Changing churches and changing lives

The gospel changes churches and changes lives. We all need to be growing toward maturity. Training is necessary from before we are trusting in Jesus to afterwards as we grow to become disciple-makers. This training is to help us become vine-workers.

Since each person is at a different stage of growth, the training is best when it is specific. General training is useful for us all, but it is not sufficient. Sunday sermons may be great, but we need more than that, and tailored to who and where we are. If we expect the pastor to do all the training, we will limit growth of people and churches. We need disciple-makers trained so that they can help produce other disciple-makers. Thus the vine will be cared for and grow.

This training is not only for the benefit of the local church, but of God’s worldwide church. Our expectations should be that some of our best will move to other areas to help plant new churches, whether in places where the gospel is freely available, or where it is difficult to find. Some of the trained disciple-makers may move on to further training to enhance their future ministries.

Several approaches are considered in chapter 8, such as “Pastor as clergyman”, “Pastor as CEO”, and “Pastor as trainer”. In this third one, “Where the pastor is a trainer, there will be a focus on people ministering to people, rather than on structures, programs, and events.” …..“Pastoral care, in this approach, is also founded on disciples being trained to care for and disciple other Christians. Small groups may be utilized as one convenient structure in which this may happen, but the structure itself will not make it happen.” [bolding is mine] …..”It’s very possible for a great deal of the personal encouragement and discipling work in a congregation to be done one to one, without any involvement in structured small groups.” (pp. 100-101).

I believe we need to re-think our plans for the small groups we have at St Stephen’s, and develop a new mind-set so that we are training disciple-makers rather than majoring on fellowship.

Am I normal?

"According to Paul, gospel partnership is the normal Christian life. It means to stand together united in the gospel, determined to live as citizens of heaven in the midst of our corrupt generation, longing and striving to see the gospel be defended and proclaimed, and bravely copping the conflict, struggle and persecution that inevitably follow." [66]

May God give ALL of us the courage to live the 'normal' Christian life, come what may. And may we not leave our pastors and 'keen-beans' to hang out to dry!

How can we encourage one another to resist the temptation to 'spectate' and instead to together 'leave it all out on the field'.

Partners and training

The church at Philippi had a strong partnership with Paul. We read in Acts 16 how the church began. They continued on in partnership with Paul, even though in the early days Paul and Silas had to leave the city. Paul writes to them as partners, and there was personal communication, with people such as Epaphroditus travelling between the church and Paul.

Marshall states on page 66: “The gospel itself demands that we stand with our leaders and preachers in profound unity, teamwork and solidarity – not because of their personalities or gifts, but because of our common partnership in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There aren’t two classes of Christians – the partners and the spectators. We’re all in it together.”

What would we do if our pastor Chris was arrested and thrown into prison for preaching the gospel? Would we disown him – well, we didn’t really know him that well, and we did think he was a little extreme? Or would we support him? Visit him, help him in every way we could, and keep on preaching that same gospel to show our support?

How do we do this in real life? What do we do if we don’t agree about everything? Prayer is significant. Following God’s Word is critical. Discussion in closed meetings such as the Session is also important. Then, what if we still don’t agree in private? Should we keep that disagreement private? Or should we separate, such as Paul and Barnabas did over John Mark? (Acts 15:36-41).

Chapter 6 covers training and how it is far more than planned lessons, although these can be very important so that we know what has been covered. Training is relational, so that information is caught as well as taught. “Copy me”, says Paul, “as I follow Christ”. In 2 Tim 2:2, Paul tells Timothy to pass on what he has learned to faithful people, who in turn will teach others. The Greek word here (often translated as “men”) is “anthropo” (meaning mankind – men and women), and not “andro” (meaning males). [From my Greek-English New Testament, 1975].

“Paul urged his congregations to join him in suffering for the mission of Christ, to seek the salvation of others by forgoing their own rights. His ambition to save others was to be their ambition too.” (p. 74). We, in the Western world, rarely hear anything about suffering for the sake of Christ. How come we are missing out? Does it matter? If we were “real” about our faith, would that bring on suffering for us?

This chapter ends with the goals of teaching being conviction, character, and competency. These will be enlarged in subsequent chapters.

Ch 3

We often wonder what God is doing in the world as our society appears to become more and more godless. Psalm 80 asks the same sort of question and asks for God's mercy. Then in 1 Peter 1 we see that the answer to these Old Testament longings are found in the sufferings and glories of Christ. We also learn the news of Christ's sufferings and glories come to us by the Holy Spirit working through human evangelists. So God's current priority is Spirit-backed preaching of the gospel leading to people being saved. When we look at the growth of the early church in Acts, this is exactly what we see. So we should make God's priority our priority, put our focus on people rather than structures and more specifically spend time speaking God's word to others so the Spirit can apply it to people's hearts.

