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Discipleship Begins With Community

October 4, 2011 by · 7 Comments

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.

 

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Being Friendly To Others

October 3, 2011 by · 2 Comments

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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What You See

September 28, 2011 by · 5 Comments
Advertising on Times Square, New York City
Image via Wikipedia

We are bombarded with information and advertisements.  what you see many times is a blur, unless the ad is about something you are looking for.  Marketers know that you see what you want to. If you set up a website and want to advertise you know that what you see is not what others looking at you site see.  In Your life, you see what you want to. If you believe your boss is a jerk you will see everything he or she does as a behavior leading you to know that you are right. If you believe a certain stereotype about another race, everything you see or hear will steer you toward the deepening of that belief. If you believe all poor people are lazy then that is what you will see.

We are called not to have these general beliefs about anyone.  We are called to love not our friends but also our enemies. Every day I hear Christians say they hate the leaders in congress, or hate the president (present or former you chose). We can’t hate, we must love people whether we agree with them or not. 1 Corinthians 13 says:

  4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

One of the first steps you must take is freeing yourself of beliefs of other people and cultures that are destructive to your growth as a Christian. We have become so caught up in the political name calling we see each night on our news or hear on our radios that we have carried it into our Christian churches, and it must stop. Defend your message, but you must still love the other messenger. When a Christian makes a derogatory statement about someone they disagree with they hurt the church as a whole not the person they are attacking.

We have been called to a higher standard and we have lost site of that. Change the way you think and you can change the way you see things. Paul tells us this in Romans 12

2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Love your neighbor as yourself.

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Do You Honor God?

September 6, 2011 by · 9 Comments

We live in a time in America where we are lead to believe that we are a Christian nation.  People stand up for what they believe are Christian values.  A recent ABC News Poll shows that 83% of all Americans say they are Christian.  But are we really?

The book of Isiah says this about some people who said they knew God.

And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine.  They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.”

Have we just learned to honor God with our lips?  Have we just been told so long that we are Christians that we just accept that and say that is what we believe?

This is actually a hard concept to grasp because so many people believe that being a christian means so many different things.  Some think that we just believe and then Jesus just takes over.  They know we will still sin but that is because we can’t help it.  Others believe we are changed immediately and sin is a thing of the past.  Some believe that we should give everything away while others believe Jesus will help us acquire more if we just believe.

I personally think that if you are Christian you will be in church at least most Sundays of the year to learn from other believers. Others believe they are Christians (my father) and have not darkened the door to a church in decades except for funerals and weddings.

One thing I am sure of, we are all different and we are not going to force each other to change our beliefs by yelling and pointing out flaws.  I can never tell my father I think he is wrong, because he believes he is right. I also don’t think it is our job. we need to talk to and love people, and let the Holy Spirit do the rest.  God finishes the verse in Isiah with this,

Because of this, I will once again astound these hypocrites with amazing wonders.  The wisdom of the wise will pass away, and the intelligence of the intelligent will disappear.”

I’m not going to answer the question.  I know He can change hearts and minds better than we can.  So you and I just need to Honor God the way we think is best and continue to learn from Him in all we do.

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Christian Discipleship

August 8, 2011 by · 11 Comments

A Christian Is A Disciple

I can only speak from my experience, and it has been that many people feel there is a difference between being a follower of Christ and being a disciple of Christ. From what I have read in the bible, and many others more scholarly than me, there is no difference. Jesus put it this way,

“If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross each day and follow me.24 If you want to save your life, you will destroy it. But if you give up your life for me, you will save it. 25 What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself or waste your life”

If you are a follower of Jesus then you are a disciple of Jesus. We are all different and discipleship looks different to all of us. But we must be active in our life with Christ not just showing up on Sunday.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it this way,

“cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”

Take those words to heart. Don’t just go to church, live like you believe what Christ said. Live differently because you have the Holy spirit dwelling in you. Live differently because Jesus died so you may live.

Bridging The Gap

For many Christians, the goal of holiness seems like as much of a gap as their distance from God before their faith in Christ.

