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.

One of the most unmanageable parts of being a pastor is being able to separate “work” from “home.”  I wonder what it might be like to work a job where when it’s time to go home, I do not think about my job until I go back again the next day.  Where my conversations at home do not revolve around what is happening at work.  Where the most intimate conversation my wife and I have is not about a new idea for ministry, a nagging problem with ministry, or anything that relates to ministry.

I have not found it easy to to turn it off.  I do not know how to get my mind to stop thinking about it.  There are short reprieves from day to day.  Little periods of time where something else takes over my thoughts for a bit.  Then something intrudes again into my thoughts, and I immediately feel the weight of it come upon me.  And it IS a weight, abeit not a bad one.

The only tip that has given me any ability at all to keep from letting ministry consume me is the knowledge that God can do this without me.  In the big scheme of things I am not really necessary for the ongoing survival of the church!  God has that covered.  It is that day to day revelation that keeps me sane.  The fate of the church I pastor is not me.  When I remember that, I allow myself the down time to think of other things, but make no mistake I have to force myself to remember it.

I would be interested in knowing how other pastors deal with this most likely universal issue.  What do they do to attempt to just let it go from time to time?  If you are in the ministry what do you do?  What advice would you give a young pastor?  Even if you are a young pastor what advice have you been given?  Has it worked?  I suppose if you’re going to work yourself to an early grave there are much worse occupations to do so in.

The Internet Monk has a very honest piece up about ministry and the temptation to quit here. One of the comments makes mention of how we need to surround ministers with encouragement.  That would certainly take the edge off of some of the criticism.  I’ve seen personal friends in despair during ministry and I don’t know if they even wanted encouragement to push on.  Instead they desired permission to give up.  I tend to agree with IMonk that some should not push on but move on and vice versa that sometimes that is the sinful thing to do.  I was encouraged last week by the famous pastor W.A. Criswell that a change of scenery is most definitely NOT the clear solution to a pastor’s desire to move on.  Patience may or may not pay off, but we’ll certainly never know if we walk away when the opposition gets tough.  When do ministers shake the dust off their boots and when do they dig in for the long haul?  I do not know the answer to the question.

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!

This past Sunday was an exciting Sunday for our church for many reasons. I don’t know about you but I don’t buy the line that “Numbers don’t matter.” Numbers mean everything. At LMB Church our goal is not letting one slip through the cracks. That’s a lofty goal, but numbers have everything to do with that. Each person that sets foot in our building is a person made in the image of God and confronted with the Gospel message. Well, we had 93 in Sunday School, a relatively large number for us, and that was missing many regulars. That means there were well over a hundred in the service. So a good 135 or more people had a chance to hear Jesus preached. Guess what happened that afternoon? 3 of our youth received Christ at a youth rally. That means we’ll have 3 or 4 people under the age of 17 pass through the waters of baptism.. Do those numbers matter? Not if you’re simply gauging statistics. But when it represents the salvation of 3 or 4 people remade in Jesus’ image it matters the world. The number of those who don’t come matter more. Don’t be sucked into the “hyper-spiritual” “numbers don’t matter” people.

There’s something special about a deacon ordination service in a small rural church. Everyone is so close, and it’s so much a family affair. You see men in tears and their wives as well as I get an opportunity to challenge someone from the Word to serve Jesus. We ordained a very special man today, and even though he’s somewhere in his 60’s, this is the first time he’s ever served as a deacon anywhere. I was honored to be a part of it. I hope that he will always remember this day, and I’m fairly sure I will.