On Creating a Disciple-Making Culture

March 25, 2013 in Culture, Discipleship, I Love the Local Church with 12 Comments

Last week, I gave a talk on discipleship at the “Building Biblical Churches Conference” hosted by the Spurgeon Fellowship of Florida. One of the points I argued had to with the responsibility of the leadership to create a culture for disciple-making. It just doesn’t happen by accident, and it should not happen by exception. In order for disciple-making to become normative in the life of a church, I argue that one of the most fundamental steps to take is to create a culture through robust means spearheaded by intentional leadership.

Disciple Making CultureHere are six means I believe church leaders should be intentional with implementing in order to create a disciple-making culture:

On Creating a Disciple-Making Culture

1.  A Philosophy That Focuses on Disciple-Making [PURPOSE]

From the very beginning, church leaders should have a clear understanding of the mission of the church. The church does not exist to satisfy the preferences of members or cater to the demands of religious consumers. The church exists to make disciples, and a philosophy that undergirds that mission focuses the life of the church toward that end. The practical benefit of purposeful thinking encourages a straightforward and simple approach to ministry rather than a busy calendar and complex, compartmentalized approach.

2.  Leadership Who Model Disciple-Making [PRAXIS]

Like priests, like people. Those most influential in creating culture are the leaders and the example they set. If church leaders are not the lead disciple-makers, then it is disingenuous to pursue a culture of disciple-making when the leadership undermine it. The Apostle Paul was such a discipler that he could send one of his disciple-making disciples in his stead to teach, serve, and live in a manner consistent with the life he modeled for churches. This did not come about on a platform or in an office. It happened because Paul was on mission in all of life to make disciples of Jesus. A model either magnifies or marginalizes the making of disciples.

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Observations on the Marks and Mission of the Church

March 24, 2013 in Discipleship, evangelicalism, Missional, Personal Commentary with 12 Comments

Marks and Mission

Let me begin by saying that I’m a big advocate of both the marks and the mission of the church. In fact, I want to believe we all are. But what I have observed in evangelical life is that those who emphasize the marks of a healthy church are often (not always) weak on the mission, and those who emphasize the mission of the church are often (not always) weak on the marks of a true church.

As I have argued earlier, the marks and mission are not in opposition to one another. Jesus is both the builder (mission) of the church as well as the perfector (marks) of the church. I want to pursue genuine biblical health that will, by virtue of being healthy, be growing and bearing fruit. I also want to pursue fruitfulness that is consistent and a consequence of faithfulness to God’s Word. As Tim Keller puts it, we should evangelize as we edify and edify as we evangelize. Churches should be comprised of disciples of Jesus who have a simultaneous pursuit of God (holiness) and pursuit of man (mission), and these two should not be divorced from one another. Jesus calls us to follow Him (marks of a true disciple), and He will make us fishers of men (mission of a true disciple).

Indeed, when one comes to think about discipleship in relationship to the marks and mission, it is compelling to see how disciple-making merges the two together. What is the mark of a true disciple? Christ-likeness (increasing conformity into His image). What is the mission of a true disciple? To make more disciples of Jesus (by the power of His Spirit and instrumentality of His Word). What kind of new disciples are we seeking to make? True disciples who bear the marks of a genuine, devoted follower of Jesus. It stands to reason then, that a biblical church bearing true marks of health, will consist of disciples not only becoming like Christ but also being used by Christ in His mission.

What troubles me is that often times churches who seek to emphasize numerical growth are very loosely connected or concerned with the marks of a true church. Theology and ecclesiology is reduced to a tool in the pragmatist belt, to be used like a spare tire in cases of emergency, rather than the engine that drives the vehicle. Because the goal is growth, whatever means to secure that goal is deemed appropriate (I think you will see a good bit of this, by the way, in how churches treat Easter).

On the other hand, often times churches who seek biblical depth and health are loosely connected or concerned about the mission of the church. Evangelism, disciple-making, and church planting are not cultivated and celebrated as central to the life and focus of the church. Whereas intentionality exists in expository preaching and the membership process, there is not as much intentionality when it comes to missional engagement and the discipleship process. Because the goal is health, churches can feel justified with missional atrophy so long as the church is valuing purity.

