A Church must continually evaluate where it has come from, what places it has gone off track, and where it currently stands in regards to Jesus central call to “Go and make disciples.”  I take that as Jesus’ mission statement to the Church quite literally.  The Book of Acts shows us the earliest picture of how the Church lived out that call.  For the past month, on Wednesday nights we’ve looked at Acts 2:37-47 as a model of a three stage process of disciplemaking.  It certainly doesn’t fill in all the blanks methodologically, but it helps piece together a workable model for what we are to be moving people through.

It shows us Three Major Next Steps beginning with the non-believer.  Peter preached his famous sermon on the day of Pentecost, and in the response to the sermon we find the first step in Disciple Making.  The lost being saved.  In response to the preaching of the Gospel the hearers asked a question I love, “What shall we do now?”  Peter answered first Repent.  I take this statement as one where repentance entails belief in the message and the decision to build ones life around it.  So the Church must evangelize to see the lost saved. 

The second step, then, is taking the newly saved, and seeing them go through the waters of Baptism.  We don’t recognize this as a salvific event, but a public profession and demonstration of the inner change that’s taken place in the new believer.  You want a concrete next step?  It couldn’t be any clearer than “Repent and be baptized.”  And so 3,000 on that day trusted in Jesus and followed His command to be baptized.  

The third step is integration of the newly baptized into active involvement in a local church.  This is often where the breakdown occurs.  But here in verses 42-47 we see these new believers’ rock solid commitment to the local church in Jerusalem.  What were they committed to?  The Word of God (apostles’ doctrine), and True Christian Fellowship.  Further clarifying fellowship, Luke outlines that this involved mutual meals, mutual prayers, and mutual care for one another.  They became partners, formed around the Gospel, who regularly experienced the fellowship of the local Church.

As I evaluate our church, I must ask the question, is our church organized to take people through the stages of discipleship, and further, are we in fact doing so.  They say that the system you design, is designed to achieve precisely the results that you get.  If our system were designed to take people through these stages, then we need a new system, or at the least a return to an older system.  What I’ve noticed is an unhealthy balance between teaching times and times of other kinds of fellowship involving mutual care and prayer.  We design our official service times to be primarily teaching/preaching points, which is great, if there are other times to accomplish those other things.  We have Sunday School, Sunday Morning Worship, Sunday Evening Worship, and Wednesay Evening Bible Study.  Ample time for sitting under the Word.

The great problem is this hasn’t led to a fruitful, full fellowship in our church.  In fact there’s breakdown from the first stage all the way to the third.  Few ever are saved, few ever follow into the waters, and few take the next step to join with our church.  The challenge for us is to examine the system to figure out where the train went off track, and make the necessary adjustments to get back on track again, so that we are known as a Church that makes disciples.  There may be resistance, but it may just be urgent enough to make the effort worth it.  We shall see how the response is.  We leave this in the capable hands of God.

Superstition still runs rampant in the modern world.  I’m always fascinated by what happens when tribal religion meets Christianity, then becomes isolated from further discipleship.  For instance, a pacific island tribe meets Christian missionaries.  The tribe hears the Gospel, responds by faith, and become Christians (I don’t mean forced imperial “conversions” or anything related).  Then the missionaries move on without grounding the leaders through training, discipleship, how to understand and apply the Bible, etc.  What happens?  Syncretism.  Syncretism is the blending together of two different belief systems so that they become one, newer system (in this case it’s religious blending 

