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Membership to Discipleship: Growing Mature Disciples Who Make Disciples PDF

136 Pages·2016·1.79 MB·English
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Membership to Discipleship: Growing Maturing Disciples Who Make Disciples of Jesus Christ Copyright © 2015 by Dr. Phil Maynard No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other – except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the author. All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All right reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc. Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9899223-2-6 Printed in USA This book is dedicated to My daughter Amanda Who also served as my proof-reader extraordinaire My son Joshua And My Grandchildren: Logan Angel Noah Adam Liam For whom I pray that the Church Will be the kind of place Where they discover the abundant life Of being a growing, maturing Disciple of Jesus Christ Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Clarity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 From Membership to Discipleship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Being Part of the Body of Christ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Becoming More Like Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Joining Jesus in Ministry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Holy Expectations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Beginning with the End in Mind . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Questions for Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Movements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Discipleship as a Journey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Phases, Dimensions, Characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 The Searching Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 The Exploring Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 The Beginning Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 The Growing Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 The Maturing Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Help Understanding the Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Help Developing a Personal Relationship with Jesus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 Leaders Who Model and Reinforce Spiritual Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 The Challenge to Grow and Take Next Steps . . . . . . . 61 Encouragement to Take Personal Responsibility . . . . 63 The Real Discipleship Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Questions for Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Ministry as a Contact Sport . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 An Intentional Discipleship Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 Discipleship Models from Current Church Culture . . . 72 The Importance of Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Hierarchical Small Group Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Faith Guides/Mentors/Hospitality Angels . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Paul-Timothy Relationships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76 Triads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Egalitarian Small Group Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 First, a Word on Christian Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 Connect Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79 The 3-B Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Wesley Fellowship Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 Covenant Discipleship Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 Discipling Partnerships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Mentors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Discipleship Coaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Spiritual Direction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90 Questions for Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Equipping for Transformation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 A New Role for Christian Ed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 In the Searching Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 In the Exploring Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 In the Beginning Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 In the Growing Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 In the Maturing Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 The Link Between Relationships and Learning . . . . . . . . 114 Moving from the Random to the Purposeful . . . . . . . . . . 117 Questions for Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120 Putting the Pieces Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Journey of Grace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 Biblical Models of Discipleship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Jesus’ Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123 Paul’s Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 The Early Church’s Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 The Early Methodists’ Model for Discipleship . . . . . . . . . 127 Visualizing the Flow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 Questions for Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 Introduction It is impossible to pick up any article about the future of the church or click on any church leadership blog on the web without reading dire observations about the decline in congregational participation in the past 20 years. The winds of change are blowing strongly, and the culture is shifting so rapidly that it’s difficult to even keep up—writing illustrations for books like this one run a serious risk of passing from relevance before they even get published. Technology intimidates the members of committees established to rethink the trajectories of local congregations, and the erratic and intense swerves of pop culture can give these committee folk a severe case of whiplash. It’s not hard to feel sympathetic for the disoriented leaders of our local congregations. They are sincere. They love Jesus. They love their churches. They don’t want to see their buildings shuttered and the members of their church family scattered to the winds. Many of them have been engaged in meaningful ministry on behalf of God’s kingdom for decades. They still believe they have something to offer that is desperately needed by this world and its woes. If they can figure out what to do, they are willing to do it. Discipleship matters. From the first days of regular people answering Jesus’ call to “follow me,” there has been a clear difference between those who listened eagerly to his voice and then moved on to the next thing and those who took the message to heart and devoted their lives to following the Master with passion so that the world might be changed. The church from time to time loses sight of what it means to serve as an incubator for those who would follow Jesus with “all their heart and soul and might.” As with any highly structured bureaucracy, the church sometimes finds itself mired in a swamp of good intentions, fossilized structures, and misplaced priorities. The way back to authentic discipleship, surprisingly, may not lie with the latest bells, whistles, or interactive video. The best path forward may be a return to some of the foundational practices of the church’s history. It is less about reinventing the wheel and more about remembering where we came from and how to exercise muscles we let atrophy as we got a little too comfortable in the La-Z-Boy of church life as we’ve known it. I hope this book asks questions that get you and your leadership team to I hope this book asks questions that get you and your leadership team to rediscover your passion for discipleship ministry. The chapters are designed to be a practical guide, to give you nuts-and-bolts answers to how you can give your congregation the tools it needs to move toward a deeper and richer experience of what it means to follow Christ together. Discipleship doesn’t happen by accident. But when it happens, churches, communities, and the world are changed. It has been a blessing to hear the stories of congregations that have been putting these principles to work. The ideas and observations in this book have been the product of countless workshops and training sessions in which I have explored this pathway with church leaders and disciples at all stages of growth, and the results have been gratifying. I look forward to hearing about the way God works through this process with your congregation. I hope you share your story with us, too. May your efforts be blessed and your work bear fruit, Dr. Phil Maynard July 2015 chapter one Clarity What do we really hope for as people become maturing disciples of Jesus Christ? “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” —Proverbs 29:18 (KJV) “Begin with the end in mind.” —Stephen Covey From Membership to Discipleship As I travel around the country, every gathering of church leaders I visit is wrestling with the same challenge. The form may differ, the buzz words may change, but the expectation is clear. We need to make a shift from making members to making disciples. There are a variety of reasons for needing to make this shift. First and foremost is the faithful witness of the church. According to research by George Barna, nearly half of Americans claim to be “born again,” but only about 13% reflect behaviors and attitudes that are different from the world around them. 1 Consider the following graphic depicting the research of Barna: 2 Can we at least agree that there should be a difference between the way Christians and non-believers engage their world? There’s a great video clip on YouTube of Francis Chan speaking at a Verge

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