If we believe in the mission, then we must care deeply about ecclesiology, so that we know what God considers to be a church and how it is to be governed. If we believe in a true church, then we must care deeply about mission so that true churches serve the purpose for which we exist in the world. I want both, but I admit that I feel the tension and the breakdown that exists in the evangelical world.

I want to be careful here not to make broad generalizations and stereotype every church that exists. Bear with me as I simply try to elaborate on an observation that I hope will generate substantive discussion and even more importantly, a learning experience so that we as practitioners can have a healthy and robust praxis in our respective local churches.

Am I missing it here? Are my observations off base? What are your thoughts?

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Disciple-Making and the Promises of God

March 22, 2013 in Discipleship, Jesus with 2 Comments

BirdsEvery Christian is a disciple of Jesus. It’s our new identity. Our calling is to make disciples of Jesus. It’s our purpose and mission. When we live in our identity and live out our purpose, we are disciples of Jesus who make more disciples of Jesus. In short, we are disciple making disciples.

One of the great encouragements we have to live as disciple-making disciples is the powerful promises of God. They are God’s provision to keep us from living in unbelief. Have you ever considered how the Great Commission is sandwiched with the power and promise of Jesus?

Jesus begins, “All authority (power) in heaven and earth has been given to me.” In other words, Jesus is saying, “Everything that ever existed or will exist is subject to Me. Nothing is too hard for me.” Therefore (“because I’ve made this provision FOR YOU”), go and make disciples.  The power of Jesus entails a promise in making disciples that no heart is too hard, no sinners is so enslaved, no eyes are so blind that Jesus can, with a word, utterly and entirely save and transform their life. Let Saul of Tarsus enter your mind, or Lydia, or Matthew, or perhaps even your own life.

Jesus ends, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” There will be moments in living for Jesus that you feel all alone. Taking up your cross may mean laying down everything and losing everyone that liked the old you (not the one that makes much of Jesus). But Jesus, knowing the challenges we will face, gives us greater comfort to overcome those challenges. Internally, we experience the promise of Jesus through the witness of the Spirit who again and again testifies of our adoption into the family of God. When we proclaim the good news to sinners and face being ostracized, the same Spirit who empowers us to witness is the same one who comforts us with the adoption love of God, crying out “Abba, Father!” Externally, we experience the promise of Jesus through the good hand of our providential God. We know that God does all things well and orchestrates the events and circumstances of our lives for His glory and our good. Therefore, we can enter the unknown not having to know what the future beholds, but rather risk our lives in making disciples because the One who holds the future knows my name.

Let me give one other example of the promises of God for making disciples.

Think of the kindness of God that He would illustrate His promises through ordinary things we see every day. How often do you see birds in the air? How often do you see grass on the ground? Did you know that birds and grass are ours to see the promises of God? How different would our lives be if every time we say a bird or blade of grass, what came to our mind was, “Promise! Promise! Promise!”?

Yet when we are living with eyes of faith, we will indeed see it the way Jesus taught us. Could it be the reason we are not making disciples of Jesus is because we fail to believe the promises and power of God? Why were they given to us? According to Jesus, they were given so that we would not get preoccupied with our lives but rather the kingdom of God. Unbelievers worry about daily provisions of what they will eat and what they will wear. Disciples of Jesus have a heavenly Father who makes provision for these things, and His promise is that “all these things will be added unto you” when you “seek first the kingdom of God.” The promise that “all these things (the legitimate stuff that often keeps us from making disciples) will be added unto you” should liberate us to live sacrificially and single-mindedly in pursuit of the kingdom of God. And how often do we need to believe that promise? Every time we see a bird flapping in the air or a blade of grass blowing in the wind.

A failure to make disciples isn’t just disobedience to Jesus, but it is unbelief in the power and promises of God. The purpose of God for our lives (making disciples) was sandwiched between these two realities because they were intended to press down on our purpose and smother us with Jesus’ omnipotence and nearness. May God give us eyes of faith to see the world the way Jesus intended it and cause to join Him in the mission of seeing His kingdom come through the making of disciples through the power of His promises.

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The Whole Church with the Whole Gospel for the Whole World

March 16, 2013 in Discipleship, Evangelism, Missional with 5 Comments

Very well done.