though it could be anything really).  So there’s a little bit of tribal magic, shamanism (witch doctor), ancestor, spirit type worship, blended in with a profound ignorance of what the Bible MEANS, not just what it says.  The result is a tribal “Christianity” that looks very little like the Biblical version.  Don’t get me wrong; This is NOT about culture.  What Christianity looks like culturally differs from Seattle to Wellford to Pac Rim Island Tribes.  I’m talking about the essence of what they believe.  The point of this post is not so much Island tribes, but syncretism that takes place in the middle of the Bible Belt in the southern USA.  I met and counseled a man who was heavily involved in witch craft, Satanism (theistic Satanism as opposed to naturalistic – meaning he believed there was a real person called Satan), and the occult in general.  He has since left those practices but is regularly haunted by the images from his past.  And rather than a true understanding of repentance and forgiveness in Jesus Christ which washes all of those sins clean, he essentially practiced “magic Christianity.”  You know the kind where crosses are hung all around the house to keep the demons away, holy water is sprinkled everywhere, and rituals that are supposed to be Christian to purge the home from the demonic influence.  This is the stuff of movies.  It’s the stuff you see in other places.  It’s not the stuff of Bible Belt South Carolina, right?  I believe you’d be surprised.  I never met an occultist, or former occultist before this year, and within the past 11 months I’ve met two.  What happens to them when they get out of that lifestyle depends greatly on the understanding about Biblical Christianity from those who teach them.  If they are not rightly taught then many times what emerges is a syncretistic, superstitious, black cats and ladders, salt over the shoulder, crosses on the walls and holy water on the furniture type “magic Christianity.”  You’d be very surprised how prevalent this is.  Yet another reason the church is called to make disciples of Jesus and not converts to a new religion.

I haven’t posted in about a 5 or 6 days now and the reason is that much has happened in between then and now. Our church has lost 2 faithful and priceless men in exactly a weeks time. Both left the tent of their earthly bodies and went to be with Christ. They’re waiting even now for the resurrection. Both happened suddenly and surprisingly although neither was totally unexpected. As I left the hospital about 3 am Monday morning I had the thought in my head that a church is just a generation away from extinction (or something like that). As we lose those pillars of our local church we lose a wealth of experience, wisdom, and faithfulness. But if we open our eyes we’ll find that we’ve not lost it, but now have an opportunity to use it. The way to honor the memory of the faithful ones who’ve gone before us is to move forward ourselves. To reach out and exert our energy in reproducing a younger generation of disciples to carry the work forward. It’s always been this way. When one moves on, another can step in and carry the torch.

I examined myself and our church to see if we were doing everything we could to make disciples in the generations below those great older members. The question, “Are we multi-generationally friendly” if that makes sense, is an important and difficult question. How do we move on without forgetting what happened before us? How do we honor those still among us while evolving our methods to reach the next generations? That’s an age old question that I’d love to know the answer to.

All I know is that in one week we saw 2 ends and 3 beginnings. While we mourn the loss of the 2 dear men whom everyone loved, we had an opportunity to see the spiritual journey of 3 young believers get a kick start on Sunday night as they passed through the waters of baptism. It was a joy to see them follow Christ in obedience to His command. Now the real work begins. The work of taking new converts to Jesus and showing them how their spiritual conversion looks in their everyday life. That’s really discipleship. Showing and teaching people to look more like the master each day in all the thousands of regular things we do.

I will miss these 2 men that went on before me. I knew both only about 9 months, but they left a mark. Will the generation that follows have the chance to leave a similar mark? To care about the work of the ministry going on at Little Mountain enough to sacrifice to take part in it? I despair sometimes because I know I can’t make that happen. Yet at the same time, God faithfully lets me know it was never my joy to “make” anything happen. He’ll be faithful to take care of that. I’m responsible to faithfully do what I can do. Pray for our church. Pray that God would raise up a mighty army of faithful men and women to transform and change not only ourselves but our community and world.

Every Wednesday night we have an adult topical Bible Study called “A Deeper Look.” The subject is most often a deeper look at a branch of one of my Sunday messages or my attempt at answering a question that’s been submitted to me by a church member. I will try to post a brief synopsis online each Wednesday night that goes along with the message. Tonight:

• From John 21:15-22 (primarily dealing with 20-22)
• Peter questions what will happen to John and Jesus tells him basically not to worry about what happens to John, but instead to follow Him.
• We have a tendency to compare our lives to others. To measure our lives by other people’s standards.
• The only standard that matters is God’s.
• The only measure that matters is God’s.
• We’re called to be faithful and obedient to what God has gifted us for, not what He’s gifted someone else for.
• SO, be faithful and obedient with what you got, where you’re at!