I sat across from one of the ministers from my church, Here are two quotes from the conversation.
Him: “I don’t want another system.” ME: “I don’t either.” We were discussing discipleship in relation to small groups, and how do we become more organic in our Church, and intentional in Discipleship.
I sat in church the other a couple months ago and listened to the preacher talk about making the choice for ministry, specifically to the ministry of preaching the Gospel. As I have processed through the sermon, I realized God does not want just another preacher.
I don’t want to be just another preacher. I want to be more intentional in my use of God’s word to affect Discipleship.
This all starts with the intent of my heart…
Well over 20 years ago I walked away from the institutional church because I was fed up with not finding the answers I was seeking about my faith and was frustrated with the lack of focus on the teachings of Christ. The church was more focused on it’s systems of belief and theology, they were forgetting how to live as the Church and how to live as the Church through Christ.
I started back at an institutional Church about 9 years ago. I could copy and paste my frustrations from the above paragraph.
I need to state here, that church in whatever form it takes is not the issue. The issue is the intent of the people involved in the church. The worldly view of church says a church is successful if…If what? The more people in the seats, the more people are tithing, the more people are in bible studies,the more people dress a certain way, the more people avoid “evil” things, the more people ignore…..the more the more…the more we ignore the One who instituted the Church.
What did Jesus say to the Pharisees when he confronted them about their man made traditions of doing church? From Mark 7
Why don’t your disciples follow our age-old tradition? They eat without first performing the hand-washing ceremony.” 6 Jesus replied, “You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote,`These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 7 Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.’ 8 For you ignore God’s law and substitute your own tradition.” 9 Then he said, “You skillfully sidestep God’s law in order to hold on to your own tradition. 10 For instance, Moses gave you this law from God: `Honor your father and mother,’ and `Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or mother must be put to death.’ 11 But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, `Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.’ 12 In this way, you let them disregard their needy parents. 13 And so you cancel the word of God in order to hand down your own tradition. And this is only one example among many others.”
And what was the law of God? From Mathew 22:
34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees with his reply, they met together to question him again. 35 One of them, an expert in religious law, tried to trap him with this question: 36 “Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses?”
37 Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”
Jesus in both instances is teaching about the intent of the heart. Interesting that Jesus said both of these in view Pharisees and Sadducees, the leaders of the institutional church at the time. Jesus was more concerned with the intent and focus of the heart toward His church, and was intentionally putting their man made traditions on the alter. They are to be discarded. Romans 12:1-2
When focused on “the more” success that is defined by the world and set up by a man made system to gain “the more”, we discard the ways of Christ for our own. Christ is intent on changing the focus of our heart to be His heart. The intent of Christ’s heart is going to be carried out in-spite of us and our want for more. We are to be focused on more of Christ, and the change only he can make to the intention of the heart of His Church.
I have recognized that it is not the institution of church that drives the intent of my heart…It is the power of the Holy Spirit driving me to love Christ more and more everyday. Today I am blessed to be part of a church that is being intentional about making Disciples, It starts with being intentional about prayer, and connecting the dots of Christ’s church in the community. The body of Christ working together to affect hearts with the Gospel. Christ the Church, being intentional…
Swanny
/ February 7, 2011“Well over 20 years ago I walked away from the institutional church because I was fed up with not finding the answers I was seeking about my faith and was frustrated with the lack of focus on the teachings of Christ.”
Do evangelical churches really focus on teaching about Christ and His Body or are the teachings set up as… here are 5 things on how YOU can be a better Christian and here are 5 versus to support it?
Just my observation.
I feel evangelicalism could be better if teachers of the Bible would stop missing the fact the Christ’s Body is missing when they refer to the New Testament. Almost always the approach is taught individualistic asking “how can Christ help ME live the Christian life”, and not focused on the “WE” that makes up The Body. The New Testament is plural (US), not singular (ME).
swanny
graciehill48
/ February 7, 2011church in whatever form it takes is not the issue. The issue is the intent of the people involved in the church. Amen.
Drawing near to Christ, allowing the Holy Spirit to do the work as we are obedient to share His message. It is recognizing who is who and who does what.