They try and try to change their lives but they keep falling back into the same routine of discouragement. Many times they have no one to walk with them, no one who has been there before to come along side them and guide them along the way.

That is where discipleship comes in.

As Christians we are supposed to be on a road together. Growing together in Christ Jesus. Not just show up at church on Sunday and say, “Hi how ya’ doing today” kinda walk, but get down in the mud and pull each other up kinda walk.

Discipleship is walking along side someone who needs you, and helping them grow. In the process, you will grow as well in your walk with Christ, and be open to many more people who need you to speak into their lives.

Don’t Look Up First

You have read pages on discipleship before I am sure. If you are like me I always want to find someone to Disciple me. Someone to help me grow in my walk. Let me encourage you to not look for someone to be a Paul to you first. Look for someone you can be a Paul to.

As you begin to pray and look for people to disciple you will see people in a different light. When you start don’t try to get deeply theological. Just letting people know you care can make a world of difference in someones life.

Be Yourself

If there is one key to discipling it is being yourself. Be transparent with the person. Don’t try to act like you have all the answers if you don’t even have all the questions. People know when you’re being phony and that will turn more people off faster than you not knowing the answer to something.

Pace Yourself

Don’t try to meet everyones needs all at once. You will have a bigger impact if you focus on one or two people than you will if you focus on five or six or ten. If you build up two people for a year, then you each begin to build up two the next year and so on the numbers begin to multiply rapidly. Teaching others to teach others and watch them grow.

What Do You Think? Are you Giving Back or Looking For Someone To Disciple You?

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Christians And The Environment

July 8, 2011 by · 2 Comments

As Christians we are supposed to be stewards of what God has given us.  Isiah tells what happened when the Israelites forgot that.,

You are in for trouble! You take over house after house and field after field, until there is no room left for anyone else in all the land.

9 But the Lord All-Powerful has made this promise to me:
Those large and beautiful homes will be left empty, with no one to take care of them. 10 Ten acres of grapevines will produce only six gallons of juice, and five bushels of seed will produce merely a half-bushel of grain.

11  You are in for trouble! You get up early to start drinking, and you keep it up late into the night. 12 At your drinking parties you have the music of stringed instruments, tambourines, and flutes. But you never even think about all the Lord has done, 13 and so his people know nothing about him. That’s why many of you will be dragged off to foreign lands. Your leaders will starve to death, and everyone else will suffer from thirst. (Isiah 5:8-13 CEV)

Sometimes things just stick out when we read the bible.  This was very poignant today because it speaks to what the Israelites did to the land then, and what we are doing to the land today.  I’m not a guy who sits around worrying, wondering, or protesting about the environment.  I do like the alternative energy ideas because I want to go off the grid in a few years, but that is a whole different story.

I grew up in rural Arkansas so almost everyone I knew was involved in farming in some way.  I hunted and fished and my father taught me how we should act toward the environment if we want to be able to hunt and fish forever.   I have seen the bad side.  I’ve seen what happens when a family loses their farm and everything they own because they can’t compete with the big guys. I now live in a city where I watch urban sprawl take out once viable farmland and forests all in the name of progress and the American dream.

When I read this verse from Isiah it made me think of is and what we are doing to the land.  Shipping our waste to other countries, our dirty jobs to Mexico isn’t the answer.  Our leaders  We need to take responsibility for what we buy and what we throw away, because  one day We are going to pay for what we are doing today.

One video I watched got me started on my road to change.  The Story of Stuff made me think about what I buy and what I do with it when I’m done.  The video is 21 minutes long, but is worth the watch.

 Do you think we have a responsibility to take care of the environment?  Do you think Jesus will return before we use it up?  Do you have a better idea than this?

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Spend Half Your Time On Self Improvement

June 6, 2011 by · 4 Comments

Do you spend half your time on self-improvement?

