EFFECTIVE DISCIPLESHIP

A friend wrote the other day, wondering about the most effective model for making disciples. Is it the traditional church? The house church? Something else? Here is my reply:

Maybe this is my own hangup and reaction against what I have come from, but I believe discipleship works best in a family of some sort. It could be a small group based on affinity within a program-based church, it could be in a house church or small group in a non-programmed church, but it is best done through close familial relationships.

Here’s why: the bigger a church becomes, the more we have specialization to make the circle of influence wider (but not deeper). We add a youth minister in order to log time and create programs for youth, etc. In effect, we have specialists, much as we have in medicine. A person who does nothing but brain surgery talks to me only if I have a brain problem. Otherwise, we never meet. But when we do, he really has expertise in this narrow area, and I am glad that he is there for me in my area of need. His specialization helps me with my special need. This is the reasoning and the value of program-based churches.

But then here’s the kicker. We’re talking about emergency dealing with a crisis. But discipleship is not like that. I may have a brain surgeon "friend" in my crisis, but does he remember me five years later? Does he take me through therapy and rehabilitation? No, he does his specialty and passes me off to other specialists. His practice may be growing, but his sphere of family is not.

In a small group (household or family is a better word), everyone becomes a general practitioner. Rather than taking a spiritual gifts assessment and using that to determine which specialized program to plug into, in a small group I use my gifts holistically, you might say. The program-based church gives the IMPRESSION of discipleship, because everyone who serves touches more and more people (within the arena of their specialty). But how deep are we going? Discipleship is holistic, and it is deep.

Interdependence of specialization is the mark of an advanced civilization. But again, the problem here is, we are not talking about efficiency or economy, as if the goal of a church is to produce programs. The goal of the church is relational, and that is best done in families (small groups of people committed to each other to live life together for an extended time, perhaps even a lifetime).

Jesus Himself did not become a specialist, but rather called twelve men “to be with him.”

While writing my email reply, I got a phone call from a friend who is a worship minister in a large program-based church. He was preparing to meet with a young depressed man who is a great musician. The fact that my friend met him through his specialty is fine (writes a guy who teaches a specialized field in a parachurch organization), but if all he talks about it music and worship leading, then that is all he has trained. But that young man never learns a thing about marriage, for example, unless my friend mentions that aspect of his life. And who has time for that? There’s another appointment to talk to another specialist in an hour, so we stick to the topic before us. If, on the other hand, he takes that young man to live in his basement and eat meals with him and his wife, then he is discipling holistically, including his specialty, but also so much more.

Now, which is more effective? My personal conclusion (as a home educating dad) is that God brings us into this world individually and places us all in families. So I would say that if you want to disciple people, buying or writing a twelve-week curriculum and running them through the 101 class or 40 days of something pales in comparison to the picture in my head.

The follow-up to that question is about outreach. Does outreach to real non-Christians work better in the house church or the traditional church?

I think that totally depends on the person doing the work. We tend to insulate ourselves over time. As for me, I’d rather free up my schedule from the 5-night a week schedule of church programs and use that time to raise a family and meet my neighbors on their turf, rather than inviting them to my church to watch my local specialist do his thing. It all comes down to relationships, and the traditional church will reach some people, but I’m not interested in using that model anymore.

House church is not the answer. But purposeful relationships are the answer. Then the test is whether you are multiplying those relationships (2 Tim 2:2). Are you finding faithful men who will be able to teach others also? If not, then the discipling ends with you.

Jesus took a great risk in His ministry. He did not run from crowds, preaching a famous sermon on a hill, and ministering to thousands at a time. But He did not run after the crowds, either, and they all left Him at least twice in His three years of ministry. So a shallow but wide ministry is deceptive, and it does not indicate whether you are multiplying your ministry or making disciples. Jesus poured Himself into twelve men, eleven of whom proved faithful (we will not always make the right choice). When they followed His pattern, they changed the world.

