Forge KC Cohort

Last week I joined a "cohort." Forge KC and KCSentral have combined efforts to create a cohort for pastors and other church leaders in the KC Metro area to collaborate on the twin tasks of learning and doing, specifically for the goal of leading our churches to live life "on mission." The leaders of the cohort, Brad Brisco and Lance Ford, are also the authors of the workbook a few groups at Grace have been studying, Missional Essentials.

The cohort will read a stack of books and articles together, wrestle with the ideas, work on implementation personally and in our churches, and participate in one-on-one mentoring. We will meet as a group once a month for nine months, but I'm sure friendships and working relationships will last for years to come.

The first meeting was simply introductions - we each had a turn at telling a bit of our stories, especially as they relate to how we got to the point of joining the cohort and what we hoped to gain from it. The stories were rich and the night went quite a bit longer than we had scheduled, just because we didn't want to miss anything about anyone's story.

We also had an assignment that night - to bring some artifacts that represent our contexts. Since we're coming from different parts of the area, from outlying to the 'burbs to the city, we will have different challenges, opportunities, and approaches. I brought two items, which I also used in last Sunday's message. Our context is primarily the 'burbs (although we do have some closer in toward the city and some further out in the open spaces), and the 'burb life provides unique challenges to living missionally. I brought a garage door opener (because we drive into our garages, close the garage, and never have to interact with our neighbors), and a slat from a wooden privacy fence (a guardian of privacy, creator of personal space, and barrier to casual interaction with our neighbors). I didn't have to say what I said - they all knew what I was going to say as soon as I showed those two artifacts.

Most of the members of the cohort had the same kind of story. They had been in church ministry for a while, and by the church culture metrics, they were "successful." But they looked at the New Testament and what was happening in those churches, and then looked at their own "successful" churches, and realized that they weren't making disciples like they read about in Scripture. They were doing good things, but they weren't truly making disciples, and they weren't seeing God move in the lives of their people like we should expect.

And so, one by one, they began a journey that had lead them eventually to this cohort, where we are all asking the question, "How do we best make disciples? And how do we build our churches around this idea?" Some are church planters who want to craft their churches as disciplemakers from the ground up, and others are in present church contexts trying to figure out how to guide a living, moving organism with its own strong momentum more and more towards disciplemaking.

And every single one said something like, "Once I latched onto the idea that our churches should major in disciplemaking, I can never go back."

I don't know where our journey will take us. But I'm excited and enthused, perhaps like never before. I pray that little by little, our focus on disciplemaking will grow in intensity and clarity. No one is going to flip a switch and suddenly change everything we know. But we pray that everything we do will orient with ever-growing fidelity toward making disciples who make disciples.

Devoted vs. Devotion

Consider the following passages:

Acts 2:42 And they were devoting themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers.

Acts 6:4 But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

Rom 12:12 ... rejoicing in hope, enduring in affliction, being devoted to prayer,

1 Cor 7:5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement, for a time, in order that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and then you should be together again, lest Satan tempt you because of your lack… 

Col 4:2 Be devoted to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving...

Five passages talking about being devoted to prayer. In Acts 2, the first believers made it a habit. In Acts 6, the elders of the church commissioned deacons so that they could do it. Paul instructs the church in Romans 12 and Colossians 4 to do it, and he instructs husband and wife to make special time in order to be devoted to prayer. In other words, it is modeled for us and we are instructed to make this a part of our lives.

What does it mean to be devoted to prayer? If I am, how do I know it? If I'm not, how to I become devoted? What did the disciples model for us and what does Paul want us to do, exactly?

There are a few quick observations about these passages as a collection:

• Paul doesn't really spell out what he means, so we can assume that he expected all three of his very different audiences to know what he meant. Therefore, it's likely not something esoteric, bizarre, rare, complicated, or subtly nuanced. Without explanation, it seems like Paul is talking about something ordinary and easy to understand.
• Being devoted to prayer in every case is part of a larger set of behaviors. For example, being devoted to prayer and to the teaching of the apostles; being devoted to prayer and the ministry of the Word; rejoicing, enduring, and being devoted to prayer; being devoted to prayer as part of your marriage; being devoted to prayer while keeping alert with thanksgiving. Being devoted to prayer is not the only thing, and it's part of a larger picture of being a follower of Jesus.
• We are told to do it. Therefore, we should be able to choose to do it. It makes no sense to command you to do something you have no ability to choose to do. "Be French!"
• One devotes himself to prayer. Paul doesn't tell us to make prayer a vital part of our lives. He doesn't tell us to devote a block of time every day to prayer. He tells us to devote ourselves to prayer. The Greek word means to apply yourself to something exclusively and tirelessly. We are to apply ourselves to prayer exclusively and tirelessly.

