Yeah, it's just a game ... however ...

How many hours did you spend on Royals baseball this year? How much money? Some of you, not so much. Others, a fair amount. I'm not being critical - I, too, spent quite a few hours and no small sum, and lately, quite a few antacids. Now, think about all the really serious Royals fans who spent far more time and money than you, and then add them all up. Then add in all the baseball fans for all these teams in the country. Then add in all the fans for all the professional sports. How many hours spent? How many billions of dollars spent? And that's just for one calendar year - how much over the last 30 years totaled together?* (Let's not even try to calculate in the world's fanbase for soccer.)

Why? Why have we as a society dedicated so much time and money for sports that we watch other people play? For a feeling! Most of us don't walk away from a game much richer. We don't get the trophies (instead, we spend even more money on t-shirts as our "trophies"). We don't get traded to better teams (as if there were any!). We do all this for a feeling. Or rather, for a set of feelings. We spend hours upon hours and buckets of money in order to feel something. I find that amazing! It's just a game, right? But I don't think it's necessarily bad.

First, it's a seven-month drama, and in this case, a drama with happy ending. There's a storyline with lots of different characters. There's conflict, not only in every game, but early in the season, with pitchers from other teams beaning our players, real conflict. Gordon gets injured and is out for a month and a half - will the team still be successful? Holland has to have arm surgery - will Davis be as good in the role of closer? We're six outs away from being eliminated in Houston - will we make it to the next round?

Then we have the life lesson of overcoming obstacles to achieve a goal. The 2015 season, especially on the heartbreak of being so close last year, is a great testament to enduring through obstacles, marching ever forward to a single goal. Management made some brilliant additions to the team in the offseason as well as midseason, each of them proving to be important for overcoming challenges that came our way.

Of course, there's a great lesson on teamwork, the various parts contributing the whole, all for a goal greater than any individual. Christian Colon gets one at bat in the World Series, and drives in the World Series winning run on a two-strike pitch. Terrance Gore, whose only job is to run fast, plays in only eight regular season games and only one postseason game, but changes the dynamic. Salvador Perez, the series MVP, didn't even get to catch the final outs, because he yielded to the speedier Dyson on the basepath. In fact, deciding an MVP was difficult because of the tremendous level of teamwork.

Plus, we know these guys (or we feel like we do). We get to know the players a little bit, their stories, their families. We celebrate because people we like were playing the game. Three players suffered the death of a parent, and we felt a little slice of those family stories. We await the imminent birth of Ben Zobrist's next child. We wait to see who Salvy will douse with water or how he will next embarrass Lorenzo Cain by posting another secret video.

One of the greatest effects was the sense of community around the city. We experienced community with people we might often disagree with on other issues: politics, how to solve racial tension, gender issues. People in the neighborhood, at work, in the store, and at the ballpark - we shared a sense of community with one another, high-fiving people we don't even know.

Sure, it's just a game. But because of this game, and especially this season, we got to feel something - we felt what we ought to feel about what truly is important. Life is a drama, and people have stories that matter. Facing and overcoming obstacles is long, hard work, but we need examples on how to do it. Through teamwork, we not only get more done, but we become better people. Getting to know who we work with is how our work becomes more than a job. And in the digital age, building community has to be more intentional than ever - baseball gave us a reminder we shouldn't be so angry with one another. All of these things that we spent so much time and money to feel through baseball are experiences we should also feel in our daily lives.

For followers of Christ, there's another lesson. Because of sports, for a moment, we are reminded how our journey in Christ will end - one day, there will be a postseason, filled with epic contests. And then after that, we are assured of victory, with a fantastic celebration. Because we know this is what the rest of this season holds for us, we can live now during the "regular season," confidently embracing the drama, striving together with teamwork to overcome obstacles, getting to truly know each other along the way in genuine community.

We should feel all those things in life. Baseball reminds us to. So, yeah, it's worth a little time and money.

* - Yes, I picked 30 years on purpose. :)

D17 Part 5: Individual Identity

After the resurrection, Jesus has a famous exchange with the one who denied Him three times, Peter. Jesus questions him three times about whether or not he really loves Him like he claimed to. A perfectly tailored moment meant only for Peter. Jesus' method of discipleship of Peter would not have made sense applied to anyone else on the planet. Asking John those questions just wouldn't have been fitting. Jesus concludes this discipleship moment in the same way He first introduced Himself to the disciples in chapter 1, "Follow Me."

Peter thinks this is great! He's back in a positive relationship with Jesus, plus he has some direct instructions, "Tend My lambs." Yes! We've got ourselves a discipleship model with Jesus! Everyone should go through this process! John! John should do this!

But then Jesus also tells Peter that following Him is going to end up in his own death. He will be a martyr for the Gospel.

Then looking around at John, Peter asks Jesus, "What about him?" In essence, what's going to happen to him as Your follower? How do our two paths of discipleship relate to each other? Will our paths be similar?

Jesus says, "If I want him to live until I come back, what concern is that of yours? You follow me!" (Jn 21:21-22).