We all know this, but do we believe it. John Maxwell gave us the mantra, “Leaders are readers.”  Many other Christian leaders have come along and reiterated the process by which we all grow.  In Roman 12:1-2 the apostle Paul tells us,

Dear friends, God is good. So I beg you to offer your bodies to him as a living sacrifice, pure and pleasing. That’s the most sensible way to serve God. Don’t be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him. (CEV)

In the NIV it say, “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”  Our self-improvement does not come from ourselves.  Many of us believe this transformation takes place over the course of our Christian walk.  Through the Holy Spirit we are changed to be more like Christ here on Earth.  But in order for this transformation to take place we have to spend time with Christ in prayer and reading in the bible.  In his book Courageous Leadership Bill Hybels quotes an article by Dee Hock who says we should spend 50% of our time leading ourselves (p183).  Bill Hybels said he was stunned when he read it, and I was stunned when I read what he wrote, so I imagine you may be a little stunned when you read this.  So what do we do?

After unpacking that statement over the last month, I began to look at it in the light of the disciples.  As leaders in the 21st century we spend a lot of time doing busy work. I follow a lot of the “Church Leaders” of today on twitter and they spend a lot of time just tweeting about what they do. The disciples spent their time learning from Jesus, and trying to get a grasp around what he was doing and saying.  We spend most of our time either trying to look like we are important, or trying to be like other leaders of today and not Jesus.

The disciples asked questions. We believe that we have expensive college degrees, so we know everything.  These university degrees allow us to hold the positions we have and to tell others what to do.  Most of our power comes from our positions and not from Jesus.  We need to learn from the disciples who in Acts 6 put others in charge of waiting tables while they devoted themselves to learning and sharing the word. We have to spend time away from the crowds to lead the crowds.

We can choose one of two roads. The easy one that says, “I am a leader and these people will follow me.” or the one that says, “I am a leader and I need to learn to lead myself first.” The road we choose will determine how much time we spend letting Jesus develop us as leaders.

 

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A Short List Of Christian Spiritual Discipines

June 2, 2011 by · 1 Comment

I do not believe spiritual disciplines are rules to follow let me get that out-of-the-way before I even start this post, they are only helps to put us in the path of God.  I use 1 Timothy 4:7 as a guide for the disciplines.  Not all spiritual disciplines are for everyone and not one of these will make God love you more than he already does.  That being said, here is the list.

Prayer – Prayer is communicating with God.  When we communicate, we talk and listen and prayer should be no different.  Praying allows us to enter the throne room of God.  Many of us are nervous about this and are reluctant to do it, but Jesus has made a way and we can without hesitation.  When we pray we can use the Lord’s Prayer as a model, or pray the scriptures, and we can even journal our prayers.  In my opinion we should always be listening no matter what method we choose.

Fasting – This may be the most controversial of the spiritual disciplines, Jesus did say, “When you fast.” in Matthew 6.  Several times in my life I have fasted from food all together, but I have also fasted from certain types of food, television, and all electronic devices.  If you fast it should be a time where you Give up one thing to spend more time with God.  Nothing more.

Bible Reading – While this is the second most common discipline practiced, it is not always done the same.  We can go from a straight forward reading of the bible every day, to and extensive reading of several books in a short time.  We can study the bible with or without commentaries and other helps.  One popular study method is the S.O.A.P. bible study method, another is a questioning style,

  • What does this passage mean for me?
  • Is there a promise in this passage?
  • Is there a lesson in this passage?
  • What is the key idea?
  • How can I apply this passage?
  • Who do I know that may benefit from this passage?

No matter what way you chose to study the bible, study it with and open heart for God.

Simplicity - Richard Foster makes the case for simplicity in Celebration of Discipline  by showing how our American excess is harming poorer people in other countries.  We also have to realize that as Christians, Jesus says our needs will be met, not our wants.  How much is enough, and who can you help by having less.

Meditation - Philippians 4:8-9 says,

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

When we meditate on scripture or on what Christ has done for us, we are not emptying ourselves like eastern philosophies tell us to do.  We are filling ourselves with the knowledge and work of Jesus Christ.  We are letting the Holy Spirit transform us into new men and women of God.

