Discipleship = people not programmes

This is the last post of three about discipleship.

God provides the church as the framework around which discipleship grows. It’s like the trellis a plant grows up, it provides helpful structure, but just going to church isn’t discipleship. Nor is going to home group, or doing a course on discipleship, or a weekend thinking about it. They may be helpful, provide some helpful shape and structures, they provide programmes which can potentially facilitate discipleship. But discipleship is about people not programmes.

Discipleship is about teaching and applying the truth of the gospel in the context of a commitment to share real life.

It must never replace church. But sits alongside, or rather inside, church. There’s an African proverb 'It takes a village to raise a child'. In the same way it takes a church to makes disciples. We see it in the early church. In Acts 2v42-47we read of the Apostles are discipling a rapidly growing, increasingly transformed community. But notice the context in which it happens. It’s not an hour a week on Sunday. They are devoted to the teaching, one another, remembering Jesus and prayer. They share everything, and meet daily and are in and out of each others homes. They are enjoying the reality of a community created, formed and fed by the gospel day by day. The early church is a gospel greenhouse full of rapidly growing disciples being discipled by rapidly growing disciples in the midst of real life.

This is the disciples taking Jesus great commission to go and make disciples seriously. This is them putting it into practice. How do we set up church so that we maximise opportunities for discipleship? How can we both be discipled and disciple others?

Be there – How committed are you to your church family? How often do you miss them? Are they just an hour event on Sunday or interwoven into the fabric of your life? Do you make the most of every opportunity? How engaged are you when you’re there? Are you fully there or just physically there? I know some of you are introverts and church seems like something to psyche yourself up for and then have therapy to get over. But think people not programmes. Are you really there?

Let me give you a piece of advice. My observation is that phones are killing community. Not just outside the church but inside it. I watch people hide from conversation by using their phone like Captain America uses his shield be that on Sunday morning before or after the service or in people’s homes over meals. Being on your phone screams ‘Don’t get too close, I don’t want contact’.  So here's a radical suggestion, take a deep breath, don’t take your phone to church, or to coin slogan ‘make the glove compartment the phone compartment’. Or here’s a radical discovery I’m trying to help our church to make. There is somewhere on your device a button that if you hold it for long enough will actually turn your phone off, and back on again later when you need it! And after a few minutes of hyperventilation you will, eventually, discover you can breath fine without it on if you persevere.

Parents, there is a danger of using our children to do the same thing. Don’t.

Take Risks – Apathy is cool. That’s not just true of teenagers is it? How often have you settled for talking about the football or work rather than talking to someone about how they are doing spiritually or sharing a problem with them and asking for prayer or sharing an encouragement? Why do we do that? Because we’re afraid of being thought too keen, too spiritual. Or we’re afraid to be vulnerable, maybe you’ve been hurt before, maybe someone has let you down, or gossiped a confidence. Can I gently ask you to risk it again?

Discipleship is deliberate. It’s intentional, it takes risks, it wants to know and be known, to pray and be prayed for, to encourage and be encouraged, to celebrate and mourn with others. It wants to take someone’s hand and run with them to the Father, to be led again to the cross. Maybe some of you need to begin first by putting that into practice in your marriage.

Discipleship and evangelism - But what about evangelism. How do I share the gospel with someone? Here’s the problem. We think about discipleship and evangelism as two totally separate things. But really they are two sides of the same coin. Discipleship is evangelizing Christians, and evangelism is discipling non-Christians. One explains and applies the gospel of Jesus to a life yet to realise his life changing power, the other explains and applies the gospel of Jesus to a life which is Spirit filled so that power produces change.

Evangelism isn’t hit and run. Think about Jesus calling Levi, it’s not a hit and run, Jesus seeks and then eats with him then invites him to follow him for 3 years seeing what he does. Think about Zacchaeus, the woman at the well, the demoniac. Jesus listens to them, learns about them, and in the context of their needs he shows them who he is and calls them to follow him, before teaching them more.

Paul evangelises by sharing his life with people as well as the gospel – lip and hip. Paul disciples by sharing his life with people as well as the gospel. Will we?

Let me end by giving you a few really practical helps:

1. Discipling happens best when the Bible is open – God knows, he speaks powerfully, and it takes the onus off my ability to discern someone’s needs. Why not read the Bible at the start of a meal as a family, or when friends come over? Or asking each other what you’ve been reading this week when you meet up for coffee? Or get to church 10 minutes earlier to do just that. Keep at it, it won’t feel natural the first few times – like any skill it takes time.

2. Sharing isn’t caring - Praying and acting is caring. Don’t be a talking shop get real. Read James and put the gospel into practise. That’s one of the biggest criticisms people from outside the church have of the church, it’s all talk.

3. Learn and apply the one anothers – it’s a God given how to of discipling and is always practical.

4. The church is not Las Vegas - What’s the phrase? What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. What happens in the church shouldn’t stay in the church. It’s not a secret club it is a family entrusted with the gospel. It is something we should talk about. One of the young men in our church got a shock recently. He arrived at church one morning to see one of his colleagues had unexpectedly driven all the way from Hull to come to Grace because he couldn’t stop talking about his church, and she wanted to see if what he said was true. That shouldn’t be unusual.

A friend of ours came to faith in part because the church provided her and her family with meals for two weeks when they adopted their second child. She couldn’t get over how these people who didn’t know her loved her and she was so intrigued she came to church heard the gospel and trusted Jesus. The churches love should spill out and over into the community.

5. Disciple people in the gospel not middle class values with a gospel veneer - You know those tables you buy, that look like wood, but really there’s just a thin covering of wood like material over MDF. Well sometimes our gospel is like that and we mustn’t disciple people in that. It’s seen in the expectation that working class people will naturally become more middle class when they trust Jesus – just stop and think about that for a minute. Are middle class values really gospel values? No. We need to think really hard about a gospel attitude to money. To family. To education and our children. To literacy. To justice. To possessions. To technology. To conscience. To work. We mustn’t be confused about them because if we are we will disciple others in a tepid fusion of the gospel-lite and class values.  When only the true gospel can bring lasting change.

We need a bigger grasp of grace

A bigger grasp of grace - that is foundational to discipling others well.  Turn to 2 Timothy 3v10-11. I want to camp here for a few minutes and see some principles.

“You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings – what kind of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured. Yet the Lord rescued me from them all.”

Paul says Timothy “You know…” Timothy you and I have enjoyed a great friendship, an intimate friendship. I’m an open book to you. You know all about me. Timothy knows how Paul lives. He’s been with him watching him, listening to him. He knows what gets Paul out of bed in the morning, what makes him tick, what he loves, what he lives for.

He knows what Paul’s belief in Jesus translates to in terms of action. He knows what Paul treasures, what and why he’s endured, his struggles, his battles, his sufferings. He’s been with him in the trenches of Antioch, Iconium and Lystra. He’s seen him preach the gospel and face rejection, preach the gospel and see conversion, and establish healthy churches in those places.

