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| Our Discipleship Ministry - Pastor Brian Swedburg Friends of The Lighthouse,
Your leadership shares a common vision to “Follow Jesus Together”, going with Him to the lost, rather than creating a “church place” to fulfill our religious obligations or meet our spiritual needs. In the coming months, through our newsletter, our website, and Sunday messages, I will offer a variety of examples and explanations of what it can mean for us to grow together as Jesus’ disciples, instead of trying to grow our institution. Example #2, posted 2/13/07: Excerpt #5. Discipleship as The "Portal" Priority, Pat Morley, David Delk, and Brett Clemmer
Volume 192, August 7, 2006
NOTE: In conjunction with the release of our new book about men’s discipleship ministry, No Man Left Behind, we are publishing 12 excerpts to give you a taste of the book. This one is from Chapter 5 “Discipleship as The ‘Portal’ Priority.”
In the previous chapters we have defined what a disciple looks like and how a man becomes a disciple. But how is discipleship related to the other priorities of your church?
Jesus said, “Go and make disciples.” That's interesting, because he could have said anything. He didn't say, “Go and make worshipers.” He didn't say, “Go and make workers.” He didn't say, “Go and make tithers.” Is Jesus interested in worshipers, workers, and tithers? Of course. But he knew we wouldn't get worshippers by making worshipers, and so forth. We get worshipers, workers, and tithers by making disciples.
Suppose a family has attended your church for three months. What will they think is the first priority—the organizing idea—of your church? One week they heard a sermon about the priority of worship. The next week they heard that they need to be cheerful givers. The following week they heard in Sunday school that committed believers go on mission trips. The week after that they were asked during the service to attend evangelism training. The next week in the small group they joined, they learned about compelling needs at the crisis pregnancy center. A weekend seminar greatly emphasized the importance of private study and devotions. If you were a new family, what would you think? It might look like an undifferentiated blob of disjointed activities:
Looking at this collection of concepts, it is helpful to organize them into two sets: methods and outcomes. The middle items – godly Families, service/missions, worship, fellowship, discipleship, evangelism, stewardship, social justice and vocation – represent the outcomes most churches are trying to achieve. Your church may have a few more or less items in the list, but this is a good sampling of what most churches want their members to understand and live out in a biblical and godly way.
Yet, this is too many areas to focus on. There must be an organizing principle through which to help people understand, believe and live out these objectives. That principle is discipleship.
Discipleship is the portal priority through which all the other priorities of a church can be achieved. Only by moving through the discipleship gateway can people truly affect their church and their church can affect them.
For instance, how can a man worship a God he doesn’t know? Why would a man want to share his faith if he didn’t understand the Great Commission? How could a man be a good steward if he didn’t understand and believe that everything he has is a gift from God – his time, talent and his treasures? As we disciple men’s hearts, they start to live out of the overflow of their relationship with Christ. Therefore, we can organize these efforts by putting discipleship in the center and drawing arrows out to each of our other priorities like this:
How can a church implement discipleship as the portal priority? The items around the outside of the figure represent the activities, or methods, a church engages in to help build disciples
Remember these activities are not ends in themselves, but rather focus on helping people learn or live out what it means to be a disciple. The figure illustrates this: All activities on the outside lead to discipleship in the middle. Now we have a clear picture of discipleship as the portal priority by which every other goal of the church can be accomplished. For example, we don’t preach to make worshipers but rather preach to help a man see God so that he can’t help but worship.
For the glory of Christ and no other reason,
Pat Morley, Ph.D.
======================================================================= Example #1, posted January 31, 2007: Here is an excerpt from a book by author Dan Kimball - "...the primary way leaders view churches today is through the lens of the weekend worship service. It is ingrained in our thinking that the weekend worship service is the primary vehicle and focus for what "church" is. Therefore, as we think of doing something to engage the emerging culture and generations, we immediately think of the worship service. Most people in our churches likewise view the weekend worship service as their primary focal point. It is their experience of what "church" is. . . That is far from the scriptural reality of what church is. Church is the people of God on a mission (ICorinthians 12:27, Acts 1:8) - people who spend most of their time outside of the weekend worship gathering. So, I need to state up front that the weekend worship gathering is but one part of a holistic church experience. The average person is awake 112 hours a week (assuming he or she sleeps eight hours a night). If a person goes to a weekend worship gathering that lasts two hours, then 98.2 percent of their week is not in a weekend worship gathering. To most people, "church" involves only 1.8 percent of their time. The rest is supposedly not "church." This is pretty crazy because in reality you and I and other Christians are the Church 100 percent of the time. We cannot focus primarily on what to do stylistically, methodologically, or philosophically in the weekend worship gathering. We first need to ask what the "church" is. Then we need to ask how the weekend worship gathering fits within the church's ife and spiritual formation."
| The Church Isn't: | The Church Is: | | A “place” or a building you go to. | Disciples of Jesus wherever they are. | The weekend meeting where a sermon is delivered and some songs are sung. | Groups of disciples meeting in homes and other smaller settings throughout the week who may
also gather in a larger meeting to worship together on Sunday. | Christians who go to a weekend meeting to get their religious goods and services. | The worshipers of a local body on a mission together | Christians who go to “church” on weekends to get their inspiration and feeding for the week. | The people of God who are passionately dependent upon God in worship and prayer all week long. | Christians who ask, “What does this church have to offer me? | Disciples of Jesus who ask, “How can I contribute and serve this local body in its mission?” | A place where Christians go to have the pastors do "spiritual" things for them. | A community where the pastors and leaders equip the people for the mission and to serve one another. | A place to bring your children and teenagers for their spiritual lessons while you receive your sermon and sing a few songs. | A community where leaders help train you to teach your children the ways of God and incorporate children nd youth into the community so they aren’t isolated. | Do you see the difference? "Jesus gave us a mission to be His church and that is what we should build on - the mission, not the worship service. I am fairly convinced that most churches build on the worship service, however, despite the fact that they have a mission statement. Let me explain graphically what I mean:  "I question this whole traditional line of thinking. This ultimately can produce a consumer form of Christianity and teaches people in our churches to focus their Christian experience around the weekend worship service. Have we taught people to think they haven't experienced "church" this week if they didn't go to the worship service? I believe we need to look at church more like this:  "This way of building starts with the mission Jesus gives us (Matthew 28:19, Acts 1:8). It all has to start with defining the mission. The mission is not to start a worship service. The mission is to make disciples. "We can then develop staff and leadership communities who share the church's mission and help shape its values. Finally, we need to create smaller communities for people to really experience "church". These may be house churches, small groups, meetings in the workplace where Jesus is the focus, etc. Church happens anywhere people are gathered in His Name. "We need to recognize this and understand this. It is not dependent on people coming to our building and sitting in our meeting. After we think through the other building blocks, we can begin to design a worship gathering. To do this backwards is dangerous and will ultimately produce consumer Christians who "go to church" (a worship service), are not engaged in the mission, and don't see themselves as the church. "We must remember that the church is not about the worship service, preaching, or music. It also is not about any of the multisensory expressions of worship we create. The church is the people of God on a mission together wherever they are - not just when they are in the meetings we design. "We have a holy responsibility to shape people's view of the Christian experience. If we shape it on a faulty foundation, then woe to us." - author Dan Kimball I'm grateful to be following Jesus with you - ~ Brian Handout 6-21-09 The Answer Handout.doc
Handout for 6-14-09 What is the problem.doc
Handout for 6-7-09 Who Am I.doc
Handout for 5-31-09 Who is God.doc
Scriptures on Finances His Fountain of Grace.doc
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