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.

Ch1 - The vine and the trellis is a useful metaphor for seeing how maintaining structures and institutions can take our focus off Biblical priorities of growing a church full of maturing Christians. It is not that maintaining buildings and having committee meetings to organise programs and events is wrong. They are necessary activities up to a point. But what are they for? A big solid trellis may look impressive but its not alive and without a flourishing vine it has no point to it. Chapter 1 makes clear that in the Great Commission Jesus' has charged us all with disciple making as a central priority. This means both making new disciples and nurturing them. Personally I think that even with these two tasks there is a danger of concentrating on the nurturing, so we become inward looking and ignore the making of new disciples. This is especially so in our current secular society where so many seem antagonistic to the gospel. However I think that it is only by keeping the disciple making at the forefront that the other bits fall into place and the church is kept from stagnation, institutionalism and secularisation. Also, as the book points out, we need to be careful not to tie ourselves to traditions (a very Presbyterian temptation) or to trendsetting fads which constantly come and go.

Ch2. This chapter sets out basic ideas on the type of thinking which can help to grow people who are disciple-making disciples of Christ.

- Change the focus on programs to growing Christian maturity and getting people to make the most of their gifts and opportunities.

- Instead of using up large amounts of time with organising events and programs, which few outsiders will come to, we should focus on training people to be effective gospel communicators. Events and programs will then flow in various and chaotic ways out of this.

- Rather than burn people out in our focus on maintaining programs we should prioritise helping people to grow in their knowledge and love for Christ. Then their ministry will grow and flourish naturally.

- Rather than looking at who can fill a gap to keep a program running we should look at what ministry could this member of the congregation exercise? This can open up new ministries and is also valuable in finding potential candidates for ministry.

- Change the focus from dealing with people's problems to moving people forward in holy living and knowledge of God.

- Develop a team leadership approach which allows more people to develop their gifts such as preaching, teaching, evangelism and church planting. It also frees up time for the ordained minister/s to build up the team.

- As people are trained, be less concerned about defining their official position in the church political hierarchy and more concerned about encouraging people to be active vine-growers working in ministry partnerships.

- Encourage local church training as well as college and institutional training. Both can be integrated at times by using distance education.

- Keep the focus on long term expansion not on the immediate pressures of running programs.

- Minimise the minister's administrative workload (eg. in committees, property management, program organising and church business) so he has more time to train and teach.

- Be happy to be exporters of trained people, not hoarders. Our view of gospel work should be global, not just local.

Ouch

As I read these first two chapters I realised (again) that I am more involved in working on the trellis than on the vine (p8). I appreciate the vine work being done here in St Stephen's, and I do want to be more involved.

Vine work can be scary because it involves working with people who may not appreciate what you are doing. Yet it is the work of each person who says they are a disciple of Jesus Christ. Therefore, there is a job for everyone in the church, without the need for extra committees and teams.

We have a lot of relearning to do. Or, as is explained in Chapter 2, to experience a ministry mind-shift.  ".. most churches need to make a conscious shift - away from erecting and maintaining structures, and towards growing people who are disciple-making disciples of Christ." (p17)

May God help me, and us, in this.

In times passed

'Elders and leaders should be vine-growers themselves'p24

This was cause for me to reflect on my history as an elder at my home congregation. It seems to me that we (I) filled our (my) time with a lot of business. At times some of our meetings in reality looked more like BOM meetings rather than the shepherds of the flock meeting to grow the vine.

In my first 2 years here in Melb I have really changed my perspective of what 'ministry' looks like.

Reflecting on my past experience it seems retraining with a new mind set is required within our sessions. Should all the elders be reading this book together?

Welcome

This is the first post to Stephen's book club.

By way of introduction, we are a group from St Stephen's Presbyterian Church in Surrey Hills, Victoria. We want to encourage each other in reading helpful books, and will use this blog to share our comments on what we have read. Other people may also comment on this book, or even on our comments, if they wish.

Our aim is to read two or three chapters each week and then comment on these. In some weeks people may be exceptionally busy, and we understand that. However, we do want to encourage each other with setting goals which we think are achievable.

Noel, one of the blog owners.