How many people know you like that? Is there someone you can say that of? Someone who knows what makes you tick? Someone who has been by your side through thick and thin, through good and bad? Who’s been with you in the depths and on the heights?  Be honest, is there?

It’s something we long for but are also terrified of isn’t it? It’s why we do dating like a second hand car salesman sells cars. We want to show the polished side not the just got out of bedside. We show the chirpy upbeat not the grumpy and bad breathed. That’s why the reality of marriage is often such a shock, unless stupidly we try to do the same! We’re too often like that in church too. We approach church like the second hand car salesman. Selling our good points, covering up or glossing over the struggles and brokenness and battles with sin. We long for friendship like this but we’re also terrified of it.

But Paul can be this open because of the gospel. The gospel tells us that God has fully known everything about us, every dirty dark sin that we hide from others. What you do on your laptop in the early hours of the morning, your struggle with porn, your romantic longings after someone who’s married, your chequered sexual past. Your struggle with greed, your past hatred of Christians, your frustrations with your marriage. You’re battle with post-natal depression or with the loss of an unborn baby. Your envy of others who have what you long for be it a spouse, a child, disposable income, the car or job of your dreams. The abuse you’ve caused, the abuse you’ve suffered. God knows it all and at the cross Jesus pays for it all. Paul is well aware of his past, but he knows Jesus has stamped it paid in full.

And that means he can live life openly. He’s neither trying to appear good enough nor wallowing in sin untransformed. He’s pressing on, growing in holiness, resting in God’s grace. And that liberates him to be honest and open with others who know God’s grace. Because if they’ve experienced God’s redeeming grace then they won’t judge him, they’ll love and welcome him just as Jesus does, just as they’ve been welcomed with their failings and struggles. They’ll invest in his growing holiness and transformation into the likeness of Jesus.

I often talk with new leaders or young leaders in our church about cultivating an un-shockable face and an un-judging heart. There should be no sin someone can confess to me that shocks me because when I truly understand the horrors lurking in the corners of my heart I will know that could’ve been, at times has been, me. And my heart should be un-judging because it has drunk deeply of the grace of God when I deserved judgment.

We have to keep the gospel front and centre in our thinking as we engage with brokenness aware of our brokenness and the gospels lavish grace.

Making disciples that last begins with us grasping the staggering depths of our sin and the amazing magnitude of God’s grace which knows and covers every sin. A grace so deep that it frees me to be open with others about my sins and failures and be a safe pair of hands and lips when they open up about theirs. Pointing one another to the cross and grace again and again and again. Discipleship begins with me having a continually bigger grasp of grace.

The Silver Bullet of discipleship

How have you been discipled? What was good, bad, and ugly about it?  It's not a rhetorical question, actually stop reading right now and answer the question.  Maybe even get a pen or pencil out and write it down.

You still haven't done it have you?  You're just skipping that question, don't, do it now.

Are you ready for the silver bullet of discipling others? Get your pens out… There... isn’t one. Discipling others is a life long joy-filled, heart breaking, encouraging, discouraging journey. It’s messy and complex. It’s often circular rather than linear. But it is ultimately worth it. Paul writes to the Thessalonians “For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy.” (2v19)

The joy of discipling others is seeing them turn from idols to Christ, go on and grow and persevere until they reach the finish. Paul looks forward to, and longs for, the day when he stands before his Saviour and is filled with joy at seeing those he’s preached the gospel to and discipled there with him.  Knowing, seeing that they completed the race. Discipling others is long term. It’s a life long investment. It’s not like teaching a class for a year, or 5 years and seeing them graduate. Some discipling will be for a season, but in our communication era most will continue even then at a distance and in a less intense way. But most discipling is life-long and involves ups and downs, highs and lows, laughs and losses.

I had the privilege of discipling a young guy in our church from the age of about 15. When he chose as his email address ‘nofearindeath’ I was a bit surprised. But I remember not 10 years later doing the marriage prep for him and his fiancé when they discovered he had cancer. I then spoke of his faith at his funeral not many years after preaching at his wedding. Heart breaking? Yes. But he ran the race. He finished the race and there was joy with the grief.

The real heart-break of discipling comes when someone turns their back on their faith. Paul writes of Demas “Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.”(2 Tim 4v9-10) Sometimes those we disciple drift or are lured away; growing cold, attending irregularly, and then falling in love with something or someone else. This shouldn’t surprise us in some ways, just think about the parable of the sower, but it should hurt us, just as it did Paul.

Discipleship isn’t about programmes it’s about people, it’s about faith lived out in real relationships. And that means progress isn’t linear, it’s messy and complex, it’s stop start, it’s progress and regress. It’s hard and yet it’s what Jesus calls us to.

Francis Chan writes“Why is it we see so little disciple making taking place in the church today? Do we really believe that Jesus told His early followers to make disciples but wants the 21st century church to do something different? None of us would claim to believe this, but somehow we have created a culture where the paid ministers do the ministry and the rest of us show up, put some money in the plate and leave feeling inspired or “fed”. We have moved so far away from Jesus’s command that many Christians don’t have a frame of reference for what making disciples looks like.”

So how do we disciple one another?  That's what I want to think briefly about in the next couple of posts.  But if you didn't answer that question at the start, can I encourage you to do it now: How have you been discipled? What was good, bad, and ugly about it?

Mark 12v35-44

How in your face is Jesus? How often does Jesus make you uncomfortable? How often does what he says unsettle you? Does Jesus still challenge and provoke us? Or is he too tame?

If the gospel were a pantomime we all know how we’d react when the Pharisees come on stage. We’d boo and hiss. Why? Because they’re the baddies, they just don’t realise it, but we do, we know. Except the danger with thinking like that is that we defuse the explosive power of their interactions with Jesus, which are recorded to challenge and change us.

Which religious group is this description of?  “They have a very high view of scripture, they study it, memorise it, and seek to interpret and apply it to every day life. They want those around them to walk with God not just talk about him. They seek to live life in such a way that it pleases God. Dissatisfied with the corruption and half-heartedness of contemporary worship they designed a new way of worship focused around prayer, public reading and exposition of the scriptures. They pray often, fast, value fellowship, hate sin, pursue holiness, give generously and are active evangelists.”

Which group is it describing? It could be evangelical Christians but its actually a description of the Pharisees. As Jesus faces off with the Pharisees they are more like us than we’re comfortable with. And Jesus gets in their face and confronts them because their view of him is too small. Their religion is too constrained and joyless and their love is too half-hearted.

Way back in Mark 3v6 the battle lines are drawn when after Jesus heals a man on the Sabbath “the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus.” They then react furiously to his clearing the temple and know that Jesus has them in his crosshairs in the parable the tenants(12).