Ch4

While most Christians would agree with the need speak God's word and pray for his Spirit's activity in people's lives, not all would agree about who should be responsible for doing it. In Acts 2 and 4 we see that all the disciples were involved in speaking the word of God with boldness, not just the leaders. The priority of everyone speaking God's word comes through in Ephesians 4-6, Colossians 3, Romans 15-16, Heb 3, 10 and especially 1Corinthians where the speaking gifts are to be valued above the other gifts, so everyone can be built up. But what about speaking to non-Christians? 1Peter 3:13-16 tells us we should all be ready to give a reason for our hope. In 1Thessalonians 1:5-10 the gospel had come to them through human words along with power and conviction and they had become imitators of Paul so that the word of God went out from them throughout the region. Then in 1Corinthians 10:31-11:1 Paul calls on them to structure their whole lives to bring God glory, minimise offence to others and try to please everyone not for their own advantage but so that many may be saved. 1 Cor 8 and 9 shows similar priorities. Mt 5:13-16, Col 4:2-6, Tit 2:1-10, 1Pet 2:9-12, 3:1-2,15 all show the priority of bringing the gospel to the world for ordinary Christians. So we should all be creatively looking for ways to speak God's word at home, in our congregations and to our community around us. The chapter finishes with lots of helpful examples of the sorts of things we can be doing.

ONE in - ALL in!

Vine work = Prayerful Proclamation of the gospel that People may be saved and changed into disciple-making disciples.

Vine-workers = EVERY Christian.

'To be a disciple is to be a disciple-maker'. [43]

Why?

Its through prayer, proclamation and people that God is building his church and growing his kingdom. This is something every Christian is called to participate in.

Like the first rule of the footy field brawl: It’s ONE in - ALL in!

What is it, I wonder, that stops me prayerfully proclaiming?

Sometimes it’s simply my laziness or selfishness or desire for comfort...

Other times though, I suspect it’s my wrong assumption that proclamation (be it for edification or even more often for evangelism) must always be ‘all’ or ‘nothing’ - and so, not surprisingly, I choose nothing. But of course there is a whole lot of ‘something’ in between ‘all’ and ‘nothing’ - including the things mentioned by Marshall on pages 54-56 and a whole lot more besides.

Culture teaches us emperical measurement but God counts differently

Cultural teaches us to measure empirically. In a market driven environment personal satisfaction, esteem and identity is produced, then measured, via the net utility of 'what you do'. Market logic demands that people be commodities of their work, so that their 'exchange value' is measured by what goods, services, ideas, and relationships they create and produce. We then bring these culturally reinforced ideas of the measure of worth to our Christian lives/ministry/church. We rush to measure with the wrong ruler; hence our frustration and questioning 'What is God doing?' Importantly, I think, the bible does not assess work's adequacy via productivity, rather, faithfulness to the task entrusted to them (Matt. 24:45; cf 25:21, 23). We (I) need to transform the mind set and begin to think with a gospel paradigm (Rom. 12:1ff) The trouble is vine stuff is difficult to measure and remains a little unseen; where as the Trellis stuff is visible and noticeable. We (I) will need like minded people around me to remain focused on the main game.

Every Christian a vine-worker?

 The apostle Paul writes, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” (I Cor 15:58 – TNIV).

Chapter 3 is on “What in the world is God doing?” and chapter 4 “Is every Christian a vine-worker?” All the Bible points to Jesus Christ. The prophets knew that He was coming, and through His suffering we would be blessed (1 Pet 1:10-11). Jesus declares that He is the vine, and we are the branches. If we remain in Him we will bear much fruit (John 15:1-11). What does this mean for me? Sharing the Gospel, God’s Good News, is to be a significant part of each church. The growth we are looking for is in the life of each believer. This comes through the power of God’s Holy Spirit.

The early disciples were all speaking the word of God to those around them (eg. Acts 4:29-31). When persecution arose, with the stoning of Stephen, “all, except the apostles, were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria (Acts 8:1). We too easily leave the work of tending the vine (witnessing to non-believers, and caring for new disciples) to the paid staff (minister, pastor, youth worker, etc.). Yet we read in Ephesians 4:11-12 “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up”. This sounds to me like the paid people are there to help train and equip us to do the work of tending and helping grow the vine (of course the Holy Spirit does this work, using us).

Colin Marshall says on page 52, “The Christian without a missionary heart is an anomaly.” Now “anomalous” means abnormal. So, where have we gone wrong? How can we encourage each person in the church to be involved? Marshall further defines this as “in prayers for the lost, in making sure our behaviour offends no-one, in gospel conversations with friends” and other areas. This “can happen at home, at work, over the back fence, at church, in small groups, in coffee shops – anywhere. But that it happens is vital, because this is the ‘work of the Lord’; this is the Great Commission in action: this is the vine work that all Christians can and should be engaged in.” (p.56).

As the paid, and other workers, help train us, we are equipped and released to do the vine work. Yes, trellis work is important too, but usually that gets done. It seems to be the vine work that is lacking.