Much has been made of working in a post-Christian context. Research made public today indicates trust levels in a context that is far down this road. There is much to be learned from this study in Moscow that is relevant to work there, in other European urban centers, and in other contexts where the influence of the church is waning. While I will be posting more on this in the near future, I will share this graphic indicating trust levels of religious groups. The report is available on the resources page of this site or for direct download.

Feel free to add your thoughts, feedback, and analysis to the research here in this post. I look forward to a healthy discussion that has practical ramifications.

Key principle #7

good
The industrial revolution changed our world forever. Factories produced more product out the back end of the assembly line than several individual shops had been able to manufacture collectively. This changed so much. Levels of income were impacted, work hours, education for a white collar group of people, urban shift began, etc. Industrialization also changed the church. Caring for the needy (among other things) became a process that mirrored the assembly line schematics. Roles were given and systems put in place to facilitate the church’s ability to meet the needs of the poor. And it was good.

Through collection of tithes and offerings, some of the budget is allocated to caring for the poor. With funds collected, some staff or lay people go with huge hearts to buy food to stock a food closet for the poor. When hungry families come to get food, they have a form to fill in, a meeting with a pastor to hear the gospel, and a bag of food. Then, their names are recorded to start the clock for them to be able to return for food in 1, 3, or 6 months time. Through this good, there is a way for the hungry to be fed and an opportunity for one or a select few to be about sharing the gospel.

Great
It seems that so much less could be so much more at this point. Jesus speaks to His disciples about a day when He will separate the sheep on His right and the goats on His left. The distinction between the two that He gives in Matthew 25 is that some fed the hungry and clothed the naked while others did not. He speaks of a personal accounting here, not of the churched and the unchurched. The expectation is clear. It is a daily outworking of the Lordship of Christ that causes a person to see with His eyes of compassion. The ramifications are enormous. It is the difference between being blessed or cursed by God.

If instead of the needy waiting in an office to meet with someone to learn about God to then have their physical need met, what would it look like if a family seeking to follow Christ showed up with a hot meal at the home of the needy? Instead of a meal delivered it could be a meal served up personally or a meal shared. While obeying Christ’s command to feed the hungry, the disciple is also obeying the command to make disciples. What if the homeless was invited to dine in a restaurant with a disciple-maker and a disciple or two. Then after dinner, more food is given to the needy. And the family or group of disciples that began to bless continued the relationship and blessed further and helped and served. Further help may come about in the areas of helping the needy find work, manage finances, care for children, and in the process learn about the One who sends others to bless. In the realm of great discipleship, the church is released into the community to serve and bless others and carry the hope of Christ into families that desperately need it.

a little on money
Serving the poor in this way does not mean that church funds do not need to go to serving the poor anymore. There still will be issues far beyond what a family or two or three can meet. This could be assisted through funds from a larger church budget. The discipleship process could start with a stock of food that the pastoral staff gives to the disciples going to bless and form relationship and a time for them to pray together for wisdom and multiplication of the resources. However, when a family gets involved, things are different–especially when children participate. It has been my experience that the children will want to give some of their own food and money to meet the needs of those that they are serving. Discipleship is inevitable at this point. It is great…it cannot be easily stopped.

(In the excerpts from my non-book, Great to Good (G2g), truth or satire may be employed. At times, the two may even meet.)

Feel free to share your thoughts. There must be a good reason for the way things are or perhaps there are stories out there that are not well known.

Key principle #6

good
A disciple communicates the hope he or she has in Christ to those who are without. In the realm of good discipleship, efforts to share the gospel often center around big events that attract the community to a church or group-hosted event. These events, designed for creating an opportunity to make a gospel presentation, take many forms. These include, but are not limited to: concerts, carnivals, circuses, living nativities, block parties, etc. These good events serve as spots in time that allow for a precision sharing of the plan of salvation. Ongoing opportunities to share the love of Christ and live transformed lives may happen in subsequent big events.

Great
The writers of the gospels did not record any big-event evangelism in the gospels. While there were some gatherings of large crowds, these were not used as opportunities to share the 3 key steps to accepting Christ or the 4 spiritual laws. Instead, Jesus shared about his audience’s incorrect understanding of the law as well as the practical ramifications of a life placed in His trust during the Sermon on the Mount. Other key events included the trial of Jesus. He was silent. A third big event was His crucifixion. His words were few.

