depth.’ None of us wants to dispute the extraordinary growth of the church. But it has been largely numerical and statistical growth. And there has not been sufficient growth in discipleship that is comparable to the growth in numbers.”5 Having taught internationally in Asia, Central America and Europe, the repeated lament I hear is that we are much better at conversion than we are at transformation of these converts into disciples of Jesus.
This superficiality comes into focus when we observe the incongruity between the numbers of people in America who profess faith in Jesus Christ and the lack of impact on the moral and spiritual climate of our times. The Pew Research Center’s 2015 study notes that still 70.6 percent of American population identifies themselves as Christian, with 25.4 percent categorized as evangelical.6 The Pew study classifies someone as evangelical if they are member of Pew’s defined list of evangelical denominations or that have identified themselves as “born again” or “evangelical” in their interviews. The Barna Group, an overtly Christian polling organization, comes at these statistics somewhat differently. They make a distinction between “born again” and “evangelical.”7 The Barna Group has shown a fairly consistent figure of four out of ten adult Americans who would say they are “born again.” For Barna a person is “born again” if their personal commitment to Christ is currently significant and they believe they will go to heaven based on confession of their sin and trusting in Christ for salvation. And yet with this significant percentage of professed Christ-followers, there is a lot of handwringing among Christian leaders about the spiritual state of American culture. I am suggesting that the lack of Christian influence on culture is a direct result of the lack of depth of transformative discipleship.
Barna has sadly concluded, “My research shows that most Americans who confess their sins to God and ask Christ to be their Savior—live almost indistinguishable from the unrepentant sinners, and their lives bear little, if any fruit, for the kingdom of God.”8
To repeat Bill Hull’s prophetic word, “The crisis at the heart of the church today is a crisis of product.”9 What kind of followers of Jesus are we producing? How deep is our discipleship deficit?
Before we even consider proposing a solution, we need to do the hard work of self-examination. Before we can get a handle on our ministry, we need to check the directory for the arrow that says, “You Are Here.” To help you do this, I have chosen seven biblical marks of discipleship as the grid for this self-evaluation.10 With each of these qualities I will sketch the biblical ideal and then examine some indicators of reality we might see within our ministry communities. At the end of each section you have the opportunity to look at your ministry setting through the lens of each of the biblical marks and give yourself a grade on the quality of discipleship you witness among the people you serve. The biblical marks of discipleship are
Ministers: Passive vs. Proactive
Christian Life: Casual vs. Disciplined
Discipleship: Private vs. Holistic
Culture: Conformed vs. Transformed
Church: Optional vs. Essential
Bible: Illiterate vs. Informed
Witness: Inactive vs. Active
Ministers:Passiveversusproactive. The Scripture portrays the church as full of proactive ministers; the reality often is that majority of church members see themselves as passive recipients of the pastor’s ministry.
The New Testament pictures the church as an every-member ministry. The “priesthood of all believers” is not just a Reformation watchword but a biblical ideal. Writing to scattered, persecuted Christians, Peter refers to the church in aggregate when he writes, “You [plural] are . . . a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9). Every believer comes to God via Christ, their Mediator (vertical dimension), and every believer is enabled to act as a priest on behalf of fellow members of the body of Christ (horizontal dimension). Ministry that is biblically envisioned calls up images not of the paid priests (pastors) hugging ministry to themselves, but views ministry in the hands of ordinary saints. The apostle Paul has the everyday Christian in mind when he writes, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). Playing off the image of the church as the body of Christ, Paul says that the Holy Spirit has given all believers ministry gifts, and therefore each believer is equivalent to a body part that contributes to the health of the whole. The New Testament describes a full employment plan that dignifies and gives all believers value based on the contribution their gifts make in building up and extending the church.
The reality is that the 80-20 rule applies to many of our congregations.11 Churches fight against the barrier where 20 percent of the people provide ministry for the 80 percent who are recipients, and 20 percent who give 80 percent of the finances. In The Other 80 Percent, Scott Thumma and Warren Bird observe that the 80 percent who evidence limited engagement fall into three categories: (1) 10-20 percent of the congregation are declining in participation (often have left a role and no longer feel needed); (2) fully one-third have low or marginal participation levels (these are occasional attenders); (3) the remaining percentage are infrequent attenders who are the long-term prodigal members, often struggling with a particular need that is unknown to the leadership. This is confirmed by the fact that most denominations combined worship attendance averages between 20 and 50 percent of their official membership. Yet the good news from this research shows that when asked, many of 80 percent long to be involved, trained, given responsibility and inspired to Christian service. Churches often do not have the methods in place to engage these who could be drawn in. The church today has been compared to a football game with twenty-two people on the field in desperate need of rest, and fifty thousand people in the stands in desperate need of exercise.
This 80-20 pattern is reinforced by the spectator mentality we have fostered in our “main event,” corporate worship. As a pastor I am consciously aware that people arrive at worship with a reviewer’s mentality. Worshipers believe it’s the responsibility of those on stage to provide an engaging, meaningful and entertaining show, while the worshipers’ role is to give an instant review of the worship service as they pass through the receiving line after worship. We are so used to this pattern that it doesn’t seem odd for people to make evaluative comments like “Good sermon, Pastor” or “I enjoyed the service today.” My favorite evaluation I received was, “You know, you’re getting better!” (It wasn’t my favorite at the time.) What does this tell us about the dynamic that has been created? It’s a spectator-performer arrangement.
