Advice to Church Planters (Part 2)

My friend Jason Lantz who leads an amazing missional expression of the Church called Love Canton asked me, if I could do it all over again, what are 1-2 main things that I would remind myself about starting a church focused on making disciples. Yesterday was Part 1: Be intentional about discipleship, and don't try to add it later. Here's my second thought...

Disciple Your Family Well, And Open Your Home

I was raised by Christians, my dad came to faith much later in life than my mom, but still. I was raised in "a Christian home." My wife, Sondra, was raised by Christians who both came to faith at the same time. Both Sondra and I came to faith in our 1st decade of life. We turned out pretty well by the world's and the church's standards, so I'm not at all knocking what they did. 

But if we are honest (and yes we've talked to our parents about this) neither our parents (or Sondra and I) had any idea of how to really help our spouse or our family take their next steps with God -  A.k.a. Discipleship. This has recently become a talking point in our home. Often we talk about how we can disciple one another and our kids. 

I don't know about you, but I've never been a part of a discipling church culture. I've experienced discipleship moments, I've had someone like a mentor pouring into me for a season, I've felt it a bit in a few small groups I was in, but I've never been a part of a true discipleship culture. And I couldn't find one. So where do I start? My family.

I realized that no one can teach me more about the gospel of grace than my wife. No one can teach me about kingdom living like my kids. NO ONE!  If discipleship is about learning to be like someone. By proximity alone, my family is already discipling me, and I'm discipling them. I'm teaching them how to live their life by what I do. So we started to be intentional about it. 

In 1 Timothy 3 the basic characteristic of someone called to lead God's church is based on, "how well you can disciple your family." If you can't disciple your family, you can't disciple his church.

Once you begin to work this out in your family. I would take it a step further and invite people into your home. This is one of the best things we've done with some of our friends. We also accidentally stumbled upon the importance of discipling our kids in our CityGroups. Sondra and I felt that we had to posture discipling our kids to other parents, so we invite the kids (and of course their parents) to participate in almost every CityGroup activity.

Practical Application

The best, and most important place to build your discipling culture is in your home. If you can disciple your family and show them how to disciple others, you'll change your life. And if you invite people to see the gospel on display in your own life, up close uncut and raw, you might just change the world.

Advice to Church Planters (Part 1)

My friend Jason Lantz who leads an amazing missional expression of the Church called Love Canton asked me, if I could do it all over again, what are 1-2 main things that I would remind myself about starting a church focused on making disciples. It is for a Church Planters Boot Camp for Stadia that I will briefly participate in. I thought I would share my thoughts on my blog as well, so here it goes...

Discipleship is the Mission, it is not something you can "add later." 

Intentional Discipleship is the Mission

This was my gut assumption and is why I left my career in computers and electronics to start a church. I love worship gatherings, I love communicating the gospel, and I love the arts. But my gut assumption when starting the church was this - a church that disciples through life on life relationships and a shared mission. At first I had no idea what that would be like, but it was that internal, Holy Spirit, nudge.

Quick Story: I remember the first time I stood before a church planting board and gave my church plant's pitch. I had no idea what I was doing. I was nervous as all get out, and I started wondering why God ask me to do this. A large portion of my pitch that day was pertaining to 'intentional discipleship."  When they asked me about how I was going to do that. I had little to no idea... I'd say, "Uh... it would be discipleship... [long pause] life on life stuff.... [another pause] and it would be intentional, you know?" Thinking back I'm not sure if I was making  statement or asking a question. Need less to say the board told me I need to 'think through my discipleship strategy." They were right.

All I knew at the time was discipleship is life on life, moment by moment, struggle by struggle learning. It was intentional in that I was calling people to trust God and act upon what he was telling them. That was it. I really wish I could have learned by being a part of a discipling church culture, but I wasn't. My assumption is that many church planters have not either. And that's okay, start learning. 

Don't Add It Later

You need to be intentional about discipleship from day 1, otherwise you will have to move mountains, lose people, and hinder the mission of the church to make it a part of you ministry later. Shouldn't it be the foundation of our ministry. After all discipleship is our mission right? Make disciples who make disciples. Build on that.

Practical Application

Find a discipleship community to participate in for a season. A huddle of another community or something. If you cant find one start one that is small and work on it. Don't be afraid to fail, God is full of grace. Just follow the Spirit, and look to the scripture. This leads to my second thought... (see tomorrow's post)

Funny Friday | No One Says...

Don't Fabricate, Reciprocate

Engage the story of your soul.
Explore the cracks and expose the darkness.
Listen to the whispers of God
And let the light enter in and mend your wounds.

And when he does, retell it.
Don't fabricate, reciprocate.
Return to him over and over.
This will never fail you.

If followers of Jesus engaged the cycle of death and resurrection, the stories we tell would be epics, the news we brought would be good. In exchange for Christian propaganda we would have the King himself!

Funny Friday | The Force VW Commerial

So cute...