How to begin to make disciples?

Dallas Willard has famously said that, since making disciples is the main task of the church, every church ought to be able to answer two questions:

What is our plan for making disciples of Jesus? and is our plan working?
 
For the past 18 months we have been using the vehicle of a "huddle" to help us in the process of making disciples, here at HBC we call these IPOD's (Intentional Places of Discipleship.) This past week we started some new IPOD evening here are some thoughts I have about the practice of making disciples and training leaders. It’s not that I have it all figured out, of course, and I am basically just doing things I’ve learned from Mike Breen, Paul Maconachie Ben Sternke and others. I know I still have an immense amount to learn, but in the past couple of years several things have settled into place for me.
 
If you want to know what is a huddle read http://mikebreen.wordpress.com/2012/03/19/the-difference-between-huddles-and-small-groups-and-why-many-people-use-both/

Jesus’ main command to his followers before he ascended to heaven was to make disciples. One of the common misconceptions of discipleship is that it means "knowing more about the Bible" or "attending church services more often." While these may be good things, they don’t get to the essence of what it means to be a disciple. The word for "disciple" in the New Testament literally means "learner," and refers to someone who doesn’t just learn what their teacher knows, but becomes the kind of person their teacher is. Jesus told his own disciples, "Anyone who believes in me will do the things that I have been doing…" A disciple of Jesus, then, is a person who is learning to be like Jesus and learning to do what Jesus could do

When we hear this, though, another misconception often rears its ugly head: the assumption that the end goal of discipleship is something akin to "becoming a nicer person" or "living morally." In other words, we assume that becoming like Jesus merely means character transformation. Now, I don’t want to diminish in any way our need to put on the character of Christ. Doing so is absolutely foundational to discipleship. However, Jesus himself seemed to equip his disciples not just with his character, but with his competencies. We notice in the Gospels that Jesus wasn’t a bumbling idiot. He knew what he was doing. For example, he was an astonishingly effective communicator, a magnificent leader. He had a phenomenal ability to see what people needed and offer it to them, whether it was forgiveness, rebuke, healing, or simply some time with him.

Jesus isn’t just holy, he is intelligent and capable. Jesus isn’t just "good," he is "good at." Jesus isn’t just nice, he’s brilliant. These things are part of the "curriculum" of discipleship. So we could say that disciples are learning to both be like Jesus (character) and do like Jesus (competency). This matrix  is a helpful way to think about this.

If we equip people in their character and ignore their need for growth in areas of skill, we end up with "good people" who aren’t very good at leading others, and thus we limit our potential for kingdom breakthrough. Discipleship means being equipped in both the character and competency of Jesus. This means we deal with idolatry and sin and integrity, but we also deal with leadership training, communication skills, healing the sick and casting our demons. It’s all important because we want to bear "much fruit," as Jesus wants us to.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

Towards a dicipleship culture at HBC...

One of the last times I wrote here was over a year ago and it was about the beginnings of our journey with 3dmuk as we started the 2 year Learning Community with them and Fresh Streams. The aim of the journey is to discover how we might better make disciples who make disciples who make disciples!!!

18 months on since that particular blog it is now my intention to get back into the habit of blogging to reflect on how this journey is going - primarily it's for my benefit but others reading I hope might find it interesting and helpful?!?

So yesterday we had our first organised community gathering of the pilot Missional Community that Sue and I will be leading for the next 6 months. We've called in i61 as this reflects the vision of the MC. We have invited approx. 32 adults and 16 children to become our extended family - a family on mission... We had a really good few hours together lots of food, conversations, laughter and fun.

This is what we said as we talked about what we are seeking to do with thanks to Mike Breen and Ben Sternke for helping us shape our thoughts....

The role and purpose of a Missional Community and how it relates to the Sunday Morning Gathering

You see both expressions of this dynamic in the earliest forms of church that we see in the pages of the book of Acts. “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts” (Acts 2:46). The word translated “home” is the Greek word oikos. The rhythm is a regular expression (every day) of temple and oikos.

Throughout the book of Acts you see this DNA playing out, sometimes leaning more towards temple (the more organized and structured aspects of being the Body of Christ), other times leaning more towards oikos (the more organic and spontaneous aspects of being the Body of Christ). When persecution breaks out, for example, the church leans heavily on oikos, since gathering publicly would have been unwise. In Ephesus, Paul sees a need at a certain point to lean into temple, renting the Hall of Tyrannus for daily public training discussions.

You see the embracing of this both/and dynamic in Acts 20:20, where Paul is saying goodbye to the Ephesian elders on the beach of Miletus. He sums up his ministry among them by saying that he has taught them ”publicly and from house to house.”

While we all have preferences and leanings toward one or the other, it seems to me that we need to embrace both temple and oikos if we’re going to see the kinds of things we see happening in the book of Acts.

I heard Paul Maconochie say once that if all we have is temple we tend to get fat (not burning off enough calories on mission), while if all we have is oikos we tend to get faint (too much energy expenditure with not enough nourishment). But if we can embrace both temple and oikos, we become fit (being nourished properly for the task of mission).

The early church gathered in what the New Testament calls oikos, which means household. But an oikos wouldn’t’t only include one’s immediate family. It also included extended family, business relationships, slaves, and friends. The oikos was the major social structure of Rome, and the early Christians did a brilliant job of using it as the major social structure for the church. The relational pathways of oikos were the primary ways that new people came to faith in Jesus.

You can see this pattern in many of the New Testament letters. In Romans 16, Paul seems to be greeting numerous oikos communities that met throughout the city.

 So here are 6 simple, but very accessible principles for creating an oikos:

1. Shared vision (What do we exist for? In other words, in what way is this community going to bring heaven to earth?)
2. Shared resources
3. Extended family (= more than a nuclear family, we’d say a minimum of 15, max of 30 people)
4. Mum/Dad (leaders in “spiritually fathering and mothering” mode)
5. Prayer
6. Common meal

One of the things God has been speaking to us a lot about lately is the need to create these extended families that really are experiencing radical community together. I think these principles are an excellent lens to use and give people when evaluating/creating the pilot missional community.

So of we go on the next phase of this exciting discovery on how to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples....