Growing a Culture of Discipleship

Growing a Culture of Discipleship

Jay Wegter

Adapted from The Vine Project, by Colin Marshall and Tony Payne

Here are some of the most common ways that churches attempt to produce a change in the direction of discipleship or ‘vine work’:

• Preaching a sermon on disciple-making,
• Start some one-on-one Bible reading,
• Add disciple-making to the goals of the church for the year,
• Try harder with welcoming newcomers,
• Run a course on how to share your faith with outsiders.

But, some alteration to the above ‘trellises’ usually does not produce true change because the trellises are not designed to optimize and facilitate vine work. The whole culture has to change, but you can’t change the culture by working on the culture, because the culture is what you have become as a church—the whole way you do things, both formal and informal. Church culture is made up of decades of idea-driven practices at every level of church life. But, you can work on the way people think (pp. 30-32).

Most Christian shepherds are either strongly a Bible guy or a leadership guy. This means you are going to approach the problem of a lack of discipleship through your area of strength. Now because both are necessary, it is vital that we know the phases by which change occurs:

Phase One: sharpen your convictions—dig into the Word and theology; clarify what you believe about disciple-making and ministry.

Phase Two: Reform your personal culture—make sure that your convictions have penetrated the culture of your own life—that you are demonstrating your convictions by how you live and how you minister to others.

Phase Three: Loving, honest evaluation—undertake clear-eyed examination of everything that happens in your church to see how well or how poorly it accords with your convictions (what areas of ministry and activity best express the convictions, and what areas do not).

Phase Four: Work out what you are to stop doing and start doing; plan new pathways for disciple-making and how to work them out and how to implement them over time.

Phase Five: Maintain momentum—monitor and review how the project is unfolding; look at obstacles and work out how to overcome them.

PHASE ONE: Sharpen your Convictions

Clarity on core convictions is vital; a lack of shared core convictions will stymie what we are trying to do together under God. And, also because of a lack of alignment between convictions and practice it will generate a host of miscellaneous things that do not reflect your convictions. Only when we address both beliefs and practice, both convictions and structures are you going to see real change (pp. 43-45). There are five core convictions built around five key questions related to discipleship:

• Why make disciples?
• What is a disciple?
• How are disciples made?
• Who makes disciples?
• Where do we make disciples?

In answer to ‘why make disciples’? We know that at one time we were darkness, and now we are light in the Lord (Eph 5:8). Our world even with all its wonders and beauty and goodness and love relationships is rightly described as ‘this present darkness’ (Eph 6:12). This is an important reason why disciple-making is God’s rescue mission for people trapped in escapable darkness (2 Cor 4:3). Our world is not neutral territory (1 Jn 5:19).

This present darkness constantly exerts a dulling shrouding effect upon our lives. It saps out of us the urgency of making disciples; it lulls us into self-protective complacency and a comfortable week-by-week church existence while the world around us is going to hell in a hand basket. So deep is this prevailing darkness that we sleep well at night without a thought of how lost and blind are neighbors and friends are and how desperate the plight is of the millions who remain in darkness. When we lose sight of the magnitude of the power of God in just one person’s conversion, we will tend to naturalize or humanize conversion (pp. 54-55, 57).

In answer to the question, ‘what is a disciple’? It is valuable to examine how a church made up of genuine disciples would look. If the majority of those who claim to follow Christ were nurtured to maturity through intimate, accountable relationships centered on the essentials of God’s Word, then self-initiating reproducing disciples of Christ would be the result (see this quote from Howard Hendricks note) (p. 61).

Is disciple-making primarily personal, intimate investment in another, OR is it also much more public in church life—also more joined to the everyday rhythms of church life? Certainly the latter must be involved as a vital factor in rejuvenating churches (pp. 62-63). What is a disciple? That question is answered by the term, Christ learner. Rather than just mastering a body of knowledge from what is taught in a classroom, a disciple of Christ (as in the first Century) is one who learns from Jesus a way of life based upon an understanding of certain truths about reality.

The goal was not only to know what their teacher knew, but to be like their teacher, to walk in his ways—in his knowledge, wisdom, his whole way of life (Lu 6:40. Thus, following him and being with him was the routine way that the teaching was conveyed and mastered. Thus a disciple is someone who follows Jesus, someone devoted to Jesus (pp. 64-65).

