Part of an online conversation I am having about evangelism & missional church--
This is the thought I have been wrestling with as we help plant City Life Church:
If there were no programs to help make disciples (no events, planned parties, Sunday services, small groups, group trips to Cedar Point or whatever) what would my priorities, relationships and conversations look like?
We are trying to order our lives in such a way that trusting, disciple-making relationships and conversations are the fruit. Now I know that seems a bit obvious, but for my wife and I this has been a major shift. Here are some of ways things have changed:
1. We slowed down, waaay down. For us, this has meant traveling less and saying "no" to lots of church activities. We found there wasn't enough space in our schedules for relationships to grow and we didn't have enough flexibility to meet people where they were at. The net result has been a beautiful and often frustrating availability that we believe has provided us with some opportunities we would not have had otherwise.
2. We stopped seeing salvation as the goal. That sounds bad, but as people become disciples, the salvation moment can be a little fuzzy. Some friends have only recognized that they had come to belief after they saw their life change in hindsight. We are more concerned with the direction people are moving than when they cross a line of "belief" If people are acting more like Jesus and trying to participate in the Kingdom life God is building, we believe an assurance of salvation will be one of many fruits that come from the disciple-making relationship.
3. We focused on proximity over affinity. One of the primary purposes of the church is to reflect the Kingdom of God on this earth. We believe that because this Kingdom is diverse, his church should be diverse.
So we moved into the center of the city where there was a lot of diversity--ethnically, socio-economically, religously, and generationally. My particular neighborhood is quite diverse, so that there is not a 50% majority of any one group in any of these catogories.
Then we decided that our job was to help make disciples of all our neighbors. Some were already Christians, so we felt like our job was to encourage them to deeper discipleship and let the unbelievers witness our love for each other. Now we are in the process of building relationships with our non-Christian neighbors--many of which are young people. That we would make the effort to cross many natural barriers has been a powerful testimony in our neighborhood already.
4. We have opened up our home and our lives. We work hard at keeping an open door for our neighbors. Yes, it has been inconvenient and even dangerous (two young guys I had been trying to build a relationship with tried to break into our house this month when we were gone). Currently we are talking about having a single person in their twenties come and live with us for a while. We are trying to become a hangout for the neighborhood kids (they love to play with our 11 month old). We make taking walks in our neighborhood a priority and we try to time them with the greatest amount of activity on the block for the most interaction.
5. Finally, as trust builds, we become more intentional (and formal) with our relationships. For instance, two younger people in our church have asked us to mentor them through their dating experience together, helping them set guidelines and keeping them accountable. We have sought to put ourselves under people we respect to help us grow. Eventually we will gather a group of people (some believers, some not yet) and start a Life Group (our church's small groups).
The point though is that this one formal program (Life Group) is coming out of the way we are living our life--with Kingdom intentions. Now, we are a long way from doing this well, but we are being intentional about it and we are starting to see the fruit. I followed similar disciple-making ideas when I was working in campus ministry with college students with some beautiful relationships and strong disciples coming out of it.
We do have programs in our church, although we won't launch our worship service until this fall (more than one year after what we consider the "start" of the church), but they are all secondary to what we call the "missional actions" we do every day. Those are the things we keep each other accountable to.
It is a much slower way, but we hope that by making stronger disicples over a longer period of time, the kingdom proliferation will be exponential.
This is the thought I have been wrestling with as we help plant City Life Church:
If there were no programs to help make disciples (no events, planned parties, Sunday services, small groups, group trips to Cedar Point or whatever) what would my priorities, relationships and conversations look like?
We are trying to order our lives in such a way that trusting, disciple-making relationships and conversations are the fruit. Now I know that seems a bit obvious, but for my wife and I this has been a major shift. Here are some of ways things have changed:
1. We slowed down, waaay down. For us, this has meant traveling less and saying "no" to lots of church activities. We found there wasn't enough space in our schedules for relationships to grow and we didn't have enough flexibility to meet people where they were at. The net result has been a beautiful and often frustrating availability that we believe has provided us with some opportunities we would not have had otherwise.
2. We stopped seeing salvation as the goal. That sounds bad, but as people become disciples, the salvation moment can be a little fuzzy. Some friends have only recognized that they had come to belief after they saw their life change in hindsight. We are more concerned with the direction people are moving than when they cross a line of "belief" If people are acting more like Jesus and trying to participate in the Kingdom life God is building, we believe an assurance of salvation will be one of many fruits that come from the disciple-making relationship.
3. We focused on proximity over affinity. One of the primary purposes of the church is to reflect the Kingdom of God on this earth. We believe that because this Kingdom is diverse, his church should be diverse.
So we moved into the center of the city where there was a lot of diversity--ethnically, socio-economically, religously, and generationally. My particular neighborhood is quite diverse, so that there is not a 50% majority of any one group in any of these catogories.
Then we decided that our job was to help make disciples of all our neighbors. Some were already Christians, so we felt like our job was to encourage them to deeper discipleship and let the unbelievers witness our love for each other. Now we are in the process of building relationships with our non-Christian neighbors--many of which are young people. That we would make the effort to cross many natural barriers has been a powerful testimony in our neighborhood already.
4. We have opened up our home and our lives. We work hard at keeping an open door for our neighbors. Yes, it has been inconvenient and even dangerous (two young guys I had been trying to build a relationship with tried to break into our house this month when we were gone). Currently we are talking about having a single person in their twenties come and live with us for a while. We are trying to become a hangout for the neighborhood kids (they love to play with our 11 month old). We make taking walks in our neighborhood a priority and we try to time them with the greatest amount of activity on the block for the most interaction.
5. Finally, as trust builds, we become more intentional (and formal) with our relationships. For instance, two younger people in our church have asked us to mentor them through their dating experience together, helping them set guidelines and keeping them accountable. We have sought to put ourselves under people we respect to help us grow. Eventually we will gather a group of people (some believers, some not yet) and start a Life Group (our church's small groups).
The point though is that this one formal program (Life Group) is coming out of the way we are living our life--with Kingdom intentions. Now, we are a long way from doing this well, but we are being intentional about it and we are starting to see the fruit. I followed similar disciple-making ideas when I was working in campus ministry with college students with some beautiful relationships and strong disciples coming out of it.
We do have programs in our church, although we won't launch our worship service until this fall (more than one year after what we consider the "start" of the church), but they are all secondary to what we call the "missional actions" we do every day. Those are the things we keep each other accountable to.
It is a much slower way, but we hope that by making stronger disicples over a longer period of time, the kingdom proliferation will be exponential.
posted by ben price at 9:33 PM
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