Jesus confronts them, challenges them and their religiosity. And so Mark 12 resembles the scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. When having taken the golden statue from the altar in the temple Indie has to avoid blow darts, jump a pit, get under a descending rock door, and avoid a spear wall before outrunning a giant rolling boulder. He races along facing one booby trap after another after another.

Jesus here in Mark 12 avoids trap after trap, after trap. Trap 1 (13-17)should we pay taxes to Caesar? (18-27)Trap 2 who will she be married to at the resurrection, and Trap 3(28-34) which is the greatest commandment? Jesus avoids every one and challenges the religious leaders about their failure to know the scriptures and love and serve God. And now, in these verses, the questioned becomes the questioner.

Religion that Jesus Rejects

Jesus authority is shown (34)as he pronounces that this Teacher of the Law isn’t far from the kingdom. That would have staggered those listening, They’d have assumed this man was in the kingdom. He was a teacher of the law. He’s got the right family background, connections, education, letters after his name, he could name drop more conference speakers than even the best connected networking pastor. He’s just brilliantly summarised the law, even saying that love mattered more than sacrifice and offerings. But Jesus staggeringly says he isn’t far from the kingdom, but he isn’t in. One crucial question remains, who does he say Jesus is?

That’s the key question in Mark. In Mark 1:1 Mark tells us he believes Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. In Mark 8 Peter confesses Jesus as the Messiah and then Jesus teach them he’s so much more than their limited understanding, and at the cross the centurion confesses Jesus is the Son of God.

Here Jesus is in the temple as he asks his question. In the very centre of their worship and asks the question that’s really at the heart of Judaism. The question that’s still at the heart of the universe

Entry to the kingdom depends on who you say Jesus is. That’s the issue Jesus raises as he challenges them. (35-37)Jesus quotes Psalm 110:1, where David describes God speaking to the Messiah. The religious leaders think the Messiah is just David’s descendant, born of his line, an anointed king yes, important, yes. But Jesus wants them to see how far short their expectations fall of reality. How small and timid their concept of the Messiah really is. How they haven’t really grappled with what scripture says. If David calls the Messiah his lord then the Messiah is greater than David, not just David’s son. He is David’s Lord, the one who will be exalted to the right hand of God, the place of honour, and whose enemies God will help him overcome.

Jesus is pushing them to think through who the Messiah is, who he is. (37)He’s not just David’s son, he’s God’s Son. He’s the Son of the parable(1-11). And there’s no entry into the kingdom unless you recognise who Jesus is and confess him Son of God and Messiah.

To love God means to recognise his Son. And as the King of the kingdom Jesus rejects the religion he sees around him because that religion rejects him even though he fulfils the Old Testament. Even though he’s everything the sacrifices going on around him and the prophecies pointed to they reject him. So Jesus rejects religion that is full of hypocrisy, whose constraints and expectations are too small, which should have recognised him but rejects him.

You can’t have faith if you won’t have Jesus. Can I ask have you trusted Jesus? Have you actually got beyond your preconceptions, taken off the stabilisers, and really looked at Jesus? There is nothing tame or timid about him. Listen to his claims. Have you confessed him as both Saviour and Son of God? It matters because if we’ve rejected him he will reject us no matter how religious we are and there’s no worse place to be because he is right now at the right hand of God and to be opposed to him is to face God’s anger.

Let me say, if you haven’t yet followed him you’re always welcome in church, there’s no better place to be, but don’t just settle for religion when you really need Jesus. Keep asking that question – Who is Jesus? Ask it as the Bible is read, ask it as you hear the preaching, as you sing the songs?

For those of us who have trusted Jesus, have we grown comfortable with him? Have his words lost the ability to surprise us anymore? Is our Jesus like a pair of well-worn comfortable slippers? Stop and hear his claim. He is great David’s greater Son. God in all his glory made man and he is now at God’s right hand and will come again when every one of his enemies will be put under his feet. And that is great news for us because it means he is able. Able to answer our prayers, able to keep us, able to give us hope that will sustain us in the face of opposition and struggle and suffering because he will return.

We must see the real Jesus, not settled for a scaled down version if we are to live lives for his glory.

Following this Jesus radically reshapes our loves

As Jesus closes this teaching in the temple he deliberately stops and draws a contrast. He pointedly tells his followers that they must be different from the religion they see around them(38). That understanding who he is will transform them. How?

Love God not reputation(38-39)– A young pianist was making his debut at Carnegie Hall, he played magnificently and as he left the stage the audience cheered. The stage manager encouraged him to go onstage for his encore, but the pianist refused. “But look out of the curtains. They love you! Go take your encore!” The Pianist answered “Do you see that one old man in the balcony on the left?” The stage manager looked and said he did. “That man is seated. I will not give an encore until he stands and cheers.” The exasperated stage manager said “Only one man is not standing, and you will not take an encore?” The pianist said “You see, that man is my piano teacher. Only when he stands will I take an encore.”

What distinguishes between religion and faith is love. The disciple loves God because we know how we’ve been loved, we’ve tasted God’s goodness and salvation in Jesus Christ and we cannot but love him in return. And that love means we live for his praise and glory not ours. And everything we do flows from gratitude and thanks not to earn forgiveness but out of an overflowing awareness of grace.

That’s so easy to say but so hard to do. We live in a world that encourages us to crave recognition, to long for respect. We all want that don’t we? We have to ask – am I living as I do for love of God or love of self via the approval of others? Do I love God as a response to his love for me and is that overflowing into active love and concern for God’s glory? Or do I just want a pat on the back, a positive performance management review, a good reputation from others?

Love God not money(40) – The tragedy is that the religious pray in two ways: they pray to God for show and prey like vultures on the poor and helpless for profit. You cannot love God without loving those God loves. Throughout the Old Testament God has shown special concern for the poor, the refugee, the widow. In Matthew 23 Jesus challenges the Pharisees and says “you have neglected the more important matters of the law” … What do you expect to come next? Religious activities, prayer meeting, mission and fasting? What does he say? “justice, mercy and faithfulness.”

Do you see the challenge Jesus gives? It was great last week to listen to your compassion weekend. You are a church that cares for the poor and fatherless. But can I ask you how many of you went home and did as Andy suggested and looked again at how you support one of those 6 organisations? How many actually did it? How many were moved where it is often most painful – our wallets?

Loving God because we’ve been loved by God leads to practical action. It leads to a giving of ourselves for others just as Jesus gave himself for us.

Love God wholeheartedly(41-44) – Jesus makes a deliberate contrast between the religious rich who give lots and the poor widow, who gives everything she has to God and lives by faith.

I wonder how the financial planner in you reacted to this woman. If she came and sat beside you this morning and asked you if she should put her last coin in the offering box, what would you say? My hunch is we’d say no! But Jesus looks at it differently, he praises her generosity because by it she shows her devotion, her love for God, that she’s holding nothing back because God has held nothing back from her in his love.