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Life is too short to be in a hurry

March 11, 2013 in Discipleship, Missional, Personal Commentary with 14 Comments

hurry-manFor the past several weeks, I’ve been reflecting on living a hurried life. I become convicted of patterns and pursuits counterproductive to the mission to make disciples. The rhythm of society these days seems to be so out of step with the cadence Jesus set out for his disciples. Here is the Savior of the world, the Author of time, never in a hurry in accomplishing the most life-changing, history-shaping mission the world has ever known.

Someone in a hurry makes an idol out of time. They allow the present to be dictated by the future. Lusting after not-yet moments, we deprive ourselves from the already present moments when we are called to love. Skillful living is making most of the time through a redemptive lifestyle, and ironically, making the most of time does not come by hurrying up but by slowing down.

One of the great hindrances to life on mission is being in a hurry. Have you noticed how impossible it is for a hurried person to love someone? They may be physically present, but they are mentally distant. They may give you lip service, but their hearts are far from you. Don’t get me wrong. There are good intentions with being in a hurry. I want to get things done. I love being productive. But when the product takes precedence over people, then my usefulness ironically makes me unproductive for the mission. Even worse, I begin to treat people like product rather than objects of my affection–to listen, to learn, to love. All those things that takes time–things that the absence of margin and presence of hurry rob us from experiencing as we controlled by a rhythm of life that takes the life out of us.

Disciples of Jesus cannot be controlled by time or enamored by the future. Idolizing time breeds unbelief in Jesus, who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. When we are set free to slow down, we can calibrate our lives according to the cadence of the kingdom. One of the simplest ways of being out of step with the world is not living to keep up with it. I am not advocating a life of laziness but rather a pursuit of presence. It’s a perseverance in abiding, not a fleeing for fleeting moments.

Truly, Jesus’ yoke is easy inasmuch as Jesus is not in a hurry. My yoke is hard because the burdens I create are heavy. I’m learning the joyful consequences of preferring Jesus’ yoke over mine. And when His joy is mine, I find that His glory shines in the very places and among the faces of people I’m privileged to love and give my life away. So Lord, let me live on mission so that when the Spirit calls me to make much of Jesus, I can genuinely respond with “present.”

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Lecrae | Tell the World

March 4, 2013 in Evangelism, Miscellanies, Missional with 0 Comments

I’m brand new.

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True and False Christianity [Mindmap + Manuscript + MP3]

February 28, 2013 in I Love the Local Church, Preaching with 3 Comments

True and False Christianity MindMap

Last Sunday, I preached a message on true and false Christianity from Philippians 3. One of the newer elements of my sermon prep has been to incorporate mind-mapping at the early stages of developing the sermon. This usually happens alongside the time of sentence diagramming and shaping thoughts on the moleskine. Last week, I did my mindmap while in bed late Monday night. When I posted it on Twitter Saturday night, I had a lot of questions about mind-mapping and how I use it for sermon development.

Our minds likely work differently, so the approach to mind-mapping will vary. However, I still think every preacher can benefit from the exercise. For me, it has been instrumental in collecting thought and connecting them to the thesis or main idea of the text. In a non-linear fashion, it has allowed me to flesh out thoughts better than the bullet point format.

For those interested, I thought I’d share the connection between my mindmap and my manuscript, both of which I am posting below. You can also listen to the MP3 of the message. As for the tools, I produce my mindmap using iThoughtsHD on the iPad, and I create my mindmap on MS Word to be converted on Pages for the iPad. Click on the mindmap to get the larger version to view.

True and False Christianity Mindmap
True and False Christianity Manuscript
True and False Christianity MP3

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To Be Gospel-Centered, You Need the Holy Spirit

February 27, 2013 in Gospel, Holy Spirit, Jesus with 9 Comments

If you believe in the centrality of the gospel, you know that the good news of Jesus Christ is not just the door to the Christian faith, but it is the entire house. It is not only the entrance point but the pathway on which we walk our entire Christian life. Therefore, the journey of the Christian experience is growing more and more in the gospel.

There has been some discussion and even debate as to whether all the talk about the power and centrality of the gospel is neglecting the power and necessity of being filled with the Spirit. Are we talking about the gospel to the neglect of the Spirit’s working in our lives? Are we substituting the gospel for the Spirit when explaining how we operate as Christians in the world? I think those are valid questions, and I want to briefly attempt to answer the question in this post.