The apostle Paul describes a full-employment plan within the body of Christ. Every member of the body comes to know his or her value through the exercise of spiritual gifts. To the extent that members of the body are not playing their part, the whole body suffers. In congregational surveys the good news is that 68 percent of born-again Christians have heard of spiritual gifts; this is raised to 99 percent for evangelicals, according to Barna. Yet the level of engagement among those who are born again is not encouraging. A full 20 percent of respondents named gifts that had little biblical correlation: sense of humor, singing, patience, a job and so on. “Between those who do not know their gift (15%), those who say they don’t have one (28%) and those who claimed gifts that are not biblical (20%), nearly two-thirds of the self-identified Christian population who claim to have heard about spiritual gifts have not been able to accurately apply whatever they have heard or what the Bible teaches on the subject to their lives.”12 This would indicate a significant percentage of “unemployed” believers in our ministries.
When you examine your own ministry, what percentage of people do you think could name their spiritual gifts and are exercising them in a context of ministry? Does the 80-20 rule describe your reality, or are you experiencing a breakthrough beyond this limit? Please respond by using figure 1.1.
Rate your ministry on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being passive recipients and 5 being proactive ministers.
Discipleship Symptom
Rating
Notes
Ministers:
Passive vs. Proactive
ChristianLife:Casualversusdisciplined. The Scriptures picture followers of Jesus as engaged in a disciplined way of life; the reality is that a small percentage of believers invests in intentional spiritual growth practices.
Great and accomplished athletes perform effortlessly. Having lived for ten years in Chicago, I repeatedly heard stories from Chicagoland residents about the best basketball player ever to grace the hardwood, Michael Jordan. Even though Michael Jordan was endowed by God with remarkable athletic prowess, he did not rely on it. What people did not see was his work ethic. He had the reputation of being the first one in the gym and the last one out.
In the New Testament the discipline of an athlete is one of the consistent images for the Christian life. Comparing the Christian life with a race, Paul writes, “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, we do it to get a crown that will last forever” (1 Corinthians 9:24-25 NIV). Note Paul’s “how much more” argument for how we are to approach our life in Christ. If athletes put themselves through a rigorous regimen to get a “crown that will not last,” how much more should Christians discipline ourselves, because our goal is “a crown that will last forever.” The writer to the Hebrews urges believers to move beyond being milk-drinking infants to adult believers who can take in solid food. Using a similar image of the gymnasium and athletic exertion, the author of Hebrews writes, “But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14).
Dallas Willard captures this attitude toward training with a pithy phrase: “Grace is opposed to earning, but is not opposed to effort.”13 This is why the practices employed to develop our discipleship are called spiritual disciplines.
It is common within the evangelical world to urge the practice of personal spiritual disciplines. In the most recent survey on “the state of discipleship” only 20 percent of all Christian adults were in involved in one of the following four discipleship activities: (1) Sunday school or fellowship group (43%); (2) spiritual mentor (17%); (3) study the Bible in a group (33%); and (4) reading or discussing a Christian book (25%).14 In a recent survey only 19 percent of self-identified Christians made daily Scripture reading a habit.15 Disciplines can also take the form of relational engagements such as a mentoring relationship, a small group or more stringent intentional discipleship groups. Yet only 21 percent of self-identified Christians believe that “spiritual maturity requires a vital connection to a community of faith.”16 Of those who stated that spiritual growth was important to them, 37 percent said they preferred to do it on their own and that their spiritual growth was “entirely private,” meaning they kept it to themselves.17
Discipline implies intention and a plan of action. According to Barna, fewer than one in five born-again adults have any specific, measurable goals related to their spiritual development. In Barna’s nationwide survey, interviews were conducted with hundreds of people, including pastors and church leaders, who regularly attended church services and programs. Barna concludes, “Not one of the adults we interviewed said that their goal in life was to be a committed follower of Jesus Christ or to make disciples of the entire world—or even their entire block.”18 When this group was asked what they wanted to accomplish in life, eight out of ten believers found success in family, career development and financial achievement. This is hardly distinguishable from the American dream. Dallas Willard observes, “The fact is that there is now lacking a serious and expectant intention to bring Jesus’ people into obedience and abundance through training.”19
As you observe your congregation, where would you place your people on the casual-versus-disciplined spectrum? Please respond by using figure 1.2.
Rate your ministry on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being spiritually casual and 5 being spiritually disciplined.
Discipleship Symptom
Rating
Notes
Christian Life:
Casual vs. Disciplined
Discipleship:Privateversusholistic. The Scriptures picture discipleship as affecting all spheres of life; the reality is that many believers have relegated faith to the personal, private realm.