MY PERSONAL APPLICATION

So now I get to the hard part: What am I going to do about this material? How do I flee from the temptation toward relevance when I live in the world of ministry, with degrees in practical theology and being surrounded by very real, practical, tangible needs? How do I find ways to carve out time for contemplative prayer when the programs of our little non-program oriented church are so great? Every weekend I could literally fill with worship plans, neighborhood cleanup and servant evangelism, worship services and counseling sessions. Then consider the needs of a large and growing family, and the rest of the time is taken up there. And, oh yeah, I have a full-time ministry teaching at the college. So, I can say no to 90% of the opportunities, be both an irresponsible family man and church worker, and still not have time for contemplative prayer. Where is the balance?

And how do I have victory over the temptation to be individually spectacular? How do I keep from being the one who runs the church, who leads the music and worship field, who runs family devotions and leads discipleship groups at school and is available to alumni and students? Again, even a modicum of availability leaves me stretched too thin to do anything well. What is the answer?

And how does a guy who has craved power his whole life learn how to be led, rather than to lead? I have spent all these years in associate ministry positions, having to submit and wait on preachers and elders to catch the vision that was in my heart. Now that I have had the power in a church to shape the philosophy and to set the tone, can I just give that up and return to the role of submission? I don’t mind submitting to the Holy Spirit, but I chafe at the idea that He would lead me through another person.

Here is the path that the Lord has led me down the last six months. Each of these steps has been necessary. Some have been painful. Some I have not yet really submitted to do yet. But here is what God has clearly told me.

God has called Ellen and me to take in and eventually adopt a baby, and then another one. When we were considering taking in Isaac, we sought counsel. Almost all of our friends advised us that there is a limit to our strength, and that we were there. I had been in agreement with all of them right up until near the end, when an epiphany struck me. God wanted to teach me something through Isaac, and he assured me that in the midst of it, I would learn much about joy. What I am to learn from Isaac is how to put my schedule where my rhetoric has been; at home. We are to the edge of our abilities and sometimes beyond. It may kill us. But one life is worth much sacrifice. Just ask Jesus about the value of a soul.

Not long after taking on so much at home, the Lord made it clear that I must step down from the informal pastor position that I held at the church, give up almost all administrative responsibilities, and live my calling to my wife and children. A dear friend persuaded the elders to require me to stay away from helping people move or from doing physical labor for people. I forced myself to take my hands off of everything for ten weeks, and then not to pick it up again. I set a schedule in place to let others lead worship about every other week, and to work as a team in planning. I now must let our elders to do the work of elders (plural) and to discern the direction for the body, but not to be the staff who carries it all out. I needed to end my salary from the church, which not only forces us to live more simply, but also relieves me of the feeling of responsibility to the church. I am also in the process of taking a sabbatical from school, and to renegotiate carefully what I am paid to do at school, and to give away all that I can. I am back under the yoke of consensus and of letting others preach and make decisions.

What am I learning? I am learning that the world goes on spinning without me controlling it. Ministry happens, God does His work, and often goes better without me (much as that hurts my ego). I am learning to live with myself not owning responsibility, but to focus on what I am given, which is my family first and my house church second, and then my neighbors third. And that’s all, at least for this season of my life. There are a thousand good things to do, and I will not do most of them. And that’s okay.

What energy I have after my few non-negotiables is given over to prayer and to discerning God’s leading. I am living with myself. I am finding peace. And occasionally, I actually have life to give away.

FROM LEADING TO BEING LED

The third temptation of Jesus was to be powerful. In contrast, Jesus told Peter that when he was old, he would be led where he did not want to go. And Nouwen found himself going to a community that was not where his ambitions wanted to take him. He writes, It was clearly a move from leading to being led. Somehow I had come to believe that growing older and more mature meant that I would be increasingly able to offer leadership. In fact, I had grown more self-confident over the years. I felt I knew something and had the ability to express it and be heard. In that sense I felt more and more in control. . . . The people I came to live with made me aware of the extent to which my leadership was still a desire to control complex situations, confused emotions, and anxious minds. . . . I am also getting in touch with the mystery that leadership, for a large part, means to be led. . . . One of the greatest ironies of the history of Christianity is that its leaders constantly gave in to the temptation of power—political power, military power, economic power, or moral and spiritual power—even though they continued to speak in the name of Jesus, who did not cling to his divine power but emptied himself and became as we are. The temptation to consider power an apt instrument for the proclamation of the Gospel is the greatest of all. . . . What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. Jesus asks, "Do you love me?" We ask, "Can we sit at your right hand and your left hand in your kingdom?"

