Don't miss our Leadership Day coming up soon! We will be hearing stories of discipleship focussed churches and learning core principles from experienced teachers. It will also be an awesome time to get to know each other and share about how we see God leading us. We’d really like you to join us.
Friday 24 Feb 6:30pm - 9:00pm & Sat Feb 25 8:30am — 2:30pm.
- Cost: No charge, we really would like you join us!
- We’ll be meeting at Diamond Valley Baptist Church
- RSVP to our church office by 24 Feb 2023
Office: 0409 667 008 or office@dvbc.net
Here are some thoughts about what might be helpful in developing a discipleship culture in our church communities. What would you add to the list – or cross out:
1. Release the minister leader to equip the people: If a minister is so busy running the church and its programmes and providing urgent care for the many who are dependent on the minister, then the wonderful but time consuming work of making disciples will never ever happen sustainably. The dependence cycle becomes self-fulfilling. On the other hand, create a sustainable discipleship culture, and you wouldn’t need a minister to look after the congregation!
2. Apprentices not students: Gather small groups of people who can learn in community. It’s about modelling, and mentoring; having a go and coaching, building skills and habits more than listening to lectures. Says Alan Hirsch again: “We are all familiar with the gospel stories where Jesus selects a band of disciples, lives his life with them, ministers with them, and mentors them. This approach to the formation of followers was common in the Israel of Jesus’ day. Most rabbis would initiate and develop their schools of thought through similar means. It was this life-on- life phenomenon that facilitated the transfer of information and ideas into concrete historical situations...”
3. Teach people to feed themselves: Let’s teach people to really re-enter the Bible story, not just to dip into the bible for a juicy verse here and there. Let’s model how not to use it as a handbook for successful living, loaded with good hints! Re-enter the narratives together! Ask what the stories might have meant to the original hearers – what sort of God was engaging them? As you do this, slowly, allowing time to mull over together – what does the same Spirit reveal to us? How are we compelled to respond? We become pilgrims on the same journey as they! Listening and obeying and sharing what happened. There are awesome stories of Christians inviting non-church people to read the bible with them regularly, and considering together: “If this passage were true – what would I do differently this week?”
4. Connect discipleship closely to witness: Discipleship and witness need to be two sides of one coin. How can we help our people to make genuine friendships? What skills and encouragement might be needed to initiate conversations that travel from the surface to the heart? To start a conversation with a friend or stranger with a heart attitude of: “Holy Spirit, may Jesus in me, bless this person” will take conversations and relationships to a place where the salt and the light of the good news will impact lives beyond our imagination.
5. Local context: What if we helped our people to view their neighbourhood in exactly the same way as an overseas missionary views their village or tribe – and to ask: “What does God really want me to do and be in the midst of this place?” It may be something way outside of the textbook! Let’s consider whether we still need all the programs we’ve run as a matter of course. Instead let’s consider what we can see God doing in our broader community. Who do we really know well? What local activities, clubs or networks are we a part of? Our outreach events often depend on people coming to our set programmes – rather than us living amongst them and their social settings. What if, instead of us assuming we need to develop our own (for example) craft group or youth group or housing program or basketball team – as disciples of Jesus we joined the neighbourhood’s groups as salt and light? Let’s create the space for our church people to authentically connect with the people that God has already put on our doorstep!
I wonder what you think?
What would you add or subtract from the list?
