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.

Doing is the Second Half of Learning

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Last week, I asked a pair of questions during the sermon. The first was, "What kind of verb is the word follow?" Immediately, the right answer came from several directions: "Action!" Then the second question, "How similar is that word to what we're doing right now?" Crickets, at least for a few seconds. Then the realization ... it's impossible to follow Christ by just sitting down.

There are times to sit and learn, but we will never be followers of Jesus if sitting down "learning" is the bulk of our Christian experience. Sitting to listen to a sermon, sitting to learn in a Bible study or Sunday school class, sitting in a circle in a small group. All of these are valuable and important. But they do not comprise the phrase following Christ.

To follow anyone, we must do what they do. That's the simplest definition of follow. The word in the original language of John 6:66-71 carries the idea to follow a teaching by obeying it. A follower of Jesus does the same kinds of things He does (within the sphere of human ability). It is a stretch to call oneself a follower of Jesus based just on regular attendance to sitting-and-learning events.

Let's look at this another way. Let's consider the word obey in terms of being a learner. But before we do, let's also look alternate ways to think about the word obey.

Obedience as "ought". Perhaps this is the most common view. We do because we're supposed to. It's what good followers do. We ought do some things, and we ought not to do other things, and getting those categories sorted out well means obedience.

Obedience as righteousness. Take that a step further, and you can look at obedience as a form of righteousness. By obeying, you're becoming more righteous - a better person, a purer person.

Both ideas have some merit. There is some sense of "ought" to obeying Christ - we certainly ought to. There is even a sense that we do become more righteous the more we walk in His ways (even though we cannot merit His favor or earn salvation in any way). However, I think there's a stronger motivation than these that God has for us for obedience.

Obedience as learning. Jesus taught His disciples, sometimes sitting down as a group, sometimes on a hillside or in a boat, and sometimes along the way. But teach He did. However, He also had His disciples do. They handled the fish and the loaves, they retrieved the donkey, they prepared the Last Supper, they went out by two's to tell others about the Kingdom. He did not expect them to obey just because they ought to or to make them more righteous. He did this to teach them! As they obeyed, they would learn. 

Why do we expect Him to teach any differently today? Have we outgrown the need to do in order to learn? Can we just study forgiveness and learn it, without actually ever forgiving anyone? Or, will we only learn forgiveness when we actually forgive someone?

That would mean that Jesus wants to me forgive not just because I ought or in order to be more righteous, but to really, truly, actually learn forgiveness. And I need to learn forgiveness because that's one of His key attributes. I cannot get to know the forgiving Christ well without learning forgiveness by forgiving people.

Not just forgiveness. Apply this same idea to anything He wants us to learn: love, joy, grace, generosity, compassion, humility, patience, endurance, surrender, and so on. We won't get to know well the Christ who loves unless we learn love by loving people. Go on down the list.

So, why do so many of our Christian teaching venues have chairs?

Consider the seated learning as the "first half of learning." Then consider the unseated, action verb learning as the "second half of learning." Whenever you learn something about walking in the way of Christ, don't consider that you've learned it until you're doing it. Take that lesson and find some way to do it right away - that day, that week, sometime before you try to learn the next thing. Don't declare you learned something awesome in a sermon until you're doing that awesome thing or actually living according to that awesome thing. Then you've learned it!

The last thing we want for our Bible studies is for us to learn something that we're going to disobey only to come back the next week and learn something else we're going to disobey.

You will get to know Christ better by this. It's a way of learning! Jesus even says so Himself in John 14:21. Rather than some mystical appearing of Jesus for those who obey, I rather suspect what He means is, "As you obey, what you are doing is getting to know Me in ways you can't learn by just sitting in a chair."

The one who has my commandments and keeps them—that one is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him. (John 14:21)

"Can I join your secret club?"

"Can I join your secret men's club?"

I have heard this question a few times in the last month or so. On the one hand, I love the question, because it means that men are interested in a quiet experiment that we've been conducting. On the other had, I reel back at the question, because our quiet experiment was never intended to be a "secret club" that makes men feel left out.