Instead Jesus calls his disciples to a love which gives all to God just like the widow has. Disciples realise that in Christ God has held nothing back from us, he has done what we cannot and therefore we cannot hold anything back from him.

If we find ourselves struggling to give our all back to God it’s because we haven’t fully understood what he’s given for us. 12:6 “He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved.” God loved us so much that the Father sends the Son who loves us so much that he willingly comes knowing he will die in our place for our sin. Jesus gives up all the glories of heaven out of love for us. How when we grasp that can we hold anything back from him? How can we not love him? How can we say this far I will follow but no farther? You can have this but not that?

Jesus is calling us to a passionate love, a love that is lavish, that is total, that is all absorbing. Why? Because that’s how we have been loved.

Are we, am I, so amazed by how we are loved that it transforms our speech, our living, our loving? Or is our view of Jesus too small?

Do Jesus words shock you? Is Jesus in your face this morning? There is nothing half-hearted about discipleship because there is nothing half hearted about the cost to make us disciples. God the Son, great David’s greater Son clothed himself in flesh, the creator becomes creation, the eternal one experiences death, the sinless one bears the wrath of sin. Why? Because he loves. Do you see the glory of who Jesus is? A wholly devoted Saviour calls for wholly devoted disciples.

Devotion seen in our love for him that overflows in our concern for God’s glory, our treatment of others, and our use of our God given resources. In Jesus God held nothing back and when we see who we really we will do likewise.

Connecting life with mission

Christmas is a great opportunity to share the gospel.  But Christmas is also sometimes the most frustrating time to do mission because there is so much else going on; nativity plays, concerts, social engagements, family commitments and so on.  This is all exacerbated by the disconnected way in which we live life.  We often live at a distance to family, meaning time with them is more difficult to crave out because of travel and also less possible to do spontaneously.  If you live three hours drive away from family you can't just drop in, or come over for dinner.

Many of us also work at a distance from where we live.  Increasingly people work in different towns or cities from where they live commuting for 30-90 minutes is not abnormal.  That is often hailed as a good thing enabling professionals, especially in caring professions, to keep their distance from those they are involved with.

Because travel is so easy many people now commute not just to work and to see family but to church.      A 20 minutes plus drive to church is not unusual.  And tragically for many, especially in the North, they have no other option.

But here's my concern.  If we don't live and work and do church in an area will we really see it as our mission field?  My experience would lead me to believe that people don't really engage in mission unless they live in the area you are trying to reach.  Instead they see it as the mission field of those who do live in that area.  I wonder too if people disengage from mission at work if they commute any distance because realistically any friend they get into conversation with is unlikely to travel to come to church with them.  (Though recently we've had a work colleague drive 40 minutes to church twice because of how positive someone from church has been about his church family).

And honestly the distances people live from the church do make it more difficult to be involved.  If you add an hours commute to church then doing church twice on Sunday is a bigger commitment than someone who walks 5 minutes each way.  If you commute to church, attending prayer meeting or Bible study also becomes more of a commitment midweek.  Yet many people are choosing to commute to church.  And evangelistically that makes mission more difficult, are your neighbours and friends going to do the hour round trip to come to church that you do?  Unlikely, so again by living at a distance are you subconsciously opting out of mission or out of church?

Imagine instead if everyone in your church family lived in the community you were trying to reach.  If everyone lived on the mission field.  It's funny how we expect missionaries to move but we rarely consider it.  Imagine the multiple opportunities for discipleship, for involvement, for evangelism, for shared friendships that display the gospel.

A modern proverb?

"Image is nothing.  Thirst is everything.  Obey your thirst."  So went the advertising slogan for Sprite that I still remember decades later.  How far from the truth that is in our modern culture.  In our society image is everything and nothing else really matters.  Oh we may trumpet soundbites like 'Be true to yourself', 'Be the you you really want to be' and so on.  But they come with subtle small print, and the small print says only be true to yourself if that fits with societies values and norms, with the you society will accept.  Don't be true to yourself if you don't, hide, suppress, repress.

Image has become everything.  I've been watching the Olympics and amidst all the great sport and phenomenal athleticism and dedication I've been heartbroken to see athlete's vilified and victimised for not portraying the right image.  Not having your hand on your heart when you sing your anthem, letting disappointment show, not having the right hair, or look and so on.  If people don't fit in with our media massaged and manipulated view of norms or right then we jump all over them.  We seem to forget that these are real people dealing with real emotions and four years (or a life time) of dedication and expectation, hopes and dreams.  Let alone the more fundamental truth that these are people made in God's image.

It has struck me again whilst I have watched with a sense of sadness athletes being attacked on social media for not fitting the image, not doing the done thing, not meeting others expectations of how they should react, that it shouldn't surprise me at all.  It is what disciples of Jesus should expect everyday.  I think of Daniel and his friends taking a stand for their faith in Babylon and the pressure they faced for not fitting in, not conforming.  And then tragically I think of Esther who hides her faith and does conform, for whom image is everything, at least initially.  But then I am reminded of the grace of God that transformed a wretch like Esther to save his people.

And that challenge hits me again.  The call to stand out, the call to live having experienced and drunk deeply of the water of life that Christ brings and to hold that out to others.  Knowing that it is what they really long for no matter what society says.  That image doesn't matter as much as the reality for which God has made them.  And that as people made in the image of God I am called to loved each and everyone of them and call them back to that image redeemed in Christ.

Abdication: a theme of our age?

Abdication is a big biblical theme, it is also a travesty whether that's in Genesis 3 or elsewhere in the Bible.  But it isn't just a biblical problem, it is a human trait as a result of the effect of sin on our hearts and that means it is a significant problem today in our generation and in our churches.  So where might we see it?

Pastorally - pastoral care involves more than just hours of preaching, it involves pastoring.  I am tempted to abdicate when I decide to just preach about an issue rather than meet with people to resolve an issue face to face.  I am tempted to abdicate when I resolve (retreat?) to spend more time in the office than with people.  Yes primarily pastors are to prepare to preach and preach and pray, and we must get the balance right.  But often I wonder if that can be a cover for abdicating from the hard work of conflict resolution, confronting sin, pastoral visiting and face-to-face discipleship.  Or maybe that's just me.

Great commission - Have we abdicated from our calling?  We all know what Jesus calls us to do, but am I so aware of grace that I am overflowing in joy that reaches out to others with the great news of the gospel.  Am I engaging with and building friendships with those around me that are gospel capable?  Am I aware of and looking to pursue gospel opportunities to share and speak about Jesus?  Or am I abdicating from this glorious and joyful calling?