But Jesus has a different vision of maturity: It is the ability and willingness to be led where you would rather not go. Immediately after peter has been commissioned to be a leader of his sheep, Jesus confronts him with the hard truth that the servant-leader is the leader who is being led to unknown, undesirable, and painful places. The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross. This might sound morbid and masochistic, but for those who have heard the voice of the first love and said yes to it, the downward-moving way of Jesus is the way to the joy and the peace of God, a joy and peace that is not of this world. . . . I, obviously, am not speaking about a psychologically weak leadership in which Christian leaders are simply the passive victims of the manipulations of their milieu. No, I am speaking of a leadership in which power is constantly abandoned in favor of love. . . . If there is any hope for the church in the future, it will be hope for a poor church in which its leaders are willing to be led.

The discipline that will move us in the direction of the leader who can live with outstretched hands is theological reflection. Nouwen writes, Just as prayer keeps us connected with the first love and just as confession and forgiveness keep our ministry communal and mutual, so strenuous theological reflection will allow us to discern critically where we are being led. . . . Most Christian leaders today raise psychological or sociological questions even though they frame them in scriptural terms. . . . I think we are only half aware of how secular even theological schools have become. Formation in the mind of Christ, who did not cling to power but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, is not what most seminaries are about. Everything in our competitive and ambitious world militates against it. But to the degree that such formation is being sought for a realized, there is hope for the church of the twenty-first century.
Nouwen concludes: Too often I looked at being relevant, popular, and powerful as ingredients of an effective ministry. The truth, however, is that these are not vocations but temptations. Jesus asks, "Do you love me?" Jesus sends us out to be shepherds, and Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch out our hands and be led to places where we would rather not go. He asks us to move from a concern for relevance to a life of prayer, from worries about popularity to communal and mutual ministry, and from a leadership built on power to a leadership in which we critically discern where God is leading us and our people. . . . What I have said is, obviously, nothing new, but I hope and pray that you have seen that the oldest, most traditional vision of Christian leadership is still a vision that awaits realization in the future. I leave you with the image of the leader with outstretched hands, who chooses a life of downward mobility. It is the image of the praying leader, the vulnerable leader, and the trusting leader. May that image fill your hearts with hope, courage, and confidence as you anticipate the new century.

FROM POPULARITY TO MINISTRY

The second temptation of Jesus was to be spectacular. Instead, we are called to shared ministry. Nouwen writes, I was educated in a seminary that made me believe ministry was essentially an individual affair. I had to be well trained and well formed, and after six years of training and formation, I was considered well equipped to preach, administer the sacraments, counsel, and run a parish. I was made to feel like a man sent on a long, long hike with a huge backpack containing all the things necessary to help the people I would meet on the road. . . . When I became a teacher I was even more encouraged to do my own thing. I could choose my own subject, my own method, and sometimes even my own students. . . . But Jesus refused to be a stunt man. He did not come to prove himself. He did not come to walk on hot coals, swallow fire, or put his hand in the lion’s mouth to demonstrate that he had something worthwhile to say. "Don’t put the Lord your God to the test," he said. When you look at today’s church, it is easy to see the prevalence of individualism among ministers and priests.

In contrast, Jesus’ second word to Peter was, "Feed my sheep." Three times he asked if Peter loved Him, and three times He mysteriously tied Peter’s answer to feeding His sheep. Nouwen writes, First of all, Jesus sends the twelve out in pairs (Mark 6:7). We keep forgetting that we are being sent out two-by-two. We cannot bring good news on our own. We are called to proclaim the Gospel together, in community. . . . I have found over and over again how hard it is to be truly faithful to Jesus when I am alone. . . . But far more importantly, it is Jesus who heals, not I; Jesus who speaks words of truth, not I; Jesus who is Lord, not I. This is very clearly made visible when we proclaim the redeeming power of God together. . . . Somehow we have come to believe that good leadership requires a safe distance from those we are called to lead. Medicine, psychiatry, and social work all offer us s in which "service" takes place in a one-way direction. Someone serves, someone else is being served, and be sure not to mix up the roles! But how can we lay down our life for those with whom we are not even allowed to enter into a deep personal relationship? . . . Therefore, true ministry must be mutual. When the members of a community of faith cannot truly know and love their shepherd, shepherding quickly becomes a subtle way of exercising power over others and begins to show authoritarian and dictatorial traits. The world in which we live—a world of efficiency and control—has no s to offer to those who want to be shepherds in the way Jesus was a shepherd.