It's easy to understand tirelessly. If someone is devoted to prayer, he prays continually. He doesn't stop praying because he's tired, or especially because he's tired of praying. He's never too exhausted to pray. When God is not giving him some good thing he's asking for, the only reason he stops praying is because he believes the answer is, "No." When someone says, "Let's pray about that first," he doesn't roll his eyes and sigh, and consent to pray just because it's "unspiritual" not to. Tiredness is a non-factor for his praying.

The idea of exclusively is a little tricky, though. At first, it seems obvious. But exclusive of what? And didn't we just observe that being devoted to prayer is part of a larger picture (be devoted to prayer and ...)? 

Remember that we're not devoting prayer to something, but devoting ourselves to prayer. We are applying ourselves exclusively to prayer. Not a part of our day. Not the first part of a meeting. Ourselves. "Devote yourselves to prayer."

Being devoted to prayer means that there is no other strategy on par with prayer. Our own effort, even though necessary, is not on par with prayer. Following a set of rules or human strategies, though useful, is not on par with prayer. Other strategies don't compete with prayer, don't replace prayer, don't precede prayer in importance. Prayer is the one thing we make sure we do, and then we work the other things in, rather than relying on our own strategies and praying if there's time. It means not doing some things until after you've prayed. Every strategy is optional except prayer.

Being a consistent pray-er requires an impressive dedication. But being devoted to prayer requires sacrificing other strategies enough for prayer to be the first and pre-eminent strategy for approaching life and all its challenges. Prayer is how we can most help others.

Given this understanding of prayer, I realize that I know only a few people who exemplify what I see in these passages. But I also know that I want to be one of those people one day. This goal will require the death of some long-held priorities that "fit" prayer instead of requiring prayer as the sole necessary ingredient. I would love to one day be able to humbly say that I am devoted to prayer.

A New Diet and Exercise

You know that Christmas has given way to New Year's when the Santa commercials are replaced by Jenny Craig commercials. Now approaching the second week of January, all those diet and exercise resolutions are facing their first real challenges. In this season focused on diet and exercise, I'd like to recommend a different kind of diet and exercise.

We've been talking recently about BLESS, a convenient acronym for investing in our neighbors:

• Begin with prayer - pray for your neighbors and for your relationships with them.
• Listen - spend time listening to first the Spirit, who guides us on the mission God has for us; and also to listen to your neighbors, to really hear their stories, thoughts, concerns, and beliefs.
• Eat - share meals with your neighbors, because eating together is one of the best ways to cultivate relationships.
• Serve - with the heart of a servant, find ways to meet the needs or to just bless your neighbors in a way that adds value to their lives.
• Share - if they are open to talking about the things of God, share your story, your concerns, your beliefs, and what God is doing in your life, not as an expert, but as a fellow traveler.

Within this is a new diet and exercise. The diet is sharing meals with your neighbors. I'm all for being good stewards of our bodies by watching what we eat, but if we look at sharing meals regularly with our neighbors as part of our diet, we look at food, meal planning, and the rhythm of life in a different way. Our diet includes the meals we intentionally share with others to deepen our relationships with them.

The exercise can come with the "Serve" idea. For example, we have started in our neighborhood a list of people who need their driveways shoveled when it snows, and a list of guys who are willing to shovel. This last weekend, we helped two families - both were fighting illnesses, one mom had just given birth to premie twins, and the other mom is nine months pregnant. And I got some exercise shoveling someone else's driveway and sidewalk. (I found myself trying to do a better job for them than I do for our own house.)

Now, if I can look at these two kinds of activities as part of my diet and exercise routine, I'm much more likely to keep at it regularly. More importantly, my perspective changes. I'm not looking at diet and exercise as merely self-help, doing things for my own benefit - it is part of loving my neighbor as myself. Now, being involved with my neighbors is less of a project added to my busy life, but rather is integrated into the rhythms of my busy life. Serving them is part of being a healthy person - diet, exercise, an externally focused view, and integrating their good with our good.

I don't write this as a wildly successful veteran, whose missional life is worth emulating. Rather, I write this as a learner, discovering new ways to think about several different aspects of my life which used to be separate and programmatic, but now are becoming blended together and more natural to the normal rhythms of life.

How's your diet and exercise?