Cut the compartmentalised living

Mission is not something we do from time to time it is something we are always engaged in as we follow Jesus.  Jesus life is lived for a purpose - he came to save his people from their sins.  Everything he did was geared up towards fulfilling that mission from victoriously battling temptation and being baptised, to calling disciples and deliberately apprenticing them in mission.  Jesus was always on mission from the desert of Judea to the Garden to Golgotha.  In the same way as disciples we don't have times when we are on mission and off mission.  We are always disciples, or as Paul puts it to the Corinthians we are ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us.  You aren't an ambassador sometimes and not at other times.

I've been musing on this as I've thought about a number of things, an advantage of a week without pressing sermon preparation to complete.  We compartmentalise life.  Home, work, play, church and so on.  We even compartmentalise roles: parent, child, aunt, uncle, employee, boss, deacon, elder and so on.  I wonder if that constant compartmentalisation, encouraged and fostered by societies pressures on us to have a divided professional and private life, leads us to think of mission like that.  I am on mission then but off mission then.  I am on mission when reaching the people I am praying specifically for, but not when in the office with colleagues I am not.  I am on mission on camp but not at work or school.  I am on mission at Holiday Club but not in Asda.

Maybe we even carry that across to the way we think of church, we think of the church as having a mission, rather than of its mission being our mission.  We, tragically, listen to preaching about mission, whilst assuming that applies to everyone else but me.  We nod along to the prayers for the lost without ever speaking the gospel to those we are praying for.

It's that time of year when I am asked to write references for leaders for camp and the like.  Mostly I enjoy doing so, especially as the amount required seems to have gotten shorter and shorter.  But here's my plea; if you want your pastor to write you a reference for camp or a short mission trip - give them something to work with.  If the only evidence of evangelistic zeal is your application to lead on a christian camp your pastor cannot write you a reference.  If all year you come and sit, with your screen saver firmly fixed and unchanging whilst listening to the sermon - be it the 'Is there a pulse' screen saver, or the 'Bored now' screen saver, or the 'startled' or 'outraged' screen saver (ask your pastor he'll be able to demonstrate each for you) - and then leave again without ever engaging in reaching the lost, in showing concern for people's eternal destiny there is something wrong.  Why then do you want to lead on camp?

The proving ground for mission for the local church.  Reaching the lost is not something we do one week a year, or 3 weeks a year but every day of our lives.  To get the gospel, to taste and see that the Lord is good is to want others to share in that too, or we have not drunk deeply enough of it.  Compassionate concern for the eternal well being of those facing a Christ-less eternity cannot be  slotted into our vacation time.  How you engage all year in mission is your reference.

As a pastor it is joy to write those sorts of references, about someones whole-hearted prayer-saturated concern for their lost friends and family which has led them to witness to Jesus despite opposition that makes them suitable to lead on camp.  Or about someones walking with friends and family through suffering and pain whilst demonstrating and speaking of the love of Christ that proves they are ready for short term mission.  Make that the kind of reference your pastor can write for you.  Not because you want a good reference but because you've drunk deeply of God's grace and it has gripped your hard and imparted to you Christ's compassion for his children who face a lost eternity.

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?

Combatting Nominalism

I'm sure when the latest census data is eventually published a large percentage of British people will have described themselves as Christian by religion, when reality will be that only a small percentage of those attend church.

And even in the church nominalism can be a problem, especially for those brought up knowing nothing else.  Mike McKinley has a new book coming our called 'Am I a Christian?' which looks to examine the wonder of the gospel and the danger of nominalism, to accompany the book there is a good website with videos and other resources for those struggling with that question or for others who just want to explore what following Jesus really means: http://www.amireallyachristian.com/index.html

Is it possible to just not 'fit in' to church?

Is there a type for disciples of Jesus?  That's a good question; Do you have to dress a certain way, or react a certain way, or think a certain way?  Do you have to have a certain education or use certain words?  Does it come with a long list of do’s and don’ts?  Do all Christians eventually become like one another?  Is it a monoculture?  An in or out kind of thing?  And if not why do so many churches seem like that?

They are good questions for us to be asking, do our churches, where disciples gather have a monoculture aspect to them or do the reflect the glorious difference of those who have realised Jesus has the words of eternal life?  Jesus disciples reflect that difference; poor, rich, religious, non religious, privileged, un-privileged, educated, less educated, socially acceptable, socially unacceptable.  So do the early churches - just think about Philippi; a jailer, a liberated former demoniac, and Lydia a wealthy former god-fearer.  It is a stunning snapshot of a multi-cultural, multi-background church.

We must not confuse discipleship with our traditions culture or we make the gospel too narrow.  Growing in godliness will look different for different people from different starting points and who grow at different rates.

I'm just beginning to think this through in terms of discipleship and believing communities and what it means for how we engage with one another.

Am I being discipled?

We are all very familiar with the great commission in Matthew 28, "go and make disciples of all nations..." It is a clarion call to evangelism that we hear time and again, but we need to just have a double take, the call is not to go and 'get decisions' it is to go and "make disciples". A disciple is one who answers Jesus call to "Follow me", it is not hit and run evangelism Jesus calls us to but long term discipleship.

The gospels have much to say about the cost of discipleship, it is described as carrying your cross, it is costly, it involves rejection, it involves showing mercy to those who hate you... Discipleship is not easy, but as you read through the gospels you see Jesus gradually moulding the disciples, asking them challenging questions, confronting them, opposing them, giving them challenging tasks but always discipling them.

That's why come Acts the previously fearful apostles are ready to form the church, to lead it, to carry their crosses, to be persecuted, to be opposed, to face death. They know Jesus is the Messiah and they are witnesses of the resurrection and they have also been discipled, they have been trained, taught, and nurtured in the faith.

Is that going on today? Am I in a discipleship relationship? In our world of time constraints, deadlines and the like I wonder if this has been lost. If we want to see young people become the next generation of church leaders we must invest time into discipling them, if we want to grow in our faith we must ensure we are being discipled by someone older and wiser in the faith. It is what we see modelled with Paul and Timothy and as Paul writes to Timothy he says "what you have heard from me...entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also." That is discipleship.

The challenge is will I make time for it? Will the church help facilitate it? How can it do so? We must because it is what we are called to do, disciples are fruit that lasts.