In the words of Inigo Montoya, "Let me 'splain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

The speaker at the 2011 men's retreat, Ron Bennett, has co-authored a series of studies geared for men called HighQuest (http://www.highquest.info/overview.html). The idea intrigued us, primarily because the format of this series is unlike any men's study we've seen before.

The series is designed for men to disciple one another. The studies are not fill-in-the-blank workbooks, but guides that slowly introduce spiritual disciplines, and keep men in the same passage, but gives them enough freedom to focus on different parts of that passage. So, when the men come together, they have individually wrestled with God's Word without anyone guiding their answers to a foregone conclusion. But, since the men are all in the same passage, they can compare thoughts and learn from one another.

We decided that instead of having a big, church-wide big splash launch of Yet Another Program that Will Revolutionize Your Church But Will Last Only 6 Weeks Before the Enthusiasm Wanes, we decided to start small and without fanfare.

Four of us asked up to three other men to consider forming a HighQuest group. Then we just started meeting, each group at their own pace. In my group, we are four men who didn't really know each other that well coming into it. We have different church backgrounds, different experiences and habits, but the same desire to grow as men in Christ. I get every impression that all the groups are similar.

The feedback has been very positive across the board! I could list dozens of positive comments, but I think the most powerful statement is that after finishing book 1, we had a 100% return rate from all the groups for men wanting to do book 2. (There are 9 books total, about 10 to 12 weeks each.)

Starting in January, we are going to explain more about HighQuest and then invite more men to start more groups. Not a big program, not a big splash, and not the only good way to do men's groups. Just a lot of good experiences with a "quiet experiment."

My thanks to Chad Krizan for being our coordinator - he will be the one to organize the groups and get people started. But once the groups are started, they pretty much run at their own pace, take care of ordering their own books, and so on. This is one part of our continuing drive to realize our vision, which includes intentionally cultivating relationships in order to disciple our world for God's glory.

So, it's not a secret men's group. But we're about to go from "Beta testing" to production for those men who want to join in. And I have both personally experienced and observed in others real spiritual growth and an improving set of spiritual disciplines.

What's a Yoot?

Sunday night is our annual Chili Cookoff and Dessert Auction to raise money for the youth program. Much of the proceeds will go toward the big Challenge trip that comes every two years, but a portion of the funds are also used for outreach activities throughout the year. There was a time when the youth were continually in fundraising mode, which just wore everyone out. This one big annual event is much more fun and usually raises enough to fund all that the youth need. (The funds also cover the costs for the adults who will be overseeing the trip to Challenge, including yours truly this year.)

The Chili Cookoff is simple enough - everyone is encouraged to make a pot of chili. Bowls are set in front of each entry, and you "vote" for your favorites by putting money in the bowls by the chilis you like. Ryan (and Kathy) Rasmussen are the reigning champs two years running. Perhaps you saw Ryan toting around the trophy on Sunday on his wheelchair taking on all challengers! Last year, I had more fun just eating different kinds of chili than worrying about which ones I liked best. (You'll note that I've used the plural throughout this paragraph - I want you to have several favorites so that you'll "vote" for several different entries. Here's one case where you are encouraged to vote more than once!)

The Dessert Auction comes after dinner. Again, everyone is encourage to enter a dessert. The youth help out by presenting each entry, and the auctioning begins. I've got my sights on the rhubarb pie. I also learned that if some people don't win the dessert they want, they have no shame in coming over to the winner and trying to bum a taste. I won't mention Christy by name, because that might be inappropriate. :-)

Please plan on joining us. We have a professional auctioneer in our midst (thanks again, Gregg!) which adds to the fun. We joke about some of the desserts going for a walloping price, but please don't let that intimidate you.  There are a few desserts that skyrocket just for the fun of the event, but most end up on this side of reasonable. Plus, the chili contest is always a way to help out without having to get into a bidding war. The main thing is for us to come together as a church family, have some fun, and find a way to ship our youth away for a whole week!

Thanks to the entire crew who will be pulling this together. It's a lot of work, but seeing our youth impacted by Challenge and by getting out of their comfort zones to help others in our community are both certainly worth the sacrifice of eating all that chili and dessert. Ministry is hard.