I am excited about the DiscipleMaker Stages App that was launched last week by the CNBC. Many thanks to Paul Johnson and the team that has made this app possible.
Origin has been using much of the material available to encourage people at different stages in their discipleship journey. Now with it easily available online we can access material as disciple makers that will help us in a “just in time” manner.
The app is designed for your iPhone, iPad, or Ipod.
You can down load it here.
Throughout my years of participation in churches and ministries I have both been part of organizing groups to go and part of organizing our local work to receive groups. I’m not against the use of short-term mission experiences. In fact my own call into ministry is rooted in a mission experience in New Orleans with the community built up around the Rachel Sims Mission Centre. What’s important is how we frame the trip. What’s important is where we place it in the discipleship journey of the participants. I believe the difference in mindset between “saviour” and “learner” is so important for teams and their leaders. The difference in mindset between doing something for or doing something with the community you are entering will shape how you plan. Whether you are planning a trip to Vancouver, Appalachia, or Haiti, Bob Lupton’s wisdom will be helpful.
Exposing young people (and adults) to the needs of the world and the amazing work of God in harsh environments is important ministry. It opens their eyes, stirs their hearts and draws them into compassionate action. That’s why mission trips can be important in the spiritual development of our youth. And that’s what mission trips should be about—spiritual development, not pretending that they are about saving the world. Not immediately anyway. They are about saving us. Preparing us. Once that is clear, we can venture into Haiti and other places of need with integrity.
Scripture: 2 Peter 1:12-15
12Therefore I intend always to remind you of these qualities, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have. 13I think it right, as long as I am in this body, to stir you up by way of reminder, 14since I know that the putting off of my body will be soon, as our Lord Jesus Christ made clear to me. 15And I will make every effort so that after my departure you may be able at any time to recall these things.
Observations:
Therefore: Connects Peter’s intention to continually remind the church of these qualities (See verses 5-8) with the Gospel-inspired drive to grow as Jesus’ people (See verses 10-11).
Peter emphasizes his intention to stir them up, to remind them, and to make it possible for them to recall what they have been taught.
Application:
The work of the Gospel is to make disciples to Jesus. This requires building relationships and creating the environments that make real-time, real-life teaching, exhortation, correction, and encouragement possible. I love the drive and passion that Peter shows here. He is so concerned for the well-being of these followers of Jesus. Even as he is approaching the end of his days, he is internally motivated to do whatever it takes for them to thrive. However, the “whatever it takes” is bounded by what Peter believes will make the difference: their capacity to recall the Gospel. From the cross, to the forgiveness of sin, to the vision of Jesus’ character and life in them, Peter is determined for this to remain beyond the days of His life.
And so it is for all who hear the disciple-making call of Jesus, “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” We love and pour a part of their lives into another not so they will remember us, but so that they will remember Jesus. In this way their life, like Peter’s will become a living memorial to Jesus Christ and His Gospel for another generation.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, light up the disciple-maker’s heart in me for others to know and grow in Jesus. AMEN.
This past week I continued preaching from Mark 8 at our weekend worship gathering. The passage is a hinge text for the whole Gospel of Mark. It is a hinge between seeing the power of Jesus and seeing the weakness of Jesus. It turns us from the question of Who is Jesus? to the question of What kind Messiah will Jesus be? In the answer to those questions we realize what it means to be Jesus’ disciple.
I did not share all of the following quotes in the sermon, but I have been affected by them.
“The disciples cannot know who Jesus really is without accepting the necessity of his suffering and death. And they cannot be his disciples unless they accept that fate for themselves.” William Lane
“To deny oneself is to be aware only of Christ and no more of self, to see only him who goes before and no more the road which is too hard for us. Once more, all that self-denial can say is ‘He leads the way, keep close to him.’” Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship p. 97.
“The cross is the heart of the gospel, and bearing a cross is a central requirement of discipleship.” David Garland, NIV Commentary
Are you beginning to see how radical Jesus is? It’s not a matter of saying, “I’ve been a failure, I’ve been immoral, so now I’m going to go to church and become a moral, decent person. Then I’ll know I’m a good person because I am spiritual.” Jesus says, “I don’t want you to simply shift from one performance-based identity to another; I want you to find a whole new way. I want you to lose the old self, the old identity, and base yourself and your identity on me and the gospel.” I love the fact that he says “for me and for the gospel.” He is reminding us not to be abstract about this. You can’t just say, “Oh, I see: I can’t build my identity on my parent’s approval because that comes and goes; I can’t build my life on my career success; I can’t build my life on romance. Instead I will build my life on God.” If that’s as far as you take it, God is almost an abstraction; and so building your life on him is just an act of the will. The only that can reforge ad change a life at its root is love.
Jesus is saying, “It’s not enough just to know me as a teacher or as an abstract principle; you have to look at my life. I went to the cross–and on the cross I lost my identity so you can have one.”
Once you see the Son of God loving you like that, once you are moved by that viscerally and existentially, you begin to get a strength, an assurance, a sense of your own value and distinctiveness that is not based on what you’re doing or whether somebody loves you, whether you’ve lost weight or how much you’ve got. You’re free–the old approach to identity is gone.” Timothy Keller, King’s Cross, p. 105.
Our series at Cityview through the first six chapters of Danial has called us to think about how we engage culture: to Live Like Strangers, in the world but not of it. I want to encourage you to listen to this 18 minute talk by Andy Crouch at Q. His talk stepping into culture reviews “postures” and “gestures” toward culture. He ends with 3 good questions: What are you cultivating? What are you creating? And Who are your co-creators? I find Andy’s descriptions of different postures and gestures useful for helping me differentiate between the kinds of responses faith in Christ requires in daily living.