To learn Jesus as a Christ learner is to submit yourself to His teaching, to walk in His ways—this will mean leaving behind your current loyalties and commitments. Saving your old life is not an option. Co-crucifixion severs us from the old life, co-resurrection raises to the new life (2 Cor 5:14-15). This involves a decisive turning away from the old understanding and life and then embarking on a new life learned from his teacher. Repentance is involved because it is the clear recognition that the old life was lived in selfishness, and rebellion toward God. Jesus requires a repudiation—a radical ‘unlearning’ of our former rebellious way of life—and then submitting ourselves to Him our divine teacher who speaks the very words of the Father. Learning as a disciple is not filling a blank slate; it is replacing what the slate is already filled with the markings from the dark domain. We are to make Christ learners of all the nations. A Christ learner gladly wears his Savior’s yoke (Mt 11:29-30). For the yoke signifies being under the authority of Christ, his teacher. A disciple is committed to transformative learning. As we repent our understanding changes radically. Transformed understanding changes the whole person—which involves a new way of being and living. This new way of living is characterized by obedience—we are to know, love, and keep His commandments (Mt 28:19-20) (pp. 67-70). A disciple as a Christ learner is not going through a stage of Christianity, nor is he involved in some subset of the Christian life. No, a Christ learner is on a life-long path to keep and to live out all of the Lord’s commandments daily, weekly, for the rest of his life. To be a Christ learner is simply to be a genuine Christian. A body of Christ learners is what makes up the church. That is a gathering of people who are learning Christ together—it is a transformative learning community.

Where do we make disciples? Making Christ learners is not something a church takes care of in a Sunday school class, or in a Wednesday night program, or in assigning one-on-one Bible reading pairs. Everything we do as God’s gathered people (as church) should be an exercise in the transformative learning of Christ (pp. 70-71). Christ learner passages include: Rom 16:17; 1 Cor 14:31; Phil 4:9, 11; Col 1:5-7; Eph 4:19-24; Titus 3:14. We can see from these passages that words spoken and taught and then received and learned are the foundation for a totally new repentant way of life—to kill off the old me and then with a renewed mind embark on a whole new existence (Eph 4:19-24). Learner-ship is all but extinct in many modern churches. Churches are weak because they do not have a culture of transformative learning. Without focus on transformative learning through the Word of God in the power of the Spirit of God, churches will produce professors of Christianity but not disciples of Christ. So, what is a disciple of Christ? The answer is: a forgiven sinner who is learning Christ in repentance and faith. Transformative learning touches every sphere of life, especially in the transformational learning community that we call church (see page 75 for common views of what discipleship is) (pp. 72-74).

How do we make a disciple? There is no holy grail of methodology for disciple-making. When the apostles circulated around to revisit the churches, they were strengthening and encouraging the converts (Acts 14:21-22). The Thessalonians were faced with the constant tendency to lose sight of what’s important, to be distracted by half-truth alternatives and to grow weary and lose heart amidst multiple pressures (2 Thess 2:13-17). The central activity in making disciples is the proclamation of the Word of God. The Word is the plan and promise of God centered on Jesus Christ (see purpose of God paragraph, p. 84). We study, memorize, meditate upon, and obey the Word in view of the utter seriousness of the opposing threat of this present age of darkness (pp. 84-85). Who makes disciples? Weak, non-discipleship churches only hear the Word from the pulpit and from classes. But the Bible calls for the Word to be regularly spoken one to another (Rom 15:14). For in this ‘re-speak’ of the Word of God we see the very essence of how we learn Christ (pp. 86-87). ‘Word-less-ness’ is a sign of a sick disciple-making culture. In a healthy disciples-making culture all of God’s people have their mouths open to speak God’s Word by His Spirit— to one another. They will do so in different ways, in different contexts, taking up different opportunities, with different levels of gifts. To ‘re-speak’ the Word is a function of love to God and to others. We sacrifice our own interests and comfort for the sake of those around us. Love motivates us to reach out to others with the gospel and to see church as an opportunity for the up-building or those around us (Rom 15:1-7). Love compels us to persevere in laying our lives down and suffering for the sake of seeing people come to Christ and learn Christ (1 Jn 3:16) (pp. 92-93). Spiritual growth involves putting off the sinful deeds of the body and putting on the new self—who is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator (Col 3:10). We learn to obey all of Christ’s commandments and the suffering we endure for Christ produces endurance, character, and hope (Rom 5:1-5). This kind of conviction in action is transformational. Believers are at different stages of putting off and putting on. There will be struggling; we will be faced with the realities of weariness, failure, faint-heartedness. But we stress that Christ learners are made patiently, and perseveringly over time (pp. 94-95). Christ learning meets people where they are at and seeks to move them forward. One size fits all programs are doomed to fail— Christ learning has differentiated learning (p. 97).