In the realm of great discipleship, we see Jesus interacting personally with a Samaritan woman at a well; in the cover of night with Nicodemus; meeting often with his disciples; visiting at someone else’s home along with his disciples or in the midst of a social gathering; and being a visitor at another’s home during a time of grief. In many of these cases, these were the beginning or continuation of an ongoing relationship.

Go BIG or go home
In what is usually referred to as the Great Commission, Matthew 28:19-20 is Christ’s charge to His followers. Translated usually as “Go…make disciples,” I wonder if this promotes a big event, big production mentality. A command that often is viewed as being of primary importance–Go! What does it look like if we follow a closer translation? If we seek to “As [we] go, make disciples.” It is a process that is lived throughout the duration of our lives. It is daily. Constant. Ongoing. It is relationships. And context. Perhaps instead of “go big or go home,” our thinking should mirror the Energizer bunny. We are to “keep going, and going, and going….”

(In the excerpts from my non-book, Great to Good (G2g), truth or satire may be employed. At times, the two may even meet.)

“The more important your job, the more humble you must be.”

“Don’t take early losses seriously.”

“Don’t focus on attendance. Focus on attendance and discipleship.”

“You have got to get over the prima donna complex….For the anointing of God, you must build your life on integrity, humility, and generosity.”

“You don’t have to be perfect to have integrity, but you do have to be authentic.”

“What matters is do you love people.”

“We actually grow best and we grow fastest through models.”

“The lesson of the whale…. When you get to the top and you are ready to blow, that’s when they harpoon you.”

Thank you Rick!

1. “We have to assume now that all mission is cross-cultural.”  ~ Alan H
2. “It’s not that the church has a mission, but the mission has a church.”  ~ Alan Hirsch
3. (Speaking about planting churches,) “I’m not even sure what we are trying to do the world wants.”  ~ Shawn Lovejoy
4. “If you do church to reach church, then you’ll reach somebody else’s Christians.”  ~ Hugh Halter
5. “The [Christian story] is a peasant’s movement.”  ~ Hugh Halter
6. “…community has to be the witness now.”  ~ Hugh Halter
7. “You cannot sell a Christendom approach to a post-Christian world. They are anti-Christian.”  ~ Alan Hirsch
8. “Go among the people. Don’t assume you know what church looks like.”  ~ Alan Hirsch
9. “You plant the gospel. You don’t plant churches.”  ~ Alan Hirsch

• According to a 2007 edition of the New York Times, “Nonwhites now make up a majority in almost one-third of the most populous counties in the country and in nearly one in 10 of all 3,100 countries” (Another Man’s Sombrero).
• DHS estimates that the illegal immigrant population grew by 27% between 2000 and 2009 (HS: Estimates of the Unauthorized Immigrant Population: January 2009).
• Estimates of permanent expatriates residing in the U.S. legally allow for half of those to have achieved their legal status since 2000 (HS: Estimates of the Legal Permanent Resident Population in 2008).

While a significant percentage of the foreign residents are from Mexico, the reality is that the spectrum of nations are here. Personally, I see them in all my travels in various cities and states. They are patrons at Starbucks coffee and Cici’s pizza.

The significant growth of foreign residents in the U.S. are one significant reason that the U.S. church must begin to “think and act like a missionary.” The implications are mutliple. One major issue the church must address is the issue of how will we choose to pursue or avoid relationship with select ethnic groups that have not assimilated into a more homogenous U.S. culture.

Today is the day for Mrs. Smith’s burial. Family and friends are mourning and will continue to do so. Life is forever changed for the family and it will continue to be hard for some time.

This serves as a reminder for me and my family about the brevity of life. May we embrace everyday all of the blessings the Lord grants us.

Upon learning of  Mrs. Smith’s passing, we prayed as a family for the Smith family that are having to deal with the tragic loss. My youngest prayed, “Lord, I pray you have a wonderful time with Mrs. Smith.” I am sure that He is doing so with her now with Him in heaven. May we daily do the same with the loved ones around us here on the earth.

good
One great bonus to being a follower of Christ is that transformation occurs. This is true not only in a person’s life, but also in a community. Missionaries share that when an entire village comes to Christ that the village is visibly transformed in terms of sanitation, meeting each others needs, etc. To take this reality and limit discipleship to the realm of good, then it will be important to ensure that discipleship happens in communities and with peoples that have already been transformed. Doing this will put disciples of Christ in situations where they can interact with those that are followers of Christ or followers of a moral code that mimics some of the changes of a transformed life. As a result, disciples pursuing good are safer and able to avoid some difficult, uncomfortable, or morally challenging situations.