The discipline that will help us overcome the temptation of individual heroism, and will help us to feed Jesus’ sheep in mutual ministry, is confession and forgiveness. Nouwen writes, Just as the future leaders must be mystics deeply steeped in contemplative prayer, so also must they be persons always willing to confess their own brokenness and ask for forgiveness from those to whom the minister. . . . Often I have the impression that priests and ministers are the least confessing people in the Christian community. . . . How can people truly care for their shepherds and keep them faithful to their sacred task when they do not know them and so cannot deeply love them?

FROM RELEVANCE TO PRAYER

The first temptation is the desire to be relevant. What an interesting choice of terms. It is the very word used by most new church plants in the last ten years. We want to meet practical needs, speak in the language of the cultural milieu, and answer all the questions the world is asking. So, while we are preoccupied with being relevant, Jesus is resisting that very thing. Nouwen says, I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely irrelevant and to stand in this world with nothing to offer but his or her own vulnerable self. That is the way Jesus came to reveal God’s love. . . . In this climate of secularization, Christian leaders feel less and less relevant and more and more marginal. Many begin to wonder why they should stay in the ministry. Often they leave, develop a new competency, and join their contemporaries in their attempts to make relevant contributions to a better world. . . . It is here that the need for a new Christian leadership becomes clear. The leaders of the future will be those who dare to claim their irrelevance in the contemporary world as a divine vocation that allows them to enter into a deep solidarity with the anguish underlying all the glitter of success, and to bring the light of Jesus there.

What is more important than being relevant? Loving Jesus. The rejected, unknown, wounded Jesus asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?" Perhaps another way of putting the question would be: Do you know the incarnate God? . . . The Christian leader of the future is the one who truly knows the heart of God as it has become flesh, "a heart of flesh," in Jesus. Knowing God’s heart means consistently, radically, and very concretely to announce and reveal that God is love and only love, and that every time fear, isolation, or despair begins to invade the human soul, this is not something that comes from God. This sounds very simple and maybe even trite, but very few people know that they are loved without any conditions or limits.

What is the discipline needed to love Jesus? Contemplative prayer. Nouwen writes, we have to be mystics. A mystic is a person whose identity is deeply rooted in God’s first love. If there is any focus that the Christian leader of the future will need, it is the discipline of dwelling in the presence of the One who keeps asking us, "Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me?" This is the discipline of contemplative prayer. Through contemplative prayer we can keep ourselves from being pulled from one urgent issue to another and from becoming strangers to our own heart and God’s heart. . . . [F]or the future of Christian leadership it is of vital importance to reclaim the mystical aspect of theology so that every word spoken, every word of advice given, and every strategy developed can come from a heart that knows God intimately. . . . Their leadership must be rooted in the permanent, intimate relationship with the incarnate Word, Jesus, and they need to find there the source for their words, advice, and guidance. . . . Dealing with burning issues without being rooted in a deep personal relationship with God easily leads to divisiveness because, before we know it, our sense of self is caught up in our opinion about a given subject. But when we are securely rooted in personal intimacy with the source of life, it will be possible to remain flexible without being relativistic, convinced without being rigid, willing to confront without being offensive, gentle and forgiving without being soft, and true witnesses without being manipulative.

All of this was faced by Nouwen when he moved to L’Arche. No one had read his books, or could even read, for that matter, and no one knew of his life in the greater circles outside the home. They were only impressed with whether he would be home by five o’clock to be part of their supper routine. He says, I was suddenly faced with my self, open for affirmations and rejections, hugs and punches, smiles and tears, all dependent simply on how I was perceived at the moment. In a way, it seemed as though I was starting my life all over again. Relationships, connections, reputations could no longer be counted on.