Discipleship - I wonder if this is our biggest problem.  To what extent are we making disciples, living life with others, intentionally inputting into their lives, modelling the gospel to them, revealing our battles with sin and  our constant need of grace, but our awareness of the sufficiency of the atonement won for us in Jesus?  To abdicate discipleship is to reduce the church to a club that comes together to hear a talk on the bible, it is to assume even we preach enough some of it will stick.  We abdicate here perhaps most easily by thinking it is the churches paid staffs job to disciple others, it isn't they train and equip us to disciple each other.

Parenting - This is another of those areas where abdication is rife.  We effectively contract out our children's education to school, their leisure time to other professionals, and so on.  The danger is we carry that thinking across into church - we outsource teaching our children the wonder of the gospel to the Sunday School teacher, the youth worker and so on.  When the Bible clearly (Deut 6) says it remains the role of parents.  When everything about our week cries out to us that it is in their parents where children will most see the gospel lived out and where the most significant opportunities to teach about Jesus will arise.

Abdication is a very real danger for us as a church and its consequences are potentially disastrous for ourselves, our families, church families, and the lost.

Why do we struggle with building relationships?

How would you describe yourself?  Are you a Christian?  A follower of Jesus? Or a disciple making disciple?  We all know that we are to be disciples who follow Jesus and spur others on to do the same.  But the reality is that we often aren't.  Why?

The problem isn't biblical when we look in the Bible we can't escape the one another's of the epistles, or Jesus gathering the 12 to learn from him, or Paul's discipling the Timothy's and Titus' of the first century world.  Even when we read the Old testament we can't get away from it; Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha and so on.  We read Acts 2 and see a young vibrant church community who are in and out of one another's homes and are committed to one another.

Yet you look at the books in the Christian Bookshop on church and you will see titles like 'Total Church' or 'Gospel Centred Church'  among others which all advocate church as community committed to one another and reaching out to others to include them in that community.  We need the books and people love them because we aren't very good at doing it.

Some of the reasons are historical, there has been a period of time when we haven't lived life like this, when discipleship hasn't been a priority or even in the vocabulary of the church.  Some are cultural, we still battle the idea that my home is my castle - with metaphorical moat, drawbridge and portcullis - or simply our British reserve.  Some are geographical we live spread out not in one community - I'm not sure about the genuineness of this when you consider how quickly we can travel compared to the first century, and the obvious answer is to move house to be in an area together. Some are diary issues, we are too busy, to which I simply want to say 'REALLY?'

But I wonder if deeper than any of these, in fact lurking behind many of, if not all of, these reasons, or perhaps we should call them excuses, is sin.  We don't want to let people get to know us really well because then our hearts with all their sin will be exposed and we want, no, we need, people to think well of us.  Discipleship means getting to know one another and being committed enough to one another to love in challenging costly ways.  To be concerned with our ultimate good - godliness, enjoying and knowing our Father - not our temporary ease, comfort and idol of self.

Provocative TED talk

Thiabiti Anyabwile put a post on his Gospel Coalition blog which included this video from TED talks about how education stifles creativity. It is a great listen.

But it also got me thinking how does this apply to us as churches.  How do our structures, reactions to new ideas and overall leadership stifle creativity?  Is it possible that one of the reasons we struggle to engage people in reaching the world with the gospel because we have stifled individuality and creative risk taking?

And what about in terms of encouraging people to use their gifts?  If education has a hierarchy of subject importance do we as churches?  Do we in our view of gifts?  And if so how is that hierarchy seen in the things we prioritise and therefore in the gifts people feel are valued and wanted in the church?

What would happen if we encouraged creativity?  What would happen if we liberated, encouraged and facilitated people to be creative with the gospel in their own way with their friends, family, communities and colleagues?

Two thoughts I can't get out of my head

I've had two ideas knocking around inside my head this week that I just can't seem to get away from, so here's my attempt to write them out of my head.

On Sunday night we were looking at Matthew 9:36-10:15 but all last week as I studied the passage just one thing kept getting stuck in my head, one thing kept hitting me again and again.  Jesus looks at the people of Israel and sees lost people but he knows he needs more workers to reach the harvest field, and so that is what he prays for.  Now there is a place for strategy, there is a place for programmes and getting out there.  But his immediate response to that need is to tell the disciples to pray for more workers.  I can't help wondering if that influences their thinking in Acts 6, here's a problem of food distribution and serving the gospel lets pray and find more workers.

It may have been in part that last week I had been to a small church to do an evangelistic coffee morning and they need leaders and workers, it may be our own need of leaders and workers, Sunday School Teachers and so on.  It actually strikes me as a pretty universal need for our churches, but interestingly Jesus sees the need for workers out there not in the church.  He sees the need for people who will carry the gospel out into a waiting world.  And his first response is prayer.  I'm trying to make that my prayer for the foreseeable future: 'Lord, Doncaster is desperately needy in terms of people who will reach the lost with the good news of Jesus, please send us more workers.'

The second thing came in part from a discussion at LightHouse on Sunday night and in part from some other stuff I've been reading.  What is a pastors job?  What do you expect a pastor to do?  A pastor is to equip people to live out and share the good news of Jesus.  That means that the longer a pastor is in a church the less he should do of the speaking and preaching!  As a pastor builds and trains up people to teach the bible, ideally in teams with built in networks of support and feedback, he will be able to do less of the up front stuff in terms of teaching.  Now I still think the pastor should do the majority of the teaching but he won't speak at every guest event, every Sunday morning, every Sunday evening, lead a gospel group every week, speak at the youth group etc...  In fact if he is doing all that how on earth is he expected to find time to train and disciple disciple makers.

A leaders job is to be making disciple makers.  It is a pastors job, it is a home group leaders job, it is the Sunday school teachers job, it is the joyful task of every member of the church to be a disciple making disciple.  How should that change the way we do things?  I wonder if it would help to work through a church prayer diary in our gospel groups so we can spot those who are drifting and others pray for and look to encourage them.  An Acts 2 model of church as in and out of each others homes, a continual encouraging of people to minister to others not leave the ministering to the ministers.  To see it modelled.

Jesus without Boundaries

As we've been working through Matthew 5-10 I've been struck again and again by how Jesus continually raises the bar.  In the Sermon on the Mount we see it as he calls for a righteousness not on a par with the Pharisee's but with God and he promises it is possible through faith in him.  Then as he comes down from the Mountain we see him continuing to challenge peoples limited preconceptions about who the Messiah is and what he has come to do and what it means to follow him.  Jesus is the Messiah without boundaries, he is Christ the Lord, he is the one who demands to be king and Lord of your life and will settle for no less.

He is the one who can take away the effects of sin as he overcomes illness and sickness, he overcomes the demons who recognise his right to rule and his coming kingdom and are terrified of its final realisation.  He is the one who speaks and creation hearing the voice of its creator is still.  He forgives sin and is prepared to take on the disciples limited view of him as well as that of the Pharisees.  He is the Son of God uncontainable and untameable.

