A Church built around discipleship?

Back to thinking about what it means to try and build a church around discipleship. What would it look like? How do you facilitate it? Does it always have to be formalised?

Home groups are a fantastic start, it is a place where you get to know people, where you study the Bible together and seek to apply it to one anothers lives. It is also a place where you can respond to each other in ways you cannot in the larger body of the church, home groups are a place where we should be more aware of each others needs and struggles. But is a home group enough?

We were studying Acts 2:42-47 on Tuesday in home group and it is striking that it talks about them meeting together every day, about them being in and out of each others homes. This is somewhat alien to us and our culture, but I don't think these were organised meetings, I think this was genuine fellowship. I know we are very British and that our home is our castle but I think the gospel should set dynamite at the base and blow the drawbridge off its hinges.

We are to be involved in one anothers lives, in fact fellowship only happens when we are. It is these ad hoc meetings to encourage one another that I think we miss today. When was the last time someone just dropped in for a chat with you? Or when was the last time you just dropped in one someone else?

Discipleship happens as we live life alongside each other and encourage each other to do so for Christ. As someone pops in for a coffee and we talk about our day, our struggles, our joys. The challenge is to rediscover this level of fellowship.

To follow

I have been thinking about what it means to try and build a church around discipleship. What would it look like? How do you go about facilitating it? What about those people who would find it uncomfortable? Is it something that, like an iceberg, is glimpsed but largely goes on under the surface? Or should it be integral to everything we do?

I know that one of the most valuable influences on my Christian growth has been firstly as a 14 year old being in a bible study group of young 20s, I may not always have understood everything but it was fascinating to see debate and passion about what the bible said. It also led to relationships where people could challenge me about my Christian living, just what I needed in my later teen years.

Then at uni I met for a reading group with the UCCF staff worker and some other students, then later on 1-2-1 with another Christian, both significant influences. I needed people to debate and discuss with, to bounce ideas off, to work out my theology and Christian living with.

I guess that's partly why I think discipleship is so important, it has played a huge part in my growth as a Christian. Its why I have met with 4 young men over the last 4 years for 35-60 mins a week to study the Bible, encourage one another and pray for each other. I get as much out of it as they do, if not more.

But would it be possible to get everyone in a church involved in just such a relationship? I guess one fear we all have is what do we do. In my experience it needs to be kept fairly simple - read a passage of the Bible together and chat about what surprises you, what makes you say wow, what does it teach us about God, what about Christ and what about yourself? What does it mean to put it into action? Spend time together chatting about your week, pray for each others needs, families, and spiritual health (prayer, leading family, bible reading, evangelism). Or alternatively use the same bible reading notes and then discuss what you have read in the last seven days.

You don't have to challenge the socks off each other every week, but be ready to issue a challenge when it comes. Above all such things must be built on relationship - give it time, do things together, and keep the things you pray about between the two of you unless you agree otherwise.

Is it possible to see a whole church built around relationships like this? Yes. How do you make it happen? You find someone and ask them if they want to meet up and then you commit to it.

What is Church?

What is church? Its a question that we rarely think about. We often think about practicalities, as I did yesterday about when and where and who. But what is it?

Is it church when you meet in your home with some other believers to pray together, or just to chat together, or is it only when you open the Bible together? Are home groups effectively acting as 'Little Church'? Or is it only when we all meet together?

Is church more fluid than we think of it? And are some of our terms we use unhelpful? For example sometimes we are welcomed to a time of worship -but the Bible's picture of worship is that it is all of life, it is my work, my parenting, my rest all lived to the glory of the God who made me and brought me back into relationship with him at the extravagant cost of his son.

Sometimes we are invited to stay for coffee after the service - but isn't that an essential element of the service? I'm not sure it is what the Bible sees as fellowship, as that seems to be much deeper than a quick chat over coffee and a biscuit, but it is an important part of the churches time together.

If we described it as such would it help redeem it from being a chat so often about the week past, into an opportunity to work the gospel into each others lives, to be 'devoted to the apostles teaching', to build one another up.

At a conference in London a couple of years ago the speaker spoke of the pastors job as being like the man banging on the side of the vending machine to get the coin to drop, we are to be banging the gospel deeper into each others lives. That is how we build one another up, that is what it means to be devoted to the apostles teaching. It means listening to, talking about and working the gospel deeper into each others lives, beginning with those conversations over coffee and continuing as we devote ourselves to fellowship.