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)

Small Reaching Out Big

I am guilty of something I can't stand.

Even though I don't like to hear it, I sometimes catch myself saying, "But we're just a small church." That becomes an instant excuse for not doing big things. And it's misguided, in my opinion. I want to erase that phrase from my vocabulary, because it's a thoroughly fleshly way of looking at ministry.

Let me remind you of what "just a small church" has been doing lately:

Youth at Bridge of Hope: A couple of Sundays ago, our youth group went to Bridge of Hope to teach Sunday school to all ages of youth. Bridge of Hope wants to know when they can come again, and our youth had a great experience serving. The youth also have several outreach events throughout the year (the adults should have such a schedule!).

MegaDay: Several members from Grace helped with Bridge of Hope's "MegaDay," reaching out to their neighbors in the inner core by doing yard work, oil changes, clean up, and praying for various needs.

Quilts: Margaret Reimer's crew at Good Samaritan, with the help of a handful of members of Grace meet weekly to make quilts to provide to ministries such as Advice and Aid, so that young parents will have a warm quilt for their new babies.

ASK: We have a team of people who go to Oxford Middle School after school on Wednesdays and Thursdays to help students with their homework.

YouthFriends: A YouthFriend meets regularly with a student at school for lunch to be a positive adult influence for kids who have a particular need. I've already been able to get a start on this, but we're adding several more with training on 5/22 at the church.

Food Backpacks: We already have quite a few, and are looking for more, to buy certain grocery items on a regular basis to stock Oxford Middle School's backpack program, providing weekend meals for the family of students when needed.

Financial Class: John Harrison is teaching basic financial responsibility every other Saturday at Bridge of Hope.

Career Counseling: Mike Medhurst is getting involved in providing basic career counseling at Bridge of Hope.

Mission SouthSide: Several of our members of volunteered some time at Mission SouthSide, meeting the physical and spiritual needs within South Johnson County. We are partnering with Mission SouthSide on the backpack program.

Garage Sales: There have been a few garage sales by our members to raise money for the orphanage in Kenya, and the proceeds from the churchwide garage sale coming up will also be sent there.

Awana / VBS: Of course, the teams of people who make Awana and VBS happen every year invest a great deal of themselves into children, many of whom don't attend Grace (or any church, in several cases).

Women's Retreat Outreach: The women's retreat this year included three women from the Straight and Narrow transition house, building relationships, and providing yet another avenue of positive influence for Christ in the lives of women who are so focused on living redeemed lives.

Small Group Outreach: Each small group has $200 available to spend on whatever outreach they choose, as long as they are involved in the outreach itself.

Bread of Life: We have helped with their Christmas outreach every year, and in May and June, I'll be teaching there on Wednesday nights.

More... I'm sure I'm forgetting a few, and there are plenty of things going on I'm not even aware of.

One of the goals we set for ourselves two years ago was to push out more from the four walls of the church. We are seeing God bring this about in ways that we never would have guessed when we set those goals. Being open to whatever God has planned is far more effective than just making plans by our own effort.

"Just a small church"? Big deal!