It’s Always Easier To Tear People Down

I recently removed an old fence from around our home.  When my youngest son asked if it was hard work.  I responded by telling him that it is always easier to tear down than to build up.  The same is true with people.   It is very easy to tear someone down because we don’t agree with him or her or we think they are doing something wrong.  Like Jesus said, it is easier to find the speck in our neighbors eye than to find the log in ours.

When we disciple people we should focus on building up as often as we can.  If we are discipling people who are young in their Christian faith, they will more than likely do things that our church culture will think inappropriate.  Discipleship is a time for building up and correcting, but understanding how to correct without tearing down.  It is the Holy Spirit who will convince them they are doing wrong not you or I.  When we try nd tell people they are doing things wrong they may quit for a short period of time but then restart only to find it is harder to quit the second time.

Encourage those you disciple to search the scriptures for the truth.  remember, “A man convinced against his will, is of the same mind still.” (Dave Ramsey)  If they do not come to the conclusion themselves, it won’t stick.

 

Discipleship Begins With Community

If you have been a Christian any length of time you have heard the bible verse about us being a body of believers and Jesus is the head of the body (Romans 12:4-5).  That is where discipleship is birthed.  The community setting where Jesus draws each of us together is what makes discipleship so important to believers.  The community helps to build up the body as a whole and then helps strengthen the individual parts who intern make the body stronger.

Churches aren’t meant to make leaders.  Leaders come from discipling new believers  to maturity, not teaching leadership course to people who don’t know Christ very well or stealing leaders from other churches.  That is just a fact.  I love reading leadership books that talk about all the good leaders being somewhere else and how they need to be persuaded to come help us.  While that can be a quick fix and help now, what happens when they are stolen by another church?  Mature leaders who have been discipled in your church will stay with you through thick and thin, and they will make more disciples as they grow.

The church community must be mature.  This is where many churches are struggling today, and it comes from trying to use programs to disciple our people, not people to disciple our people.  We fell into the trap of the quick fix and the pastor who is hands off, and new believers we left to fend for themselves at worse, or given DVD curriculum at best.   We must relearn disciple making and begin to disciple one-on-one.  You know you have a core group of believer you can work with to start the ball rolling.  Two things I recommend, one is Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time <Affiliate Link>this is the book that lays the groundwork for making disciples.  The other is Discipleship Essentials: A Guide to Building Your Life in Christ  this is the workbook to go along with the book. Both of these are by Greg Ogden and are great for starting a disciple making program.  I also believe we should not reinvent the wheel.  If something is good and it works, then use it.

 

Being Friendly To Others

It’s not hard to imagine a Christian that is unfriendly.  I have been unfriendly when it was not what I should have done.  Craig Groeschell writes in his book WEIRD <Affiliate Link>about a man who chastised a visitor for wearing clothes he thought were inappropriate.  While most people reading this cringe, it does happen, and I bet it happens more than you think.  Being friendly to others especially visitors to our churches is something we should strive for even if they don’t believe what we do.

Coming from the southern United States we have a saying about being friendly to people we don’t agree with,

It’s easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar.

If you are hard and judgmental to people you disagree with, you will do nothing but reinforce their belief that Christians are jerks. It wasn’t people outside the church that Jesus was harsh with, it was the church leaders that Jesus scolded.  He was friendly and welcoming to those that did not fit into the culture of the day.  He had dinner with the sinners and tax collectors, and instead of judging them he welcomed them and judged the leaders who said he was doing wrong.

Jesus talked to the woman at the well, who was not only a woman normal men of that day would not talk to, she was also a different nationality the Jews thought were dirty and hated.  Jesus loved her, and was very straight forward with her about her sin.  He gave her real life, but none of this could have ever happened if he closed his mind to people his culture said was less than human.

If you grew up hearing that God was waiting to strike you down, and punish you for anything bad you did, I want to urge you to read the New Testament and see the love Jesus showed.  Being friendly is a trait we should all have as Christians and not just on Sunday Morning.

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