We cannot keep Jesus within neat boundaries, we cannot say this far and no further to God the Son, we cannot pick up and put down our creator and the one before whom one day we will stand.  Jesus is God the Son.  It has been incredibly challenging to see this again and again, Jesus is not tame and domesticated, he is pushing his disciples and those following him to recognise who he really is not to settle for preconceived tame notions. 

And as we read Matthew God challenges modern day disciples not to limit Jesus but to recognise the real him, to have our thinking about him expanded and extended and to see him enthroned as Lord of our whole lives with nothing untouched by his reign and rule, nothing held back from his authority and command.  And we can do this because we see again and again that he is for his people.  It is a call for radical discipleship of a radical Messiah with a radical gospel.

Practically Making Disciples

Having seen what discipleship is and isn't and the pressing need for us to be discipling other and the implications of this for the way we meet together and evangelise how do we go about discipling others.

It is worth asking yourself a number of questions as you think about discipling someone else:

1. How have I been discipled?  What was good, bad or indifferent?  We have all picked up habits from somewhere, we have all watched other Christians and assumed what they do is the norm.  It is worth picking through these assumptions and looking at them in the light of the bible, many of them are just a result of our traditions and therefore are open to valid challenging, others may be really helpful, whilst others may not. 

Think about how you pray for example, what assumptions are behind how you pray?  Does your theology affect your praying?  How is your praying trinitarian?  What prayer language do you tend to use?  Is your praying intimate or distant?  Does it approach God as Father?  Is there a deep seated trust in the God of grace that influences and determines your readiness to approach God and your conversation with God?  Is your praying primarily designed to control situations or to enjoy and glory in God?  Where did you pick up these patterns?

Its worth thinking about these things because in discipling others we are opening up ourselves to them.  It is not saying we have to have everything sorted before we disciple someone we never will, but it is worth having an awareness of some of the issues that have influenced us so we know how they and we will influence others.

2. What are your strengths and weaknesses?  What are you naturally good at and what are you not naturally good at.  Will you naturally want to study the bible but not spend much time together outside of that?  Are you naturally good at encouraging but shy away from confronting sin?  We need to know so that we can watch ourselves and work hard at our weak areas, maybe even raising them as matters for prayer.

3. What can you/family commit to?  Weekly, fortnightly?  And for how long?  This is a long term commitment and that aspect needs thinking through.  We don't want to start something and then let someone down because we can't see it through.  The context is ultimately life long discipleship, but it may be initially you will aim to meet every week or fortnightly for a couple of years and then things will continue but on a more fluid relational basis after that.

4. Are you willing to be honest and open about yourself?  What really strikes me about Paul is that he says Timothy knew him in the good times and the bad times.  He saw how the gospel inspired him to preach and rejoice in people coming to faith and how it sustained him when he was hard pressed and struggling.  Timothy knew the dark of Paul as well as the light.  For discipleship to work effectively this need to be the same for us, we cannot go into a discipling relationship thinking I will hold back.  We need to share our struggles and our battles if we want others to open up and share theirs.

It is not only good for developing the relationship but it is good for us.  We must not allow people to put us on a pedestal, we mustn't allow pride to let us self righteously allow others to assume we have no struggles.  We need discipleship to work like fight club, like a gym where we train hard so that we run the race.  The point of going to the gym is not to train someone else but to train with others.

5. What are you hoping and praying for?  Our ultimate aim is to see life long convictions formed in people, to see them changed by the power of the gospel and see their whole life transformed (Roms 12:1-2).  But it is worth having other goals: an understanding of grace, a transformation in their parenting by grace, that they learn how to disciple others, that they grow in to a leader in the church who surpasses you.

6. Exegete the person - Where are they at?  What do they need?  What do they perceive they need?  How are they living out their identity as a son of God rightly or wrongly?  This will help you think through what you should study.

7. How can you share life with them?  What shared interests do you have or could you develop?  What do they love that you could do with them?  How could you spend time together just as part of everyday life?  Maximising mealtimes is key here!

8. What will you study?  Studying the Bible is the key to turning friendship into discipleship.  In studying the Bible we are both confronted with sins which we may have found it hard to confront one another with.  In studying the bible we see God in all his wisdom telling us what we need to know and how we need to live as his people.  Studying the bible liberates, unlocks and develops discipleship.

It's worth asking those questions and then praying about who God would have you get alongside and disciple or be discipled by, and then doing it.

Discipleship: The Need

Discipling others ought to have always been a priority of the church because it was a priority of Jesus, tragically, however, the evidence is that this relationally rich modelling and teaching of the gospel has been largely neglected in the UK in past generations.  But we need more than ever to invest in it now because:

1. Looming leadership crisis - 65% of pastors in free churches are over 55, which means that in the next 10-15 65% of pastors will be retiring.  That is before you take into account those who will leave because of stress or burnout.  And there are not the leaders in bible colleges to replace those men leaving, let alone to try to fill the significant number of pastoral vacancies we already have in the UK.  The UK church faces a leadership crisis, specifically because there seems to be a missing generation, there are pastors in their 50s, there are young men in training in their twenties, but there seem to be relatively few in their 30 and 40s.  Why?  I think it is simply because we have neglected discipleship. and that in turn has meant few have been invested in significantly and caught a passion for the gospel and gospel ministry.

2. Loss of Men from Churches - put simply men need other men.  Men need fight clubs where they can combat sin in each other, men need a band of brothers who will go the hard yards with one another.  But because we have neglected these meaningful gospel rich relationships men feel disengaged from church.  We need to recover and rebuild these relationships with men, investing significantly in them.

3. Crisis in Marriage - Marriage in the church in the UK is under the same pressures as outside the church - we come to it hardwired for independence, we come to it with false expectations, and we come to it without knowing how to really build a gospel rich marriage.  We need discipling by godly married men and women where we can see the fruit of the gospel after 30, 40, 50 years of marriage.

4. Fringe/pew filling believers - You can't be a disciple and be a consumer or a spectator and yet our churches are often filled with those who have lost their passion for the gospel.  Relational discipling which invests in both the individual and the gospel is the way to rekindle the flame.

5. Longing for relationships - Even in our churches people are desperately lonely, we can text, tweet, post and so on but it does not replace meaningful committed relationships.  And people are hardwired to want those relationships, thought they are increasingly finding the mess of real relationships a challenge.

6. Lack of biblical background - The UK is clearly post-Christian, you could even argue it is post, post-Christian.  That means that people who are saved have no or little biblical background.  They will not know the big story of the bible, they will not know the distinctives of a Christian marriage, or of Christian parenting.  We cannot assume they will just pick these things up.  We must be a discipling church so that the gospel is seen modelled and lived out as it is taught.

