Leaders Define Culture!
Next stage for us at Ivy is how to multiply through discipleship
People choosing not to serve as a volunteer – but because they want to be with you.
1 Cor 4:14
I became your father
Imitate me
Follow my son Timothy
My way of life agrees with my teaching
In that culture the child did what their father or mother did.
Very few people could operate as truly a father or mother – they had many ‘teachers.’
Wrong q – how do I get more people to help me
Right q – how do I get more people to pattern their lives after Jesus as I do – imperfect though I am.
All sheep looks like a shepherd from behind.
As I follow Christ – look back – who is following me?
How did Jesus make disciples?
He calibrated invitation to be with him
With the challenge to do something
Challenge therefore;
Are we so focused on growing church instead of focusing on growing disciples – then Jesus will grow the church.
None of us are natural disciplers – we are all either higher on challenge or invitation. So we all have an opportunity to grow!
In many church cultures, skills are more valued than character.
This warmed my heart when I read it a few weeks ago, having come from a background in The Navigators as a young Christian, where the whole emphasis was on disciple-making.
We based our whole approach on 2 Tim 2:2 where there is a process described. Paul teaches Timothy in the presence of many, Timothy commits this to ” faithful ” (or reliable) men , and these in turn pass on to ” others also “. You never know if your Billy Sunday will pass on to a Billy Graham.
There are some discipling skills here in being able to teach and the stuff we did in 40 Days in the Word is classic Navigator material. We referred often to who we were “following up” after them becoming a new Christian, and these precious tools of study and meditation were fabulous for getting new Christians to feed on God for themselves.
The main thing though was the whole principle of “life on life” and we would rather see a sermon than hear one any day (that’s a quote, not an opinion!). This takes time and we had it reinforced regularly how important it was to get alongside people and let them see our lives. This enabled opportunities to share the why? as well as the how? as the Bible refers to us a “believers” not just followers. We believe something therefore faith and action follow.
My big challenge on all this is how we make time to develop the life-on-life process today, and how do you encourage commitment? We mainly rely on groups for our discipling process. Accountability is key. Most of us are busy with many good things and would find this hard to fit in, but that’s the way it seems to be. There is a sending out but there is a time afterward to reflect and make sense, we did it in the 70s/80s as students, not sure how that works today. There is definitely a relational element to all this without developing dependencies on humans. Maybe the answer is there is no formula, but that doesn’t tell me where to start.
Follow up was always called “conserving the fruit of evangelism”, I’m praying for a bunch of big, juicy fruit in 2013 !!
Dave Challis