God is God, adding to the body daily was the work of the Spirit. The disciples shared the message. We share the message.
ckroboth
/ February 7, 2011Swanny,
I do not disagree…There seems to be a shift happening with in the Church. To me at least there are more and more people not satisfied with that type of teaching. AS more and more people see what you pointed out, and I am learning, the heart of the Body(WE) will change, and lead (We hope) to a change in understanding of Christ’s Body.
I have to do my part, just as you have to do your part. But both of us have to do our part, with the focus on Christ’s Body. Together WE form His Body the Church.
As always thanks for your thoughts.
Peace and Love of Christ Brother
ckroboth
/ February 7, 2011Kind of weird way to say it Gracie.
Instead of: What would Jesus do? We should ask… What will Christ do through us?
Peace
Swanny
/ February 7, 2011I hear and read a lot about the importance of
discipleship today, and many evangelicals take their cue from Jesus saying to His disciples to “make disciples of all the nations”(Matt. 28:19).
Since I have left the institution of church I have asked this question to myself many times (which many others I feel are afraid to ask)
How did the 12 actually make disciples?
Here are my findings in answering a tough question as I walk in the post-institutional wilderness.
First this is what the 12 did not do:
They did not set up discipleship classes or programs.
They did not put one Christian above another in a hierarchical chain of command.
They did not create accountability groups
or strict regiments for observing spiritual disciplines.
Instead, when I read the Word this is what I see them doing… planting communities of Christians all over Palestine.
Also, I see Paul making disciples by planting communities of Christians all throughout the Gentile world.
I feel to the early believers, Christian community was the only discipleship “program”
that existed, and it was sufficient.
Here is my point… the way Christ’s disciples made disciples was the same way Jesus made His disciples.
I read that Jesus lived with a group of men and women for I think 4 years and during that time together they shared their lives under the Head of Christ (which is see as the Church)
Jesus, His 12 disciples, women and children all experienced community with Jesus as
the center of their lives together. I just do not see how “programs” can do that.
I know you say at the beginning of the post you do not want another system, but I feel when within an institution man wants to set up another type of program that he thinks will build up the Body. I just do not see that happening (whenever man tries to create the perfect program he will fail).
It comes back to what you say in the post.. intentions of the heart. If we just love God with all our heart, the love we show one another will come from His Spirit, not a man-made program.
To me I feel scrapping all the “programs” would be a great start.
Swanny
ckroboth
/ February 7, 2011Swanny I think you and I agree.
At some point though someone has to fight to affect change in the Institutional church. God seems to be putting tasks in front of me to do just that. Intentionally investing in others without regard for my self.
There is a hand that is delt and it is time to play that hand and not keep trading cards. I do have issues with the Institutional church, probably always will, but my hope is to affect the church from within and change the intent. If with God I am successful at affecting one person….
Look at it this way. You affected my thinking because of your intentional study and focus, yet you are in home church and I am not. That is the power of the Body of Christ. And brother I truly Love you for continuing to push me to pray and study this subject.
Peace
Swanny
/ February 9, 2011Jesus prayed that we would be one. He did not pray it just once or twice, but the night before He died, He prayed it over and over and over again.
Of all the things Jesus could have asked the Father, He seemed rather stuck on one — the idea of being one. The idea that His followers, His people, The Church, would be known to the world by their oneness; the idea that, contrary to the ways of the world, the Church would demonstrate a new way of working together, a new way of being in the world. And this new way of being would serve the purpose of revealing God to the world. The world would see the “Allness” of God.
Throughout the letters written to the early Church that are recorded in the New Testament, there are more than 100 references to how we should live with one another. These are core tenets of being Christ-followers.
We are to love one another, serve one another, bear one another’s burdens, encourage one another, pray for one another, teach and admonish one another, care for one another, and build one another up!
Oneness is a blessing in itself, but Christian oneness has the higher purpose that Jesus prayed for — “that the world may believe.”
So why do most evangelicals not follow these tenets. They have lost themselves in a world of their own oneness, themselves (individualism).
For evangelicalism to be a force for Christ evangelicals need to admit that the Reformation, and all the subsequent divisions, has divided the one true Church of Christ. Out of all the different divisions none of them created a new church, or even re-created the one true Church (which is Christ himself). They all need to admit, as followers of the one true Church, that all of Christianity today is the broken parts of what should be a whole, or ONE.