Discipleship and its implications: Evangelism

Thinking more about discipleship also has implications for our evangelism.  In Matthew 28:19 as Jesus tells the Disciples to go in the great commission he calls them to making disciples not winning converts.  He calls them to making life long followers of him who will begin and finish in faith.  Evangelism, sharing the gospel is relational.  You can't help but notice that when you read Luke's gospel - many of Jesus encounters take place over a meal or against the backdrop of an ongoing relationship.

Yet ironically much of what passes for evangelism today is the spiritual equivalent of a hit and run accident - we tell the gospel and challenge people to either accept it or reject it.  But again the New Testament assumes this relational backdrop to discipleship and evangelism.

1 Peter 2:11-12 "Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.  Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us."  Peter calls the believers to live out their discipleship transparently before their pagan neighbours!

1 Peter 3:15-16 makes this same supposition: "But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be ashamed of their slander."

Or Paul in 1 Thessalonians 1:5-10 "You know how we lived among you for your sake.  You became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you welcomed the message in the midst of severe suffering with the joy given by the Holy Spirit.  And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia.  The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it,  for they themselves report what happened when we visited you. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath."  Both Paul and the Thessalonians discipleship is visible to everyone around them and that is the context in which they proclaim the gospel.

We need to be in real relationship with our friends and family who do not yet know Jesus as we know him so that they see the difference Jesus makes, so that they watch discipleship lived out, so that it attracts them and causes them to ask questions.  So that it earns the opportunity to share the great news with them.  And when they ask and we take that opportunity and if God graciously saves them then their coming to faith is only the start of discipling them not the end.

That reality challenges our running of things like mission weeks or even things like a passion for life.  Its fine if they are part of an ongoing living out of discipleship which provokes interest and questions.  But my fear with mission weeks is that they become a place for cold contact evangelism or hit and run evangelism.  The challenge of making disciples ought to make us think about how we can best reach those God has already given us relationships with, who are already seeing our discipleship and may already be intrigued.

It also must effect the way we do follow up.  Courses like Alpha, Christianity Explored, Identity and so on are good, but they are not enough.  The call is to make disciples not for 6 or 8 or however many weeks but life long disciples, who begin well and end well.  This means such things need to be relational at their very core - friends bringing friends, or even better friends working through the bible with their friends with support from church leaders.  How do we set up these courses to facilitate that relationship building.  A course may not suit everyone, a group may not suit everyone and what follow up are we providing for these people.  And how as churches do we follow up the follow up to translate it into ongoing lifelong discipleship?

Evangelism is the declaration of the gospel not to win converts but to make life long followers of Jesus.

Discipleship and its implications

Having seen what discipleship is; teaching the truth in and through the context of sharing life and having seen what its isn't just bible study or listening to bible teaching etc...  The question is how does this affect how we think of church and how we facilitate discipleship in our churches?

The church exists for the glory of God, it is where disciples meet together and are changed by the gospel of grace so that they serve and love one another by speaking the truth in love to each other.  The big question is how do we do that, how do we maximise the potential there is in gathering together as God's people to hear the word of God taught?

There are a number of questions that need to be thought through:

• How can we set church up in such a way that time, space and priority is given to building relationships which are deep enough to become the natural context for discipleship to occur in?
• How can we encourage people to get past small talk, which is necessary and not bad in itself, and on to significant talk?
• How can we as leaders of the church model discipleship in the way we talk to people?  (Speed of the leader speed of the team)
• How can we make the most of the bible teaching we receive every week?  How can we use it to speak the truth in love to one another and engage in discipling one another?
• How will we deal with those who do not want to do this and may find such expectations uncomfortable?

We haven't got everything sorted but these questions have moulded and are moulding my thinking on church.  So we have refreshments both before and after the service so that people have time in which to do small talk, which frees up the time after the service from these questions so that people can be responding and praying together as a result of the bible teaching.  I think pastors set the tone - we ought to talk about and flag up potential exploration and application points which arise from the bible passage - maybe put 3 or 4 questions on an overhead or notice sheet for people to think through together.  And express that intention that that is what they do.  Don't let the children back in or refreshments start being served until this discipling space has happened.

We need to be continually setting the expectation that this will be happening, modelling it in our own conversations and encouraging people to get practical in their application not simply stay at a cerebral or theological level.

But what about if people don't want to engage in discipleship, won't they find church uncomfortable?  I often have to check myself when confronted with people who find such things uncomfortable because, I think in common with most people. I have a tendency towards people pleasing.  But I must not compromise on the need to be discipling and facilitating discipleship of one another at church.  Simply if you don't like it we won't change because we believe this to be fundamentally important.  Setting church up do that this relational discipling happens is a sign that we love God we love the bible and as God called us to we love our brothers.

And if this is the priority discipleship is given in church and by the churches leaders then others will see its value and be encouraged to meet in the week.

Discipleship: What it is

Having looked at what we may mistakenly assume is discipleship when it isn't we need to think about what  discipleship actually is.  The second letter of Paul to Timothy gives us a great insight into Timothy's discipleship by Paul.  It is well worth reading all of it to get the full flavour of their relational discipleship.  But for now in ch3v10 Paul is able to write this:

"You, however, know all about my teaching, my way of life, my purpose, faith, patience, love, endurance, persecutions, sufferings - what kind of things happened to me in Antioch, Iconium and Lystra, the persecutions I endured.  Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them."

What stands out about Paul and Timothy's relationship is the closeness of it, their lives and ministries were intertwined.  Paul can say that Timothy knows intimately what makes him tick, what he loves, what he is passionate about, how he has endured in the face of hardship and struggle as well as in the good times, as well as what he has taught and believed.  That is discipleship not just teaching but living it out so that others see what we love and care about, how we struggle and respond to set backs in the gospel.

Fascinatingly the rest of the Epistles assume this deep, messy relational involvement, it is what is behind every "one another" that the New Testament gives and there are lots of them.  Every single one presupposes this messy relational living out of the gospel, hence the call to love one another deeply, or speak the truth to one another, and even to bear with one another.

Such relational discipleship is the normal expectation of the bible.  It is what we see modelled with Moses and Joshua, with Elijah and Elisha, with Jesus and the 12 (yes, even Judas!), with Paul and Timothy, Paul and Titus, and so on.

In 1 Thessalonians 2 we see that Paul can say that this relational discipleship is a mark of his involvement with the church.  He doesn't dispassionately remain aloof from the church but he can say we shared our very selves with you!  Pastors, teachers, elders, leaders need to learn this, we will not disciple people effectively unless we are sharing our lives with them!  Even in evangelism Paul is relational and teaches the truth in the context of relationships.

There are then essentially two components to discipleship which help us see what discipleship is, it is sharing life and teaching the truth.  Discipleship is teaching the truth of the gospel in and through the context of sharing life.

