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In a world of multi-site, church planting, and superstar senior pastors, it is hard to talk about something as non-sexy as discipleship. No one wants to read about it, talk about it, or even plan around it. It is like marketing…we never budget for it because we don’t understand the value of it.
But if we truly grasped the idea behind discipleship and even understood how it would explode the growth of our church, I’m pretty sure we would all pay much more attention to it.
It all starts with Passion
Every Act of Reproduction Begins with a Moment of Passion.
Passionate people tell others about Jesus. Passion gives birth to relationships. Relationships release Kingdom life. Kingdom life is the spontaneous sharing of the life of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is saying to us, “You give me your life, and I’ll give you mine.”
All we have of eternal value to give to the world is what we have of Jesus Christ!
- The world doesn’t need a better plan or program.
- The world doesn’t need a better building or organization.
- The world needs Jesus!
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son…”
What happens when we try to produce or respond to growth with programs?
• We respond to growth by developing new programs.
• The programs require meetings and resources.
• The meetings and resources require administration.
• The administration generates more programs to provide more resources for the programs and meetings.
• Whoever runs the programs, meetings, and resources is the leader.
• The leaders neglect the vision to serve as the administrators.
I can tell I have already been fired from your church.
So since I already lost my job, let me take this one step further.
I think there are two ways of looking at ministry and mission. And let me clarify that I do not believe that church is bad, systems are bad, and organization is bad. I do however belive there is an element of natural discipleship making verses synthetic discipleship making.
If you will allow me I will explain both.
Gods Way-Natural
- Passionate
- Spontaneous
- Relationships
- members empowered
- members released
- Spirit lead
- gives energy
- joy
- costs nothing
Mans Way
- Programmed
- Meetings
- Scheduled
- members collected
- method base
- consumes energy
- duty
- expensive
Now again i think there is room for both within the local church. I understand that there are buildings, members, ministries, and other things pulling for time and space. But what I am trying to communicate at some level is that discipleship does not cost you anything, and it happens naturally.
There is no need for a building, money spent, or perhaps even staff?
You see the idea is to give ownership to those involved in the discipleship process and allow them to create their own teams. It is not controlled in a system but expanded through multiplication. It develops spirit led leaders within the church.
The best part, is that you don’t need to wait on a staff person, or church expert to tell you the best time to start. Shoot if you wanted to start today you could.
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