Jesus, who had just tailored a discipleship moment uniquely to Peter, tells him that He will work in the lives of disciples individually. There is no "one size fits all" in discipleship. Jesus will not ask John the same questions he asked Peter, He won't necessarily give him the same instructions to tend lambs, and He won't prescribe a cookie-cutter set of experiences as a follower. He will deal with John individually, just like with Peter, just like with you.

This leads us to our fifth of the "Seventeen Truths of Discipleship" (D17):

Discipleship must be individually-tailored, based in one’s identity in Christ.

Last week, we said that discipleship must be community-based. That's no less true - we must do discipleship in community, but community is the unity of a diverse group of people. God has designed each person uniquely, and does so for a purpose. How we're uniquely designed is a revelation of how God wants us to walk and serve as disciples.

Therefore, our discipleship of one another must be tailored to how God individually designs each one. We cannot create a set formula, set curriculum, set sequence, cookie-cutter form of discipleship.

Furthermore, we must based discipleship on our identity is Christ. Who we are as "in Christ" ones defines everything else - our doing flows from our being. Who we are in Christ is completely (COMPLETELY!!!) forgiven followers who stand before God covered entirely (ENTIRELY!!!) by the righteousness of Christ. Once in Christ, there is nothing (NOTHING!!!) we can do improve our standing before God. So complete is Grace that we have nothing left but to accept that we can't do one little thing that will make God more satisfied with us, because we are in the One who satisfies Him completely. Once we accept that, then we can begin to really grow as disciples.

Therefore, to disciple one another, we must get to know one another, to see how God has made each one unique, and then encourage one another especially in the unique ways God has made us, to fit together like a mosaic creating a picture of Christ far greater than any one of us. We must based our discipleship on who we are in Christ, not based on who are in the world.

In order to disciple one another, we must first be authentic friends who listen first and rely very little (or not at all) on pre-manufactured, one size fits all, discipleship methods. We must have an eye to how each one of us can be uniquely discipled to more of how God designed us each to be, and everything must grow from our true standing before God "in Christ."

D17 Part 4: Discipleship Must Be Community-Based

The Gospels are, among other things, the narrative of discipleship training. We can trace the story of how Jesus chose to train and deploy His disciples to carry on His mission, which means that the Gospels are invaluable for teaching us how to disciple one another. In fact, last week we discussed how discipleship must be "Gospel-saturated."

One of prominent episodes of this training is recorded in Luke 10, when Jesus sent out the disciples to minister in His name. But He did not send them out alone - He sent them two-by-two. In fact, He made a habit of it. He sent people out in ministry (and even on seemingly menial tasks), and He consistently sent them out in groups ... as an intentional part of how he was training them for discipleship. Don't miss this! It wasn't just practical - He was always training them in discipleship. Sending them out in pairs or groups was part of their discipleship.

We see very few examples in Scripture where someone is sent out in ministry by himself. No doubt, it happened (see Philip, for example). But the overwhelming pattern is in groups. Not even the great missionary Paul traveled alone very often. Furthermore, he usually sent his disciples out in groups, too. Many of his letters were intentionally inclusive of those who were ministering with him, and he wrote to people who were in ministry as groups (cf. 1 Thess 1:1; Phm 1-3).

This overwhelming pattern leads us to our fourth truth about discipleship:

Discipleship must be community-based.

Discipleship is designed to be done in community, in pairs, in groups, with one another. Our 21st C Western individualism tends to read Scripture with a filter that interprets everything for "me" rather than "us," especially something so personal as discipleship. When we read discipleship as individualistic, we are misinterpreting Scripture. Community-based discipleship is clearly the model of the New Testament.

It is a step for some Christians to accept that Jesus intends for our entire lives to be about discipleship (rather than a weekly meeting I have for the first year after coming to faith where I complete a workbook). It's yet another step for us modern Westerners to accept that Jesus intends for our entire lives to be about community-based discipleship.

This means more than Sunday school classes, small groups, and accountability groups. Those are good things to have in our lives, but there are a lot of these groups where very little discipleship actually occurs. If we take discipleship to mean moving from unbelief to belief in every area of our lives in light of the Gospel, it's safe to say many groups do very little to cultivate this move as a lifestyle.

I'm not suggesting you leave your groups. I'm suggesting you make sure that you are in a group that is pressing toward discipleship. Join a new group or help transform the one you're in. Do not conclude that you can do the life of discipleship just fine on your own. That is patently against the model Jesus carefully crafted for us.

Focused discipleship groups keep people accountable to each other in authentic relationships with appropriate vulnerability, pressing one another to move from unbelief to belief in every area, intentionally multiplying itself by making disciples who make disciples, and serving together to make the Kingdom tangible for others. This kind of group can take many forms, can meet in any location, can have any combination of followers, and can take a variety of names. Labels are not important - disciplemaking is.

I cannot encourage you strongly enough to seek out a small community that earnestly seeks to cultivate complete followers of Jesus.

This is the fourth of 17 truths about discipleship we are exploring together. This week's truth comes from various writings of Caesar Kalinowski.