Discipleship - what it isn't

Before thinking about what discipleship is its worth taking some time to think about what it isn't.  I think very often we make wrong assumptions.  Discipleship is more than just bible teaching so being in church and hearing the bible taught does not automatically mean that we are being discipled.  It can mean we are being discipled but just being present and listening does not automatically mean we are being discipled.  Neither does being in a home group, or whatever you call it, or attending a gospel exploration course, all of these things have the potential to facilitate and aid in making disciples that last but are not discipling in and of themselves. 

Nor are Christian friendships, we can have friends who are Christians but who are not discipling us or whom we are not discipling, why?  Because there is no intentionality in the relationship - in fact the only thing that makes it any different from any other friendship is the backdrop of church in which we meet or the fact that what led us to meet in the first place was our commonality in the gospel rather than in loving golf or dogs or tiddlywinks.

Lastly even 1-2-1 bible study is not discipleship in and of itself.  Again it may be a helpful part of discipling someone but discipleship is much more than just studying the bible together.  I think this is perhaps the one we most often default into thinking of as discipling others.  Indeed you sometimes here of people discussing doing a 1-2-1 bible study as discipling someone, it is not unless there is more to it than reading and talking about the bible together and praying.

Until we get rid of these wrong understandings of what discipleship means we will never fully engage in discipleship.  We will settle for an almost discipleship rather than the real full blooded thing.  Discipleship is not automatic, these things all help in discipleship if we use them as part of our discipling others rather than mistakenly thinking they are our discipling of others.

Making Disciples that Last

Being discipled is key to growing as a Christian and even growing as a church and yet we as a Church in Britain are relative under or un- discipled.  It was therefore a real encouragement to be asked to speak at Yorkshire Training yesterday on Making Disciples that Last.  In the hour I had with the 35 or so that were there I couldn't go into depth about lots of things but I did want to try to get them thinking about how they were discipled, their assumptions about discipling others, how churches can encourage discipleship and how it would change the way we do evangelism.  Next week I'm going to blog post some of my notes from the session with some additional thoughts, I'd love some feedback and your thoughts.

We began with some questions to help us think about who we had been discipled by and how much of it had been deliberate or by osmosis and the lessons we had learnt.

1. How did you learn to pray?
2. How did you learn to read and understand the Bible?
3. How did or are you learning how to parent?
4. What has influenced your thinking on marriage?
5. How did you reach your conclusions about the gospel and giving?

Why not stop and actually think about those before you read on?

For those who grew or grow up in Christian families so often we pick up and assume the patterns of our parents both for good and bad.  For those who read we learn how to do some of those things and have convictions formed in us through books and authors.  I am hoping the Bible plays a significant part in it.  But what about other people, have we seen these things modelled and taught to us in terms of discipleship by someone who we know and love and see these things being wrestled through in a gospel, cross carrying way?

Discipleship

The Christian bookplace is beset with 'how to...' books, though interestingly I don't think that there are many on discipleship and the principles and practice of discipling others.  And yet the Bible has lots of models of discipleship: Elijah with Elisha, Jesus and Disciples, Paul with Timothy and Titus. There are a few things that flavour my thinking and any training I do with people on discipleship, here are some of the big ones:

1. I think key to helping people disciple others is examining how they have been discipled and what was good about it or bad about it. We are all discipled by others we just don’t realise it, or think of it in those terms. For example if you were brought up in a Christian home you were being discipled by your parents or parent – what was that like? What was great about it? What was assumed? What was not so great? Those who are influential in us deciding to follow Jesus are also key to our discipleship.  Our church leaders set us models of discipleship, our friends and so on. Often this leads us to have a set of assumptions about what discipleship looks like; some are good some are bad but all need calling out for what they are and examining in the light of what the bible says discipleship is and should be.

2. Biblical patterns: I think its helpful to explore the biblical patterns of discipleship and think about why they are as they are. For example older men train younger men, older women younger women. Why is this given as a command? What is prohibited? What is being commanded? Why practically is God giving us these instructions? How ought that to influence our discipleship?  Or Jesus relationship with the disciples: what did this look like day to day?  How does observation and question and answer play a part in this?  How are mistakes used?  How are praise, teaching, rebuke, training, and facilitating seen here?  What is Jesus ultimate aim for his disciples and why?  How does that practically influence their relationship?

3. Discipleship is sharing more than just the Bible  ThessaloniansPaul makes much as he writes to the Thessalonians in chapter 1 and 2 of how he and the team lived among them – and we see him talking about discipling in terms of Mother and father relationships.  We also see the goal of his discipleship. Its helpful to use this passage to explore the goals of discipleship. What is it I am seeking to achieve and why? What am I modelling? How accountably open will I be and will they be? How can we facilitate this? Given where they are where do we need to start (gospel outline, bible overview, learning about biblical leadership?)?

4. Time – discipleship only happens in the context of relationship, therefore key is spending time together doing things will build relationship. I think in general that looks different for lads and girls. Mission and ministry can accelerate this process but it can also retard it in significant ways taking certain things off the agenda.

5. Discipleship is pastoral care. Expect the unexpected and have a biblical focus to your relationship. I this area I think Crosstalk (see my amazon store to the right)is a brilliant resources at thinking about how we use the bible pastorally in discipleship.

Muddled not modelled

Last week I was re-reading the opening of 'Everyday Church' which has some alarming statistics about church attendance, or rather non-attendance, I then read an article in the current briefing about the church in the UK which contained yet more statistics charting the decline in UK discipleship.

One the interesting points that article focused on was that with fewer and fewer children having any exposure to church or the bible it is harder and takes longer for those people to understand the gospel when it is shared with later in life - in terms of connecting the dots of God's holiness, our rebellion in failing to love such a good, great and gracious creator, God's amazing rescue in sending Jesus, his overwhelming love in dying in our place, and our glorious victory over sin and death that we share with Christ at his resurrection and wait to experience fully.

But I think there is another hugely significant result of this that we are missing.  We cannot assume that when someone comes to faith they have a biblical understanding of relationships, marriage, parenting, finances, care for parents, business conduct and so on.  I grew up in a church where many of those things were assumed, you grew up with discipling parents and you learnt those things - but what if I hadn't had that?

If most of those who come to faith now have not experienced any of that we must incorporate those things into our discipleship or young disciples.  How?  I don't think classes are the best way to do it.  In 1 Thessalonians Paul talks about how he and his team shared their lives with the Thessalonians as they discipled them to faith and then onto maturity.  They lived life out right in their midst, they let them see what it meant to live following Jesus.

We need a huge shift in how we think about discipleship if we are not just to see people won for Christ but then floundering in terms of what that means for them.  We dare not let people muddle through but we need to model it through for them.

It comes back to the key being gospel community, we need to be sharing our lives with one another enabled to do so because we understand the deep deep love of Jesus which liberates us from the tiny confines of 'my kingdom' to deeply love my brother in THE kingdom.