UPSIDE DOWN LEADERSHIP

For some time, I have been aware of the upside down view of leadership, even (especially?) within the church. We get our ideas of greatness and of leadership roles from the business world, or from the academic world, and then we re-interpret the words of Jesus to support that view. But recently, Michael Wilson gave each of the elders a copy of the book by Henri Nouwen, IN THE NAME OF JESUS. This little book, written in 1989, captures the concepts of Jesus and how our Lord views leadership. It is truly upside down. Well, I have read through the book three times now, and I want to try to summarize it here:

The book is interesting, but the fact that Henri Nouwen was also living its truths in a radical way makes it powerful. Nouwen had been in the priesthood for 25 years, and had taught at Harvard for two decades. He faced a sort of mid-life crisis, and asked himself, "Did becoming older bring me closer to Jesus?" Here was his answer:

After twenty-five years of priesthood, I found myself praying poorly, living somewhat isolated from other people, and very much preoccupied with burning issues. Everyone was saying that I was doing really well, but something inside was telling me that my success was putting my own soul in danger. . . . I woke up one day with the realization that I was living in a very dark place and that the term "burnout" was a convenient psychological translation for a spiritual .

The solution? Leave all the trappings of success and go to live and work in a group home (called L’Arche, where he served until his ) for mentally handicapped s. Nouwen writes, So I moved from Harvard to L’Arche, from the best and the brightest, wanting to rule the world, to men and women who had few or no words and were considered, at best, marginal to the needs of our society. It was a very hard and painful move, and I am still in the process of making it.

Nouwen is guided in his new insights around two biblical accounts: Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, and Jesus’ words to Peter after the Resurrection. Both have three components, and they provide the structure for the book. Jesus endured three temptations: the temptation to be relevant, the temptation to be spectacular, and the temptation to be popular. And Jesus said three things to Peter: "Do you love me?" "Feed my sheep." And "Someone else will take you." He folds those stories into his own change of calling, and it proves to be a convicting combination.

BLESSING MY ENEMY

Last night Ellen and I were talking during our date time, and I found myself identifying three "enemies" I have known during my life. Actually, they were friends, but they each elicited in me a strong negative feeling, way out of proportion to the alleged wrong they did to me. There was a common thread to the three: God blessed them, and I was jealous of their easy success in spite of their flaws. I was like the wicked servant who was given one talent (Matt 25) and buried it in the ground. I viewed God as unjust, rewarding one person who didn't deserve it while punishing another.

When I discover who my enemies have been, and I see why their actions have bothered me so much, I suppose the next step is to recognize my own besetting sin that causes my strong reaction. Here is my besetting sin: I am ashamed to admit it, but I am selfishly ambitious, and I am constantly (by that I mean all day long, with hardly a break) viewing life through the lens of advancing myself in the eyes of others. Pride is my besetting sin. I am a Respectaholic. I know that everyone is, especially men. But I mean that I am over-the-top consumed with self-promotion. My outward actions all tie into this self-promotion; I am either pursuing it (in which case I am guilty of selfish ambition) or I am running from it (in which case I am taking the Alternative Route of vying for Most Holy Man Award). Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of sin and death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Here's the next step for me: When I asked Ellen about enemies, after hearing about mine, she said, "I was just thinking how people probably view me that way, perhaps jealous that I have been unfairly blessed in my life." Ouch! I was so consumed with self-focus that for all these years I have hardly been aware that others may have viewed me, seen my flaws, and struggled with my having been so blessed by God. I immediately realized that there are several dear friends in my life who have probably at the least noticed how God has blessed me, and very possibly (if they are like me) have struggled not to be eaten up with envy over my station in life. It's all a matter of perspective, I guess.

"LORD, I confess to You that I have continued to harbor envy in my heart, running in the background of my life. You already know that, and you have blessed me anyway. Teach me to be content, truly, and to love others, truly, and to serve You wholly. As Gary Chapman wrote, please help me to 'be the best that I can be at who I am without a thought for me.' Sincerely Yours, ken"

RECOGNIZING HIDDEN SIN

As we prayed on Wednesday evening, considering the possibility of sin in the camp at cciph, three sources of hidden sin were revealed to me. They are all evil spirits that disguise themselves so as to cause us to not recognize them. Yet, such sin unconfessed and unrepented of can kill us and steal our joy.