Pondering the Lord's Supper

At Grace, we have chosen the first Sunday of the month to celebrate the Lord's Supper - "reenacting" the momentous Passover meal Jesus shared with His disciples to begin an unbroken church tradition. The Lord's Supper goes by some other familiar names: most notably "Communion" and the "Eucharist." My personal preference is to call it the "Lord's Supper" because the other phrases often have associations with particular denominations or carry secondary meanings. Furthermore, "Lord's Supper" reminds us of who it's all about.

We have chosen once a month rather than weekly or quarterly or some other schedule because we want to keep it a frequent tradition, but not so frequent that it becomes a mindlessly repeated act. Many churches celebrate it weekly with great meaning, and we have no criticism of that practice. We believe that monthly is best for who we are at this time.

Janette Jasperson, Irena Jasperson, Hannah Flowers, and I'm sure many others who I'm not aware of, have faithfully prepared the serving plates, the bread, and the juice month of after month, and I'm grateful to them for their unsung labor. They "prepare" the Lord's Supper for us. In the same way, we should "prepare" ourselves for the Lord's Supper.

One way to prepare yourself is to fast for 12 or 24 hours before we celebrate it on the first Sunday of the month (such as this coming weekend). Then, you are breaking the fast specifically with the elements of the Lord's Supper. I've done this several times, and it's very meaningful to me - but I don't do it every time so that it remains meaningful when I choose to do it. The time of fasting, then, is a time to reflect, pray, and prepare your heart for how the Lord's Supper reminds us of Jesus' sacrifice for us on the Cross to pay for, and then wash away, our sin.

Whether you fast or not, another way to prepare for the Lord's Supper is to set aside time the night before or the morning of to have an unrushed hour to pray, particularly for the purpose of examining your heart, checking your motives, confessing your sin to the Lord, repenting of your sin (which is not about feeling bad, but about turning away from your sin), and receiving forgiveness. Then, you're not rushed during the Lord's Supper to try to "take care of business" in a short amount of time. The Lord's Supper becomes a way to celebrate forgiveness instead of just capping off a short time of prayer (which, quite frankly, is what it can become if we're not careful).

The Lord's Supper is something we particularly do in community - we take this all together, just as Jesus' disciples shared the elements together. There is an "us-ness" about it. The prayer and reflection are very personal, but the public declaration that I claim Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior is very public. Intentionally so.

Lastly, it doesn't need to be a pastor "presiding" over it or the elders to be the ones to serve it. There is nothing to stop us from having other believers speak, pray, and serve, and we have mixed that up on a few occasions. We should be in the habit of having others serve on occasion.

To read more about the Lord's Supper, read the accounts of Jesus and His disciples (Matthew 26; Mark 14; Luke 22; John 13), the accounts of the early church making the Lord's Supper important to their worship (Acts 2:37-47; 20:7-12), and how Paul teaches the church at Corinth how best to celebrate it (1 Cor 10:14-33; 11:23-34).

Innercity and Innercity

Yesterday, I had lunch with Pastor Luther Eatman of Bridge of Hope Church in downtown KCK. Next week, I'm having lunch with Pastor Bill Gorman of Christ Community Downtown Church in KCMO. Both men are good friends to have; both are serving in downtown churches; both are building churches from the ground up. But their experiences are quite different. (And the difference is not related to which side of the state line they are on, but "Go Tigers!" nonetheless.)

Bridge of Hope is in a rough, older neighborhood. This congregation is comprised primarily of lower-income folks, many of whom will freely tell you of their pasts in drug addiction, crime, incarceration, prostitution, and violence. In fact, Pastor Luther will tell you about many of those same things in his own past. The congregation cannot afford to support a pastor, and many cannot afford rent, utilities, and three meals a day. Many are brand new believers, and are pouring their lives into getting their lives on a good, strong path.

Christ Community Downtown is in the revitalized North end, where new lofts have been going in. This congregation is mostly comprised of middle- to upper-income professionals. There may still be histories of drug abuse, crime, or promiscuity, but from a worldly perspective, their external lives are well put together. The congregation can afford their pastor (they are small in numbers now, but as they grow, a pastor's salary will not be their problem). They pay high rents and have disposable income for travel and entertainment. Although there are brand new believers, Pastor Bill has a core group of believers to help him get this congregation launched.

They have different situations, and the types of problems they face will have a lot of differences on the surface. But most of what they will be facing is exactly the same: getting a congregation started and achieving momentum, broken lives that have been empty without Christ, anxiety, insecurity, false pursuits, priorities out of alignment, doubts, pressure to go along with the world's way of thinking, marital stress, and so on.

They have the same basic solutions, too: pursuing the Kingdom of God first, trusting while in the midst of adversity, drawing strength from the community of believers, and drawing strength from God's Spirit and from His Word.

Both ministries are hard. They have different situations, but both are hard. Ministry here in the 'burbs is hard, too. The money is tighter in the urban core, but people are also much more willing to acknowledge their brokenness. Which is harder to minister to - people without many resources or people who are less likely to admit they don't have it all put together? Ministry is just hard, no matter the circumstances.

Both churches are part of our denomination, the Evangelical Free Church of America. Both have the same core doctrine. Both need your prayer and support. Both would welcome any assistance you'd like to provide. Both pastors have my utmost respect. Please add both churches to your prayer list.