The dominant theme of Jesus’ public ministry was the proclamation of the good news of the kingdom of God. The future, long-awaited kingdom, where the rule and reign of God will be actualized on earth, had broken into the present darkness in the person of the King, Jesus Christ. The promise is that those who “repent and believe” the gospel (Mark 1:15) are transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of the beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). A new authority is established in the hearts of Jesus’ followers. The motif of the kingdom is that there is not a scintilla of life that does not come under the authority of Jesus Christ. Fundamentally, we are kingdom people, which means that Jesus is Lord in our hearts, homes and workplaces; our attitudes, thoughts and desires; our relationships and moral decisions; our political convictions and social conscience. In every area of our interior life, personal relationships or social involvement, we seek to know and live the mind and will of God.
Yet the reality is that we suffer today from the same bifurcated existence that Martin Luther addressed five hundred years ago with Reformation force. In writing his Open Letter to the German Nobility, Luther said that the first barrier erected by the Roman Catholic Church was a false distinction between what he called the “spiritual estate” and “temporal estate.”20 In Luther’s day the spiritual estate was the realm of the Church and its holy orders, which took precedence over and elevated itself above the temporal estate, which was the realm of government and the common life. Luther attempted to break down the wall between the sacred and secular, declaring that in kingdom terms everything is sacred. The dividing line is not between sacred and secular but between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness.
Yet it appears that we still suffer under the false notion that the religious or sacred realm is relegated to a private sphere, which consists of church, family and the interior life. When a believer moves into the social, secular realm, it is as if an entirely different set of assumptions are adopted. Personal faith is often minimized in the workplace, in determining our political convictions and in the way we view other social institutions that govern public life (for example, economics, education and media). Os Guinness summarizes this disconnect between personal faith and the totality of life by saying that our faith is “privately engaging but socially irrelevant.”21
There is a disconnect between our faith and the workplace. Few people understand the faith-workplace dynamic the way one of my friends does: “I am a disciple of Jesus masquerading as a furniture salesman.” Sure his job is to sell furniture, but his calling is to follow Jesus in all that he does. William Diehl, formerly an executive with Bethlehem Steel and a strong proponent of Christian witness and service in the workplace, writes these words of frustration that unfortunately are all too common,
In almost thirty years of my professional career, my church has never once suggested that there be any type of accounting of my on-the-job ministry to others. My church has never once offered to improve those skills, which could make me a better minister, nor has it ever asked if I need any kind of support in what I am doing. There never has been an enquiry into the types of ethical decisions I must face, or whether I seek to communicate faith to my co-workers. I have never been in a congregation where there was any type of public affirmation of my ministry in my career. In short, I must conclude that my church doesn’t have the least interest whether or how I minister in my daily work.22
How would you assess the view of discipleship among those you rub elbows with? Is faith relegated to a private, interior realm, or do you sense that faith in Christ is allowed to seep into all aspects of life? Please respond by using figure 1.3.
Rate your view of discipleship on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 being private (limited to personal realms) and 5 being holistic (encompassing all of life).
Discipleship Symptom
Rating
Notes
Discipleship:
Private vs. Holistic
Church:Conformedversustransformed. The Scriptures picture the Christian community as a countercultural force; the reality is that we see isolated individuals whose lifestyle and values are not much different from those of the unchurched.
John Stott has described the church of the Lord’s intention as a community of “radical nonconformity” or a “contrast society.” These phrases are a helpful summary of some of the biblical metaphors for the church. The images of “alien,” “exile” and “sojourner” capture the relationship of believers to this present world (1 Peter 2:11). This sentiment is expressed in the words of the old hymn “This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through.”23 The church in the biblical scheme is a body whose collective lifestyle forms a countercultural alternative to the values of the dominant society.
The apostle Peter gave us a word picture for this new reality when he addressed the church dispersed across the landscape of the Greco-Roman world. Though these believers in Jesus did not have a land to call their own, he could still say to them, “You are . . . a holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). By using this image Peter was saying, “You are a people who cut across all geopolitical boundaries, because you are a church without borders.” To be holy is to be a called-out people, meaning separate or different. One of the distinguishing features of this new kingdom people is their lifestyle of compassionate and costly service. Echoing Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:16), Peter says, “Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge” (1 Peter 2:12). Those hostile to the church may not affirm what we believe, but they can’t argue against the way we live.
If this was true then, what might people observe about the church in our day? Too often when it comes to moral values or lifestyle choices the churched and the unchurched appear almost indistinguishable. Ron Sider introduces his book The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience with this devastating summary: “Whether the issue is divorce, materialism, sexual promiscuity, racism, physical abuse in marriage, or neglect of biblical worldview, the polling data point to widespread, blatant disobedience of clear biblical moral demands on the part of people who allegedly are evangelical, born-again Christians.”24 It would appear that Christians have been almost as seduced by self-focus as the broader population. Eighty-four percent of adults and 66 percent of Christians agreed that “the highest goal in life is to enjoy it as much as possible.” In addition, 91 percent of adults and 76 percent of Christians believe that “the best way to find yourself is to look inside yourself.” David Kinnaman concludes that “if we peel back the layers, many Christians are using the Way of Jesus as a means to pursuing the Way of Self.”25