I regularly encourage my children as they go to school to ask a good question. Questions accelerate learning. Questions can take us into the frontier realms of the universe and our souls. The failure to ask questions is evidence of decay and death. King Solomon, author of many of the Proverbs in the Bible, says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.” (Proverbs 25:2) So be a king; ask a question; see where the pursuit of understanding leads you.
Here are some questions that I use; they are listed in no particular order.
1. What does _________________ (put in the person’s name) need from me in order to grow?
2. How can my wife and I work together to advance the vision of family we have adopted?
3. Why am I feeling the way I feel?
4. What could I add in or take away from my work patterns/practices that would create more effectiveness? or What small adjustment made as a habit in the right direction would deliver an accumulative increase in effectiveness?
5. What is the story and who are the main characters behind the sucess or failure I am observing?
6. What adjustments in earning, saving, giving, or spending will make the greatest contribution toward my family’s values and vision?
7. How does what I am doing fit into the Kingdom values, vision and mission of Jesus Christ? and a related question: Am I remaining obedient and faithful to the last word I had from Jesus?
8. Did I honour Jesus Christ in everything today?
OK, your turn. What questions or types of questions do you regularly ask?
I recently had a conversation about vision and organizations. My friend made the statement that people give their lives to vision. I think that is true. Unfortunately I think many of us can live a subsistence life when it comes to vision. One of the great opportunities that I get week in and week out is to call people to connect their lives to what matters most. I get to help them shape a God-formed vision of their life. As well I get to remind them of the God-formed vision we have of our life together at Cityview.
LIFE is our vision. We envision LIFE-transformed followers of Jesus Christ. We see people who:
Love God with their all; they joyfully live the Great Commandment and elevate Jesus as Lord in a community of worship and prayer.
Include people in the grace of Jesus; they build healthy and loving relationships for koinonia and evangelism.
Find freedom in the Truth; they apply God’s Word in their actions and attitudes for a new and freeing perspective on life and relationships.
Engage the world as a servant; they infiltrate their circles of influence in the fullness of the Holy Spirit for gift-oriented, sacrificial service.
Now we have had a longstanding statement of our mission that says we seek to create communities of devoted followers of Jesus Christ in Vancouver and around the world. Out of that we know that we have three wins at Cityview. We are winning when people who are far from God receive Jesus and begin the process of becoming LIFE-transformed followers of Jesus Christ. We are winning when community groups are reproducing through the development of new leaders and dynamic caring relationships. And we are winning when new churches are being started in Vancouver and around the world.
Our strategy has three parts under-girded by leadership, prayer, and faithfulness.
Spaces: Worship Gatherings, Small Groups, and 3rd Space settings
Stances: Spiritual Disciplines and Servanthood
Domains: Oikos, Neighbourhoods, the “building blocks” of a city
Last Sunday I preached from the hard-working farmer metaphor highlighted by Paul to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:1-10. Paul directs Timothy to reflect on the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer in order to gain insight for investing his life and ministry in reliable people who will in turn be able to invest their lives in other people who in turn will be able to invest their lives in other people. Paul envisions the Gospel life and message being passed on through a chain of discipleship. A few years ago I developed a matrix from these three images for identiying and empowering reliable people for discipleship. You can download the pdf: matrix-for-identifying-and-empowering-reliable-people-for-discipleship
You get what you inspect, not what you expect. With that leadership lesson I have too often realized my own agreeable nature fails to be as loving as Jesus is. Jesus has great expectations for his disciples; expectations that pushed their minds and captured their hearts. However when it comes to the inspection of his expectations in their lives Jesus follows through. Jesus calls the Twelve that they might be with Him and that He might send them out and that they may have authority…
While they are with Him Jesus makes the most of every teachable moment. As I read the Gospels I find that He is inspecting their lives for faith, servanthood, clarity about His identity, kingdom values such as obedience to Him and sacrificial giving. As well His teaching seems to constantly seek to realign their worldview to the coming reality of the cross and the resurrection. It’s as if Jesus confronts them with pain and their need for change daily: “You thought God was like this, but He is not; He is like me.” The disciples are being confronted with forgiveness, grace, and the incarantion of God in flesh.
When it comes to discipleship and the question of missional or incarnational living, I find that I am of two minds. I am right brained and left brained. Moses came down the mountain with the Law and I want the disciple of Jesus to know the Word of God. Jesus came down from Heaven as the fulfillment of the Law and I want the disciple of Jesus to know Him. I want their knowledge to be formed by their experience of the Word and Him by the Spirit and I want their experience to be formed by the knowledge of Him and the Word.
This requires inspection of the most crucial expectations. So Paul says to Timothy, “Watch your life and doctrine carefully that you might save some.” Obediece to Jesus as a response to grace is the fruit of a regenerate and Spirit-filled life. As we have been seeking to work this out at Cityview we have landed on three words to describe our congregation’s strategy for pursuing our vision of L.I.F.E. as a follower of Jesus Christ: stances, spaces, and domains. More on each of these later.
We have some huge challenges to missional discipleship. But the biggest of these has nothing to do with our access to the Scripture. Rather it has to do with the amount of time we make available to the people with whom we would share our lives and our walk with Jesus. Then it has to do with the kinds of activities and conversations we actually engage in together.
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