Reformed pastor, Richard Baxter insisted that personal conference must accompany (or be along the side of) public preaching. Regular personal instruction or catechizing of the members of the flock is the vital duty of shepherds he argued. We as shepherds need to know what the forward steps are to Christian maturity (pp. 98-99).

The NT is clear regarding an ‘every member ministry’. But, over the decades, involvement in one’s church has generally been reduced to mean any general act of service or help rendered for the sake of the church (set up chairs, organize a program, lead a function, help with food, etc.)—rather than the Four P’s (Proclamation, Prayer, People, and Perseverance). Just how central is the Word of God in growing Christ learners? It is primary. Under the subject of ‘conviction’ it is important to look at four questions:

• What does the Bible says about Christians speaking the Word?
• What does it look like in practice?
• How are inhibitions to be overcome?
• How does an expository pulpit work together with an expository church?

Who makes disciples? Our speech is to be transformed (like every aspect of our lives) by the saving work of God. God not only gives sinners the gift of salvation, He also “puts speech or song in their mouths, and tells them to speak over and over again about how amazing salvation really is.” (p. 104).

Christians grow in Christ-like love when they increasingly seek to do good to others by the words they speak. They will desire to move Christ learners to the right (toward greater spiritual maturity). Paul summarizes this activity as, “warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom” (Col 1:28-29). The Word of Christ is to dwell in us richly so that we are teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom (See Rom 12:16; 1 Cor 1:10Col 3; Eph 4-5; 1 Thess 4-5) (pp. 108-109).

In practice this speaking the Word will fit into patterns of ministry and church life as ‘democratized proclamation’. How different this is than merely sitting beneath the proclamation from the pulpit. (See pp. 111-113 for different ways we can pursue democratized proclamation.) Without this corporate proclamation of mutual edification, it shows that we don’t value the Word enough and we don’t love people enough. Our refusal to speak the Word to our brethren is a heart problem. Our hearts are not sufficiently fired by the wonder of God’s mercies and the majesty of Jesus Christ; and our hearts are not sufficiently full of love and compassion for those around us (pp. 111-113).

The role of believer priests is to offer spiritual sacrifices to God— to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Pet 2:9-10). The glory of Christ in the gospel answers the question, “How can a loveless human heart be transformed?” Answer: by the power of the Word and the Spirit of God, ministered to one another in prayerful persevering proclamation by His people (see Paul’s two prayers in Ephesians chapters one and three). People’s willingness to speak the Word to one another tends to be short-circuited by feelings of inadequacy. (See page 115 for ideas to build confidence to speak the Word) (pp. 114-115).

Where are disciples make? Conviction: disciple-making takes place in a relational space of mutual care among Christ learners. See Bonhoeffer quote on why we need to speak the Word of God to one another (p. 124). If believers began to prayerfully proclaim the Word to one another, helping each other take a step toward the right (maturity), it would go a long way toward becoming an expository church.

In order to become a disciple-making church, Sunday must become a ‘theatre’ for

disciple-making (p. 126). Out of our conviction that we are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, comes the conviction in action that we are a community of Christ learners—and that our calling is to proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called us into His marvelous light (p. 129).

We must get it out of our heads that we are to make disciples first in some far off land.

After all, we are ‘the nations’ in the Great Commission—we are the Gentiles in the utter most parts of the earth that the original Jewish evangelists of Jerusalem were to go forth and reach. We were the strangers to the covenants and promises, without God in the world (see Eph 2) (p. 130).