Generational Sins. Generational sins are sins that have been in our family, sins that we have more or less inherited. Perhaps Father was an alcoholic or Mother was a worrier, Grandpa gave way to fits of rage or Grandma was depressed. Psychologically, these can be described as learned behaviors, or spiritually, as familiar spirits. Either way, we often don't see them as sins because it is the "normal" life that we grew up in. It seems that the biblical way of dealing with these generational sins is to confess the sins of our parents, our grandparents, and our families, and to consciously forsake the sins of our heritage. Jesus said that we are to hate our father and mother compared to our love for Him. Perhaps recognizing their sins is a start.

Cultural Sins. Cultural sins are those that permeate our society, sins that have become part of the atmosphere in which we live. Men visit pornographic websites and women watch daytime TV drama, everyone watches movies and listens to top 40 radio unquestioningly, and all people in our culture seem to lie and cheat on their taxes and greedily pursue gain and make ethical compromises. Again, we live with consciences unpricked because no one around us seems to consider it to be sinful. But the Bible seems to be clear on this one, too: Just because the entire nation has decided that wrong is right, that doesn't make it right. God will judge American society, not approve of it because the majority decided it was okay. He calls, "Come out of her and be free!"

Religious Sins. Religious sins may be the most unrecognized of all within the church. A religious spirit seems to invade organized religion in every generation with smug self-righteousness, judgmentalism, legalistic righteousness, and holier-than-thou hypocrisy. Our lives are filled with control, hatred and bigotry, and we can't even recognize it because all of the seemingly holy people at church are the same way. We actually reward the biggest hypocrites, awarding them places of honor and leadership (by giving them "control" and "power"), because they are the best actors in our assemblies. Jesus was merciful on the prostitutes and tax collectors, but he was uncompromisingly harsh toward the religious leaders of his day. Why was our Lord so hard on them? It is because they were dead and couldn't even see it. Theirs is the blackest judgment of all. We are called to see the spirit of religion among us and cast it out in Jesus' name.

"LORD, I see familiar spirits in my life, and I confess to you the sins of my parents and my extended family. I recognize that I have been soft on sin because I have bought into a cultural permissiveness in areas that Your Holy Spirit has told me are wrong. And I know that your Bride is corrupted by pride and hypocrisy, and I am chief among the hypocrites, for I love the reputation of being a holy man. I agree with you about these sins that they lead to death, and I accept again Your gift of life in Jesus' name. Amen."

Well....the end of worship as we know it....yes...it's time. For a few years, i have been concerned about the 'Sunday Morning Show'. The shallow music, the use of 'multi-media' in worship presentation, and the delving into our culture to achieve relevance in our worship. Not that all of these things are bad in and of themselves, but our dependence on them to 'get us in the mood' is dangerous. GOD is all we should need to 'get us in the mood'. Just because , on any certain Sunday, i may come to church feeling down, defeated, angry, unsaved, or any other negative way, does not mean that i need a bombardment of video, music, and sound media to 'bring me up'. All i need is to remember that God is STILL there, and lean heavily on Him. If i NEED sound, visuals, or outside 'stuff', i am in need of Him even more!

If i do come to church feeling any of the above, when i hit the door and see the other saints, i am quickly lifted up by knowing that, somewhere, one of them is feeling that way also. And when the worship begins, it's all ok! i have been places where there was always a need to experience a physical manifestation of God. Oh, i HAVE felt it...many times, and many times here at CCiPH, but it was always a pleasant surprise, not an expectation. NEEDING that type of manifestation always seems to cheapen it when it does arrive.

One Saturday night, back at CCC in Florence, ken had us open our Bibles to...i forgot whether it was Psalms, or anywhere we wanted, but open our Bibles to a place of our chioce, and, with instruments, SING the verses. Make a song of them, no matter how non-rhyming, and present it as worship. Why not? Was it not worship? It was right out of the Word....word for word! It was awkward at first...not seeming to 'fit', but was really freeing. We didn't HAVE to make it fit, or rhyme, or sell records! It was singing God's Word right back to Him! Certainly, He was pleased with it. And....isn't that what it is about? mark