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Archive for Discipleship

Did Jesus Feed 5000 Lepers and Prostitutes?

By Daren · Comments (0)
Tuesday, July 4th, 2017

I just listened to a podcast where a comedian who is a de-churched Christian (i.e.: no longer attends a church but still considers himself a Christian) shared parts of his spiritual journey and unpacked his current thinking about faith and spirituality.

He’s got colorful language, does a lot of things that wouldn’t be acceptable in most Christian circles and yet still engages in ministry where he serves and shares the Gospel.

An interesting bird.

He said something I’ve heard many times before: Jesus didn’t hang out with the respectable people but with the prostitutes, drunks, etc. This guy took it a step further and stated that he didn’t think Jesus would have anything to do with white middle class Christians today.

Really? Read More→

Comments (0)
Categories : Discipleship
Tags : holiness, pride

Discipleship Subtraction

By Daren · Comments (0)
Friday, June 9th, 2017

What do we need to subtract in order to develop a disciple-making culture?

If we’re busy (and we are!) and disciples aren’t being made (and they often aren’t!) if we are to get to that place of “glorifying God by making disciples” we can’t just add something- there’s no room, no margin.

We need to subtract something before we add anything else.
And subtracting is hard. Far harder than adding sth.

Think of the difference between a Swiss army knife and a filleting knife. The Swiss army knife can do a lot of things, but none of them very well. The filleting knife has one simple purpose for which it is exceedingly well designed.

A church with a strong disciple-making culture looks more like the filleting knife than the Swiss army knife. Read More→

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Categories : Discipleship
Tags : making disciples

What is Your Church Optimized For?

By Daren · Comments (0)
Wednesday, June 7th, 2017

Here’s the principle: Whatever an organization or organism is actually producing, that’s what it’s optimized for. 

Some options:

  • We can optimize for the delivery of religious products and programs
  • We can optimize to minimize the complaints of stakeholders
  • We can optimize for the job security and financial well-being of the lead pastor (concealed as concern for the financial well-being of the church)
  • We can optimize for coolness, for acceptability in the larger culture, or for status in the church world

At least those are some of the options I have considered and perhaps even temporarily embraced in my leadership.

What is the church you are a part of optimized for?

If we are optimized for something other than making disciples, and if disciples aren’t being made, we’re likely facing a situation where things don’t just need to be “tweaked” a little…

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Categories : Discipleship

The Hard Part of Making Disciples

By Daren · Comments (0)
Wednesday, June 7th, 2017

What’s the hard part of making disciples?

Another way to ask the question is, what’s the bottleneck, or the primary constraint?

What is the one thing that if we figured out how to do it our effectiveness in disciple-making would skyrocket?

Every major endeavour has a hard part, a bottleneck.

The hard part of writing a book is getting the first draft done.

In online marketing the hard part is getting someone to spend their first penny.

What about disciple-making? Read More→

Comments (0)
Categories : Discipleship
Tags : making disciples

Disciple-Making vs Discipleship vs Spiritual Formation

By Daren · Comments (0)
Monday, May 22nd, 2017

What’s the difference between disciple-making and discipleship?
What’s the difference between discipleship and spiritual formation?
Etc…

This could easily devolve into a semantic argument, but let me explain where I’m coming from.

I believe the purpose of the Church is to make disciples. Individual followers of Jesus are likewise called to be and make disciples.

And, this is a key observation, there is an end point at which this has happened, i.e. a point at which a disciple has been made.

“After they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples…” Acts 14.21 (NASB)

Discipleship, the way it is commonly used, carries the sense of an open-ended process. It’s used in parallel to the ideas of spiritual formation, spiritual growth, becoming mature in Christ. It’s applied to a myriad of programs and ministries that may or may not actually make disciples.

So what? Read More→

Comments (0)
Categories : Discipleship
Tags : making disciples
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