Where do we make disciples? The home is the context for being a Christ-learner, but it has all but disappeared—that is the household as the pattern for discipling. This is a disaster not only for families but also for the church and its mission to the world (p. 135).

In the renewed household the home is also a laboratory in which Christian leadership was practiced and seen. In the pastoral epistles a man’s pastoral leadership in the Christian household was a pointer towards his qualifications for leading the household of God, the church (1 Tim 3:4-5).

As in ‘men on target’, the fact that elders, overseers and deacons are appointed on the basis of their example and leadership and teaching in the family is a strong indication that each household was to be led toward Christ-like transformation by the grace of the gospel. Baxter’s mission was to catechize families—dealing with prayerlessness, spiritual carelessness, and worldliness. If the God-appointed leader in the home excelled at promoting family religion, think of what good could be done (pp. 138-139).

Home is the nexus where church and world meet. The home is the key location for that to take place. (See questions on how homes can be a place of Christ learning, p. 141) (pp. 139-141). The ultimate reason we make disciples: God’s goal for the whole world and the whole of human history is to glorify His beloved Son in the midst of the people He has rescued and transformed. God is putting His plan into effect, by rescuing people out of this present darkness and placing them into the kingdom of his Son by his death and resurrection—people who are being transformed to be like Jesus and who now have a sure and certain place around Christ’s throne in a new creation where evil and death are no more (p. 143).

Church is a transformational learning community. Transformational learning is another way of describing the totality of the Christian life. The Four P’s accompanying disciple-making should be the goal of every form of Christian ministry:

• Proclamation of the Word in multiple ways (especially mutual edification)
• Prayerful dependence on the Spirit (an awareness that the Spirit animates our ministries)
• People are God’s fellow workers (Christ’s call upon us as a priesthood of believers)
• Perseverance step by step (disciple-making is a difficult process in a fallen world)

What is equipping? We help one another take right steps toward spiritual maturity: these steps are engage, evangelize, establish, and equip. Initial steps involve an unbeliever meeting and engaging with a Christian. Then, there is the step of evangelizing. Next, as soon as the person has responded to the gospel they are to be established as a Christian so as to begin to grow in godliness. As Christians are established and grow in love and knowledge they will be increasingly concerned not only to take steps to the right themselves, but also to help others do so. They will benefit from being equipped to do so through teaching, encouragement, coaching and prayer.

Shepherds by their preaching, teaching, training, and example equip every Christian to help those around them take a step to the right through the Four P’s. Growing Christ learners is not just something that happens to new believers. It is the basic activity that should be at the center of everything we do as a church. Sunday church ought to be a theater for disciple-making (pp. 147-149).

PHASE TWO: Reform your Personal Culture

The goal for learners of Christ is not just to know and remember Christ’s commands, but to obey them so as to live for Christ and seek to be like Christ in every word and deed. We cannot make Christ learners unless we show by our lives what learning Christ means (‘imitate us’—1 Cor 4:16; 1 Thess 1:6) (pp. 156-158).

The culture of the church will not change unless there is a critical mass of Christ learners who have caught the vision of moving themselves and others to the right. It takes sober self-examination to step up as an agent of change. The change you are proposing is not the change of program, structure, or model. It is fundamentally a transformation of lives by God through His Word and His Spirit. Positive transformational learning depends upon decisive unlearning of the false knowledge and life we once lived, and committing ourselves to learn Christ (a lifestyle of repentance) (pp. 158-159).

The more spiritually mature we are, the more we will desire to ‘pick up the pace’ leaving behind our old life and counting as loss what we once considered to be gain. As we move to the right the more starkly we will perceive the contrast between the light and darkness that still remains in our lives and the kingdom of His Son into which we have been transferred (p. 162). Hearing, reading, marking, learning, and inwardly digesting is not to be a solitary endeavor. All parts of the process can be usefully practiced in fellowship with others. The more we absorb and digest the truth of God’s Word, the more our trust and dependence upon God and His Word is nourished and strengthened, and the more we will be moved to cry out to God in intercession for our families, our neighbors, or friends and for the whole community of Christ learners. Prayer is central in the transformation of hearts. No strategy will avail without it (pp. 164-165).