I am convinced that the overarching purpose of the Holy Spirit in the world is to magnify Jesus Christ. One of the most fundamental ways to know if you are filled with the Spirit is whether Jesus is being magnified and glorified in your life. That’s what the Spirit does. Jesus is magnified in the Gospel–because it is all about who He is and what He has done for sinners. Therefore, it stands to reason that the Spirit’s magnification of Jesus will be through sinners reveling more and more in the glorious gospel of our Lord.

That’s the logic I see in Scripture, but how does it work out practically?

God’s gospel is robustly Trinitarian. God the Father administrates salvation; God the Son accomplishes salvation; God the Spirit applies salvation. In His application of the gospel, the Holy Spirit brings us a true understanding of and genuine experience in the grace of Jesus Christ. Without the Spirit’s application, the gospel would not only be theoretical but our treatment would be at best superficial.

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Missional Moleskine: Your City Travelogue

February 21, 2013 in Evangelism, Missional with 6 Comments

missional moleskine 2013Four years ago, I was leading a group from our church in the formation of a launch team for our first daughter church plant. In my series on “cultivating community contacts,” I shared about the “missional moleskine” (not to be confused with the memory moleskine).

When I started using the missional moleskine, I used it to gather all information from people I encountered in the daily rhythm of life. Such information included (a) their name, (b) when and where I met the person, (c) what the person was doing, (d) info to help me remember them, and (e) info from conversations about their life, beliefs, and experiences. This information would then be used for ongoing prayer as well as plans to build on (cultivate) the encounters from the past. Here is how I explained it in 2008:

Once I have gathered this information, I leave room in my journal for future encounters. For example, if I cultivate a relationship with a server at a restaurant, I will schedule my eating around their work schedule and attempt to connect with them on a regular basis, building on the previous encounters and conversations. Each successive encounter would be dated and filled out, creating a chain of commentary hopefully leading to progress in loving them and leading them to Jesus. The end result is to chronicle the movement around the mission as we cultivate relationships with unbelievers and seek to sow the good seed of the gospel in their lives as a faithful witness and relentless commitment to advancing the cause of Christ. Other benefits include specifics for ongoing prayer and intercession and research/reflection for cultural exegesis, planning, and corporate strategies.

This year, I am focusing on making disciples through a renewed relational investment plan, and with that plan, and am reincorporating the missional moleskine with a few tweaks. The big thing I’m focusing on this year is incorporating “place” and “progression” in the investment “plan“. My goal is to see the missional moleskine turn into a travelogue for life in the city. It is tracing life on mission at home (first place), at work (second place), and in the community (third places). Living as a missionary is not about being special or additional but intentional, and the missional moleskine helps me map that out.

By progress, I am talking about the establishment of relationships with non-Christians and investing in those relationships progressively over time. It is common knowledge that the majority of people whose lives are transformed by the gospel do so through a relationship. For me, this is ground zero for living on mission.  While this may sound really elementary and basic, the starting point has to be an honest one.

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GCM Collective | Orlando One Day | March 9th

February 20, 2013 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

GCM SquareToday, I registered seven men from Grace to head up to Orlando for the GCM Collective One Day Training taking place on March 9th. Caesar Kalinowski and Seth McBee will be leading the one day training, and I’m looking forward to training we will receive from them. Last October, we (PLNTD) had Caesar (and Scotty Smith) speak at a training event in New England, and folks were really encouraged by the training. It will be good to see him again and (finally) meet Seth as well.

Here’s the schedule for the event:

9:00-10:15am       Main Session One: What is the Gospel?
10:30-11:45am     Main Session Two: Community on Mission – Transitioning from Traditional to Incarnational
11:45am-1:00pm  Lunch
1:15-2:15pm          Breakout One
2:30-3:30pm        Breakout Two
3:45-5:00pm        Main Session Three: Creating a Discipleship Environment

If you are in the Florida area, I encourage you to take some gospel community leaders (or your small group equivalent) and use the drive time to deepen relationships with one another. We have three hours up and back, and I’m looking forward to tapping into that time together as much as the training itself.

If you or a group from your church is going, let me know. It would be great to connect while we are there!

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