Corporate Worship – Coming from a liturgical worship in the Methodist church to the contemporary style I have been a part of for the last 12 years I see the value of both styles of worship.  I love being able to go into worship on Sundays and pour out my heart in music that is meaningful to me I love hear our pastor preach and worship God through his message.  I also like to go to my sisters traditional Methodist church where the liturgy has been repeated since the 1800′s and Go still shows up every time, because he is praised.  My point is this, it does not matter what type of church you go to, you are there to praise God and give him glory. We worship him, and not music.

Personal Worship – We need to worship God with all of our lives.  Many of us are fine showing up on Sunday to worship at church, but few are willing to take that worship into their lives.  God is always with us and we should shoe that in our actions.  I am not saying to be overly obnoxious in your work environment, but I am saying people need to know there has been some sort of change in your life.  Find a way to worship God in your personal life.

From here spiritual disciplines vary widely and include but are not exclusive to:

  • spiritual direction
  • tithing or giving
  • lecto divina or spiritual reading
  • solitude
  • serving others or hospitality
  • confession
  • communion
  • footwashing
  • And many more
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The Coming Spiritual Change

June 1, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

I see it in many parts of my life.  People who are yearning, wanting, and needing a spiritual change in their lives. Many of these people are Christians already, but some aren’t.  The one thing they all have in common is they are looking for a deeper meaning to life than the stuff we have accumulated in our American culture.

As a Christian I believe spiritual change can only come from one place, Jesus Christ, so that is the point of view I will write from.   As a Christian I believe Jesus brings fulfillment and wholeness to life that can not come from anywhere else.  If that is true why are so many in our churches still looking for answers, or not looking at all.

We have to overcome our fear.

Our world will never be impacted, and our lives will never be changed if we continue to stand at the door to the throne room and not go in.  I stood at that door for many years looking at God and Jesus from a distance but not wanting to risk what might happen if I walked in and gave everything to Jesus.  We see ourselves as small and insignificant compared to God, as we should, but he sent Christ to make a way for us to come to him and lay our lives down so He could pick them up and use them.

Spiritual change does not come from anything we do. While I talk about spiritual disciplines on this site, I make it clear that they are only means to help us still ourselves, not to gain Jesus’ favor.  Jesus changes us, and draws us into a deeper relationship.  It is time to let go and let Jesus take control of your entire life not just parts of it.  There are other people who are yearning as well and when you begin to see the change in your life through Christ others will see it as well.  When we as Christian give our lives over fully to Christ we will begin to see the spiritual change in our nation and the world.

A couple of good books on this are Radical by David Platt and WEIRD by Craig Groeschel

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What Are Spiritual Disciplines

May 3, 2011 by · 2 Comments

Spiritual disciplines are a way that God uses to transform us into the men and women we are supposed to be.

Spiritual disciplines mean different things to different people.  A Catholic will name many more than a Baptist.  A non-Christian religious person may name different ones than most Christians.  For the sake of this post I will define Christian Spiritual Disciplines since that is what I know.

The Christian disciplines are at their base a means to help us get closer to the heart of God.  What they are not is a formula or a trick to get God to love us or forgive us more than he already has.

The basis I find for spiritual disciplines is in 1st Timothy 4:7-9 Paul says this,

“Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.  For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promises for both the present life and the life to come.  This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance.”

Our lives in Christ are not supposed to be static.  We’re supposed to learn and grow and follow Christ in all we do. Again quoting Paul from Romans 12:2,

Don’t be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him. (CEV)

I want to make it clear that spiritual disciplines are not a set of rules.  Following a set of rules does not transform us.  Christ transforms us and spiritual disciplines are way he uses to open us up.  Donald Whitney says in his book Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life (affiliate link) that God uses people, circumstances, and spiritual disciplines.  People and circumstances work form the outside while the disciplines are from the inside.

We need to be open to God and listen to his guiding in all of our life especially when we are starting our journey into the disciplines.

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