(Contexts for transformation, pp. 165-167) (A personal plan to redeem the time in learning Christ and to help others learn Christ, pp. 169-171). If you begin to put into practice your sharpened convictions, you will want to see Sunday church become a theater for disciple-making (p. 172).

PHASE THREE: Loving, Honest Evaluation

Is our own comfort and satisfaction more important than the salvation and growth of others? (p.

178. If there is to be change, it is absolutely essential to align Sunday church with your convictions. There is no point in an elaborate plan for change if it does not start with the messy reality of where people are. Each person is at a different stage of learner-ship. Thus, the first stage of evaluation is determining where your people are in terms of spiritual maturity. This list of degrees of spiritual maturity is designed to help you meet each person at his maturity level:

• Don’t know: no one on your Vine Team knows where the person is spiritually
• Engaged: non-Christian people who have come to your church within the last year
• Evangelized: non-Christian people who have heard the gospel and a call to faith and repentance within the last year.
• Established—new: someone who has become a Christian within the last year
• Established—stuck, static, or struggling: a person who has been a Christian for some time but seems to be stagnating spiritually or really struggling in their faith—showing no obvious signs of growth or of understanding godliness (no willingness to serve others).

• Established—growing: someone who has been a Christian for some time and who shows signs of ongoing growth and understanding and godliness including a willingness to serve others.
• Equipped—ad hoc: someone who shows evidence of helping other Christ learners in the engaged, evangelized, or established stages so as to move them to the right through the Word, and prayer, but who has not received any particular training or help in doing so.
• Equipped—trained: someone who has received or is receiving training to help other learners move to the right through the Word and prayer (whether in a formal ministry structure, such as a small group, or informally).

Evaluate your ministries in order to map out a pathway to maturity: Print out a list for your entire congregation or groups, then, do your best to locate everyone in one of these stages of learner-ship (see p. 184 for list of levels of spiritual maturity). You must make sure that there is an absolute commitment that these stages of growth do NOT become a source of gossip. Keep this evaluation process prayerful. Once you have conducted the evaluation, determine what the results indicate about your church. Also determine who has moved to the right at least one stage within the last year. Know the signs of someone being spiritually stuck and or really struggling (pp. 184-187).

How effective are your regular church programs and activities at moving people to the right? What you are looking for is a determination of just how much or little each of your church ministries produces the real fruit of moving people to the right (the Four P’s).

Evaluate each of your church activities according to the categories below:

• Engaging: getting to know non-Christian people by opening up conversations with them about spiritual matters.
• Evangelizing: actually, explaining the gospel clearly to non-Christian people.
• Establishing—new: helping new converts become firmly grounded in the faith.
• Establishing—growing: helping well-established Christians to keep growing in their understanding and godliness.
• Equipping: teaching and training Christians to move others to the right in the other three categories: engaging, evangelizing, and establishing.

In order for real change to take place, Sunday must become a ‘flagship’ of learning Christ. The church gathering must be regarded as the key place where our people learn Christ—where they are moved to the right through prayerful proclamation of God’s Word in the power of the Spirit week by week (pp. 188-189). (See overcoming kinds of roadblocks, pp. 194-196).

PHASE FOUR: Innovate and Implement

No matter how carefully and thoughtfully you manage an effort to change, some of your people will have negative feelings. It is an inescapable part of human nature. Start something new and people will be suspicious, resistant, or cynical. Some will complain they prefer the way it was. Yes, we have to plan carefully but we must also pray hard.

This phase of change is tough because execution is always hard. We must recognize that turning plans into reality takes longer, costs more, and is filled with more obstacles than we thought possible. If you are going to see significant culture change in your church over time, you will need to generate and implement significant plans in at least these four areas:

1. Your main gathering in Sunday church must function as a ‘flagship’ for the culture of disciple-making you want to create.
2. The rest of your church life including your programs, ministries, groups, activities, and home life of each member must provide clear and effective pathways for moving people to maturity.
3. Your long-term plans for growth must include anticipating and preparing for the growth your plans will produce.
4. Your communication and common language must provide new ways of thinking and talking about disciple-making and ministry so that this language becomes normal in your fellowship (pp. 200-202).

