In this blog post, Sr. Minister Terry Rush discusses the way discipleship creates a win-win scenario for the church. Although he’s talking from the perspective of a large church, it’s important to remember that every large church started out as a small church.
Some church practices guide small churches to become large churches, other practices limit growth and even drive members away. That’s one reason I believe it is worthwhile to listen to good advice from the leaders of large churches: they point the way.
There is a tendency in small churches to focus most or all of the work of the church in the person of the pastor. However, just as in business, when church work is done by one person there is a limit to how large the church can grow – there are only so many hours in a day, and only so many tasks any one person can complete.
But when a business – or a church – adds help, the number of tasks that can be accomplished in a day multiplies exponentially. That’s the simple principle behind the Rev. Rush’s exploration of the win-win discipleship scenario:
“Discipling is the win-win action of the church’s operating system. When we do the work (whatever it is) by ourselves, we short-sheet God’s intended design of efficient functionality. When we become disciplined enough to train others to train others to train others, we have the true church operation…”
The issue of making disciples – not merely members – may be crucial to your church’s survival. Pastor and sociologist Bill Easum expects 75% of mainline churches will close by mid-century, and the evidence indicates that many clergy are as much at a loss to understand what has gone wrong as are laity. But there are signs pointing the way, and one of them is reforming what it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ.
Jesus emphasized the making of disciples. In the Great Commission (Luke 26), it is one of the commandments given to his own disciples: as disciples of mine, go out and make disciples in all nations in the world.
Becoming a disciple used to mean submitting to a Spirit-led personal discipline that produced a transformation in how a person lived. That’s why Paul described becoming a Christian as dying to the old self in order to be raised to new life in Jesus. Yet, most contemporary mainline Protestant (and mainline Catholic) Christians do not become new people. They don’t even read the Bible, attend Bible study classes or regularly pray. As a result, it is no longer the case that a Christian can be distinguished from a pagan by how she or he behaves.
Mainline churches have substituted membership for discipleship. And they are losing members. Yet there is clear evidence that churches that expect more from their members are churches that grow. People yearn for spiritual disciplines; people yearn to be disciples of Christ. We are hungry for personal renewal and a tangible reason to hope that our tomorrow may be better than our today. That “tangible reason to hope” is found in a disciplined – a discipleship – lifestyle that reflects the Spirit and Word of Jesus Christ.
Michael W. Foss, senior pastor at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Atlanta, Georgia, has tackled this issue in his book, Power Surge: 6 Marks of Discipleship for a Changing Church. He writes,
Christian leaders are looking for new, dynamic, and effective ways of being the church, ways that are faithful to the call of God and that will energize them and their ministries. Pastors and lay leaders are longing for a spiritual spark to ignite the passions of God’s people once again. This deep longing on the part of Christian leaders is accompanied by a growing sense of urgency, a growing sense that the time may be running out on American Protestantism.
The world has changed faster than the church, and now it is time for the church to catch up and learn to speak and act in ways that the world can understand. The Christian message remains as true and relevant today as it has ever been. The gospel of Jesus Christ still answers to the deep hopes and fears, the realities and dreams of men, women, and children in each and every walk of life. In a pick-and-choose, mix-and-match spiritual marketplace, staggering in its diversity and complexity, Christian faith, Christian spirituality is not reducible to just one among many religious commodities. Christian faith is not an accessory to life. Rather it is a coherent way of life, a way of being in the world. It is the task of the church to teach and support this way of life, this life of the spirit, for the sake of individuals and communities.
Teaching and practicing that distinctively Christian way of life (the early church referred to it simply as The Way), is what it means to make and be disciples. It is dying to your old self in order to “put on Jesus Christ.”
Church leaders who would like insight and guidance on helping congregations become more discipleship-centered will find Foss’ book, From Members to Disciples: Leadership Lessons from the Book of Acts, a valuable resource and encouragement.