Hermetic environments can include doing all discipleship inside the church, in homes of upper-middle class believers, inside conference settings, in cultural contexts that are familiar, etc. Additionally, for further good, extensive opportunities to disciple or be discipled in a safe context, believers can consider massing as residents in select neighborhoods. These could, once again, be in higher income areas or even gated communities. Also, this congregating of disciples can occur in a select country or countries.

Great
Jesus walked. He moved. He got dust on His feet. The same dust that stuck to His feet also stuck to the disciples’ feet. Making a strong point, Jesus washed the dust off the disciples’ feet. He walked on the streets in the cities and into the homes of sinners and tax collectors. He walked through other towns that were not places that were normal for a Jew to walk. Places that may not have been safe. Walking with His Father and walking with others, he did not pursue safety. Interacting with the sick, morally depraved, and diseased, He was Truth and Love to a people that had not encountered Him before.

At the end of John’s gospel, we read of a setting when Jesus meets with His disciples while there appear to have been fish flopping on the ground. What an environment for teaching. This was a call to Peter and to the disciples to make a decision if they wanted to pursue a life of fishing for fish or for men. Either course would involve some real settings with real people. One pursuit would matter forever, while the other would matter for a few hours. After this, they understood that this was not a call to either equality or comfort. But it was a great call–the only worthwhile thing they could pursue.

both / and
I find that evangelicals have historically been very in favor of a Jesus who saves. But He said, “I came to seek and to save that which was lost.”  His life is emblematic of seeking the lost. He was also about saving the lost that He encountered. This is a both/and construct that He is passionate about. In the Great Commission recorded in Matthew He really calls us to “make disciples” “as we go.” According to his instruction and example, the going is a large part of the discipleship process. As a result, the environment in which discipleship occurs is constantly changing.

(In the excerpts from my non-book, Great to Good (G2g), truth or satire may be employed. At times, the two may even meet.)

Key principle #4 for moving discipleship from great to good: Plan a comprehensive, ever-expanding syllabus approach to making disciples.

good
A good discipleship program consists of the things a person needs to learn or know to be more Christ-like. The curriculum generally is sufficient for a number of months, a year, or more. Through detailed planning, leadership will equip followers to have the requisite knowledge for whatever may come their way. Once the prescribed curriculum is studied and possibly even mastered, it will be time to move on to the most recent iteration of curriculum and syllabus.

Graduation is possible and will happen in the realm of good when the need for another discipler becomes more urgent than the need for the individual to be discipled. At times this will mean that a dynamic disciple is developing other disciples. At other times someone who has experienced little transformation and possesses little passion will be responsible for helping others grow in the image of Christ. This is not cause for significant concern, however, as the prescribed curriculum is good and sufficient to offset the deficiencies of a non-transformed disciple-maker.

Great
In the pursuit of great discipleship, Jesus was about showing the Father to the disciples and training them to obey. He prayed with and for his disciples in John 17: “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world….they have obeyed your word.” How did he get to this point of maturity with his disciples? He lived life with them. When his mom told him to go and take care of the shortage of wine problem, he obeyed (Jn 2). And he transformed water into the best wine in the ceremonial pots. He could have arranged to conduct a series of lessons with the disciples on: obeying the 10 commandments including command #5; the deity and humanity of the Messiah; and the role of religion in the community. He did, however, teach on these things. Actually he lived in such a way that these were addressed effectively. It was great–a great life, and great lessons.

With the Discipler removed, graduation was a bit of a necessity. But these followers knew the Savior who had consistently pointed them to the Father. They had the core curriculum mastered. Jesus prayed, “Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.” They did not have all of the information learned. But they knew where it came from. They had been promised the Holy Spirit that would continue to teach and convict them. It was time. Time for the Discipler to continue a life of submissive obedience that consistently impacted the lives of others. It was time for the disciples to start their journey at a new level of faith resulting in new expressions of obedience–resulting in new disciples. It was time for great discipleship to continue and impact more lives.

Less and More
It has often intrigued me that for collegiate studies a topic is taught for 16 weeks or for some 45 to 48 hours. Whether the topic is anthropology, astrophysics, computer science, or speech class it takes 16 weeks or 45 hours to cover. It seems to me that some courses may possibly do better with 2 weeks of instruction and others at 22 weeks. Systems dictate that what can be learned through a university program will take 16 weeks even if it is 11 weeks of content. This brings order to the system and a clearly defined point for graduation. This is good enough for many things in life.

(In the excerpts from my non-book, Great to Good (G2g), truth or satire may be employed. At times, the two may even meet.)