Sunday has to change church into a place where people experience our convictions. There must be a new emphasis introduced on transformative learning in Christ; we call this ‘taking a step to the right’. Our Sunday gatherings must be places where transformative learning takes place through the Word of God and prayer. The whole church culture which we want to foster needs to be modeled, expressed, championed, and propagated. Our Sunday gatherings need to become places where people experience our convictions and ultimately live and breathe them. (p. 206). (See page 238 on how to make Sunday a flagship for disciple-making.)

Despite our best and most careful efforts some of our plans won’t work. Don’t be too tied to your plans or invest them with too much importance. A trellis (plan or structure) is not alive, it is a construct that can be dismantled and disassembled. The trellis is meant to support the vine and not determine precisely where all vine growth will happen (p. 244).

Leaders and co-workers don’t magically grow on trees but they do grow. They grow in the same way all other growth happens, through the work of God in their lives as His Word takes root and bears fruit by the Spirit over time. This is why the equipping stage is perhaps the most important in designing pathways to move people to the right. By equipping we mean that phase of Christian growth where believers embrace the concept of helping to move others to the right.

This takes place when the ‘penny drops’ and they realize the love which God has poured into their hearts pushes them outwards to other people, therefore they will long to see other people come to Christ and grow in Christ. The most basic step to help Christians make this particular move to the right in their understanding is this: to grasp that Christ’s purpose for me is that I seek with all my heart to move others to the right in whatever way I can.

So, where such Christians are taught, trained, mentored, and supported there will be outward looking ministry to others. In many respects the equipping stage is an aspect of establishing believers. But this equipping unto usefulness is not neatly sequential; one has to be established as a Christian for a certain probationary period of time before you can qualify to be equipped to minister to others. (pp. 273-275)

There are some basic kinds of competencies or skills every believer should have in their tool box. These are basic equipping skills:

1. How to speak the Word of God to yourself so that reading the Bible prayerfully is a regular part of life.
2. How to speak about Christ with non-Christians both one’s testimony and providing a simple explanation of the Gospel.
3. How to answer common questions and objections that are raised concerning Christianity.
4. How to read the Bible one-on--one with someone else whether Christian or non-Christian friend.
5. How to follow-up a new convert or Christian personally.
6. How to encourage and minister to others on Sunday.

7. How to minister to your spouse and children.

Once you learn the above equipping skills there are some specializing skills that follow. These may require extra training for particular tasks or ministries. The most common would be:

1. How to lead a small group.
2. How to lead in children’s ministry or Sunday school.
3. How to lead and minister in youth groups.
4. How to give Bible lessons or sermons (pp. 275-276).

As you set up a structure for establishing believers this will include putting better equipped leaders and equippers in place along the pathway. If you have a group of say ten people for four months you should expect as you move them through these levels of equipping that at the end of a year you should have six significantly matured leaders ready to help you equip others through small groups.

You can keep these leaders growing by mentoring them even as they start equipping people in small groups. In time additional potential leaders will emerge from those groups. Some churches take potential new leaders out of their normal small group and spend six months training them in leadership. This leadership training group functions as the leader’s small group for that six-month period. (pp. 278-279) (See page 288 for a pathway of equipping from new convert to leader).

The latter half of the 20ᵗʰ century in evangelicalism was characterized by the dominance of the church growth movement. By contrast, when we look at the ministry of Jesus we see that big numbers and big plans are not what inspired and motivated people to get involved. Real Gospel growth comes through Four P’s of ministry, and no other way. You can’t market your way to discipleship change. You can build structures and pathways and various trellises to facilitate and drive the growth you aspire to (p. 298).

Vision casting language is exceedingly important. Not only do you need a plan for change, you need to work out a plan for comprehensively communicating the vision you have crafted for becoming a transformative learning community (or moving to the right). It’s time to start communicating these convictions and this new way of thinking about learning Christ and the pathways to move people forward from engaging all the way to equipping.

Here is a grid of questions that will help you form your vision casting language:

1. What sort of church does God want us to be. We often call this ‘vision’, and it is driven by the theological convictions we have sharpened.
2. Under God how are we to get to that future (of a community of Christ learners)? This question deals with the means or strategies we are going to use. Again, these flow out of our convictions about the Four P’s of ministry of moving people to the right.
3. What are our specific goals for growth in the next five years?

