Evangelism vs. Discipleship

When it comes to church growth, it’s is said that it is easier to have babies than raise the dead. And if your only method of growing a church is to birth people in it or keep those already in it alive as long as you can, I think your church will not be that fun. Aside from the two previous stated methods of growing a church, sharing the great news of the gospel is a rather good choice, seeing as how it isn’t always a 9 month process. (sometimes its a heck of a lot longer.)

Matthew 28:19 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…” suggests that Jesus not only intended us to share him with others, but to raise them up in their knowledge of his power and authority. 28:20 “…teaching them to okay everything I have commanded you.” implies that we are not meant to stop only at the sharing of the gospel. We are not just to gain new recruits to the Kingdom, but to train and raise them in thier authority.

A growing church should be dependent on both evangelism as well as discipleship working at both parts for all members.

The way I see this playing out is like a visit to the beach. Someone stands near the beach and is exposed to the love of Jesus (the water), they step onto the beach and start looking at the water. They may walk around the beach for a while wondering if the water is cold or warm, if its dirty or clean. They’re skeptical about getting in. Some leave the beach and come back, some leave forever, and some decide to get it.

Now beaches start off shallow and while you can easily get wet, it usually is a while before your at a point where you can’t touch the bottom anymore.

When the person is in the water, the depth of the water is the depth is, for lack of better words, their depth of discipleship. We slowly get deeper and deeper until we have to be fully submerged to touch the bottom. Then we go out a little deeper and deeper still.

That’s the amazing thing about Jesus, no matter how deep we get in his love, there is still more to go, only inch of depth that we can work toward.

Too many churches seem to stand in the water waiting to help people touch the bottom, or stand on the beach saying how great the water is. (I’m not poo-pooing on those gifted in evangelism or discipleship.-We need those women and men of the church) But way are churches stressing one over the other.

One trained soilder can easily best 3 recruits, but will one day die and never fight again.

20 new recruits can easily take and single solider. But will divide if not trained.

 

The Qualities of King Arthur

Okay, so I was thinking last night and a good portion of today about the characteristics of this great leader from the movie King Arthur. From the beginning of the film we see that even as a young boy he felt called to follow truth over power. His round table stressed that each man under him never sat below him. His heart was for his men and what they had earned not what he had earned. I would even go as far as to say that he love the men who served under him and would rather die himself than have one of this knights lose their freedom.

So as I was thinking about what great qualities he had, it dawned on me that those are the same features that are associated with Jesus Christ. As a boy Jesus was in search of truth not popularity. He stressed the freedom and truth of God’s plan. For those he loved he was even willing to die so that they could get what was not due them.

And I realized that I’d be better off saying that Jesus has the qualities of the leader that I do follow and I would be grateful if I could ever have similar qualities myself.

 

Arthur

So this past week I watched King Arthur, the new one with Clive Owen and Keira Knightley, and totally enjoyed it. What I was most amazed about was the qualities of leadership the Arthur character held. At the end of the movie, really minus the last four minutes when all the fighting is over, I realized that the character possess the qualities that I want to follow. The qualities I wish I had.

 

Breaking down

I wonder how many times in my life so far, I’ve some sort of breakdown personally. Maybe between the ages of 16 and 25 hmmm. I wonder how many I’ll have from here on through the rest of my life. I had a mild break down/melt down as some would call it about two weeks ago and it got me thinking.

I was working hard and after a strong conversation about how a consultant should and could speak about people in my department I retreated back to my office and sat silently breathing slowly feeling my body both physically and mentally begin to swirl inward. Quickly I felt my spirit begin to go with them and I got scared. As anger and frustration began to become more apart of my immediate thinking I realized that I still had three classes to get through and needed to get over myself quick.

I wish I could say that I prayed and asked god for his help. Nope instead I got up and started for a walk around my school. With ten minutes left before my next class started I remebered that I serve a much more powerful God than any university and prayed for forgiveness in how I reacted and for grace for my students for the next couple of hours.

I had a break down. I had pushed myself just beyond the edge of my ability and had begun to tip over. So here is my dilemma…

I’ll do it again. I struggle with the sense of having such a self maintaining thought process that we never allow ourselves to be used ot our maximum ability. We can red-line a car, leave machines on for hours on end. But so many of us look at the limit of our ability as something that shouldn’t be seen let alone pressed.

So I had a melt down and am totally fine with it. I think mainly because I live with two awesome friends who know me well enough to help me when I’m tired. I have such a rich community of people around me that I know I am safe when I am week. Truly my community must represent God’s intention for what he wanted us to do for each other and I am blessed by that. With them, I am able to push myself and try to do more for others. Imagine if we all had such a community. Imagine how easy life would be then. Imagine how little we would all have to push ourselves if we all had such a community.

 

Transparent verses Opaque

I’ve really tried to be as transparent about my life as possible. I’ve been more honest at times when I was afraid and I believe that not just owning what and who you are is good for you, but for those around you…But I’ll be honest, sometimes it really is a challenge not to stop and allow some amount of mystery to return to my life. I just get worn out from trying to be as transparent as possible and yet find myself against an opaque counter part. It’s a struggle still finding more parts of me that are still opaque and translucent and finding the clarity of them.

I’m tired…And I just can’t give it up, not because sometimes I don’t want to. But something in me just won’t let me. Is it my conscious? Is it my soul? Could it be Jesus? What ever it is. I’m indebted to it. I am the most tired I’ve ever been, but I’m also the most happy.