4. What are our specific priorities for reaching those goals? These plans are focused by making Sunday church a ‘flagship’ for discipleship and by designing pathways to maturity with the

practical steps required.

Vision casting involves implicit deliberate communication. You will have to change the names of some of your ministries and activities so that they reflect the pathway to spiritual maturity. (pp. 306-309)

In understanding obstacles to change—the way things have been done for decades will not alter quickly or easily. The shared language, practices, habits, structures, activities, and traditions have all been bedded down over decades and in some cases centuries. Therefore, change is not like a commando operation, it is more like an extended land war in Asia. `

Shared language is a huge replacement task. But let’s be ruthlessly honest, there is a real reason we don’t obey our Lord’s command in the Great Commission. The fundamental reason why church cultures are not aligned with Great Commission convictions, the real reason is not historical or circumstantial, it is spiritual. It is a lack of trust in the Word of God, a lack of dependence on the Spirit of God, a lack of Christ-like love for those around us, and a lack of hope in the eternal kingdom of Christ as our true home. If our convictions are correct the kind of change we are talking about is not just organization realignment or a new strategy, it is repentance towards Christ-likeness (pp. 316-317) (See pp. 318-319 for diagnosing kinds of obstacles)

It is all very well to talk about training people to be disciple-makers, but countless pastors are saying, “I feel like our people are just struggling to survive from one day to the next. It is hard enough just getting them to show up most Sundays, let alone start anything new or extra.” Therefore, the most important thing to say is that we must understand the pressure our people are under theologically, in terms of what the Bible says about this fallen world. The kind of pressure we are talking about in this situation is normal in this present darkness. And its most significant effect is the temptation it brings to abandon sacrificial loyalty to Christ and to retreat into darkness to give up hope and to yield to complacency or despair (but we can’t go back to Egypt).

In other words, learning Christ is not an academic or theoretical exercise. Learning Christ means precisely learning to trust Him, put our hope in Him in the midst of all the complications, troubles, and pressures of life. Growth in Christ-likeness in the midst of life’s pressures is exactly what being a disciple is all about. So, helping people do this through the Four P’s of ministry is precisely what a transformational learning community is all about. I hope we’ve made this clear.

We must not compartmentalize disciple-making as a certain set of activities to be undertaken by the truly committed. Or, consider that it is only or those who have their lives all together. The transformational learning we’ve been talking about invades and changes every facet of our lives including how we deal with the trials of life (pp. 324-325).

ASSIGNMENTS:

1. Write a manifesto which sharpens your five convictions. A manifesto in this c context is an internal mission statement that expresses your purpose. It also reminds your members what you are about as a church. Write your summary of what you believe about discipleship and making disciples. What you are trying to express is your ‘theological DNA’. (See page 151 for elements in casting a vision) (pp. 148-151).
2. Identify your core beliefs. Locate problems or obstacles. Establish a critical path to get to the goal (what are the action steps?). Spend time on the part people tend to leave out. Reform your own personal culture (what areas of change in your life and ministry are needed so that what you do will reflect your convictions?) (p. 155).

3. Evaluate your ministries in order to map out a pathway: Print out a list for your entire congregation or groups, then, do your best to locate everyone in one of these stages of learner-ship (see p. 184 for list of levels of spiritual maturity). You must make sure that there is an absolute commitment that these stages of growth do NOT become a source of gossip, so keep this evaluation process prayerful. Once you have conducted the evaluation, determine what the results indicate about your church. Also determine who has moved to the right at least one stage within the last year. Know the signs of someone being spiritually stuck and or really struggling (pp. 184-187).

How effective are your regular church programs and activities at moving people to the right? What you are looking for is a determination of just how much or little each of your church ministries produces the real fruit of moving people to the right (the Four P’s). Evaluate each of your church activities according to the categories below:

• Engaging: getting to know non-Christian people by opening up conversations with them about spiritual matters.
• Evangelizing: actually, explaining the gospel clearly to non-Christian people.
• Establishing—new: helping new converts become firmly grounded in the faith.
• Establishing—growing: helping well-established Christians to keep growing in their understanding and godliness.
• Equipping: teaching and training Christians to move others to the right in the other three categories: engaging, evangelizing, and establishing.