2010 – Disciples who make Disciples – Part 4

Concept #5 – Ministry Assignments and Challenges (Jeff's titles, so don't shoot the messenger)
EVERYBODY IS A MINISTER!
EVERYBODY IS A MISSIONARY!
Moms are missionaries. Teens are missionaries. Business people are missionaries.
Dads are ministers. 4th graders are ministers. Volunteers are ministers. All of these people are both. The Bridge is a training ground. We will make sure that you are grounded in Bible to handle your calling as both. And, training will be provided in the classroom. BUT, the best training will happen in the field.

Concept 6 – Intentional
Every disciple of Christ should be being developed into the elder requirements listed in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1. This requires being INTENTIONAL! Since this is the earthly purpose of discipleship, leaders for new missional cells should constantly be being developed. The new groups that form could stay with the same mission or discover a new one.

Concept 7 – Ongoing
Don't stop! Stay with it! God will change people's hearts to make this happen if they just hang around long enough for the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to move. This perseverance that we are responsible for will reveal the reality of Christ in lives. People who have just added Jesus on to their list of priorities instead of making Him and the Gospel their prime affection will play games and not persevere. Whereas, people who are being transformed with true life change will persevere until they get their personal & familia mission figured out. WE MUST PERSERVERE AND FIND A CLEARLY IDENTIFIED MISSION.

Concept 8 – Holistic
Going on mission for Christ will transform all areas of life: Physical – less stress, more exercise (we will have energy from purpose and from God); Emotional – fruit controls emotions; Psychological – thoughts are Gospel-centered, thoughts are in tune with God – HEALTHY; Spiritual – DUH! These all come from our intimacy with Christ while on mission.

This whole thing boils down to discipleship, the becoming more like Christ that I hope that we all seek, comes in a flurry when we make His mission OUR mission!!

2010 – Disciples who make Disciples – Part 3

Concept #4 – Discipling on Mission – Is there another way?

When I first got in ministry as a discipleship director of a mainline church, I was suspicious of overseas mission trips. I thought they were play toys for folks who wanted to “say” that they had worked with the “least of these,” but really did not have the inner fortitude (guts) to be a real missionary for the cause of Christ (the people who have been the real heroes of the Christian faith since the Apostle Paul). But, for some reason before I ever went on one, I put in a membership requirement at The Bridge that each member would would agree to go on a trip that he/she can afford and physically be able to perform. After having seen teams of Christ-followers GO TOGETHER on the junkets. I understand why God wanted this requirement in the package. I don't want to discount the work that teams do to help on projects around the world, but what we have seen is evidence as to what the Bible tries to teach. WHEN WE GO ON MISSION TOGETHER – DISCIPLESHIP SKYROCKETS. If our command from God is to make disciples who make disciples, we must go on mission together. Through the power of Holy Spirit, our Christlikeness, that develops by loving each well and eagerly studying and applying the Scriptures, explodes when that loving community goes on mission together. That mission field can be a neighborhood that a host home resides in, or an elementary school where a bunch of their kids go, or a day care center, or a drug treatment center with GAP, or world poverty awareness, or a local para-church organization like the Parkland Pregnancy Resource Center, or the homeless or women's shelters in Bonne Terre or many other options. We will start simple and slow, but anyone who thinks he/she is interested in discipleship, but not interested in mission, is fooling themselves. There is only so close that a person can get to Christ and become more like Him (fruit, gifts, power) without accepting His missional command. He said, “GO! And He said, “GO TOGETHER!” He said go and I will give you power. The general teaching is, “if you will make My mission your mission, I will make you like Me.” We are going to challenge every cell family to form around mission, and let's just see what God does with our discipleship.

This will not be easy! We must leave our comfort for the sake of the mission!

2010 – Disciples who make Disciples – Part 2

Concept 3 – Familial Context
I see God teach this at five levels:

1.Immediate Family –
Men, your wives are your first treasure after Christ. I am in the middle of some major repentance here. Wives, your husband is your first treasure after Christ, not your children. Then, your #1 job together is to disciple these gifts (these children) that God has given. I am working on this one also. Teach them to make disciples; teach them Godliness. All other is secondary, including important things like education. WATCH OUT – sports, fine arts, and organizations (Boys Scouts, dance, etc.) can be positive venues to work on disciple-making and Godliness, but they quickly can become idols that replace Christ as our affection.

2.Missional Cell Family –
Going on mission together requires what I call teamwork discipleship (once a coach, always …). As we engage our culture together, the one anothers (how we treat each other, love each other, minister to each other) will produce FRUIT. Ask the people who have been to Chacocente, on mission together, what it did for their discipleship to work as a team.

3.The Rest of The Bridge –
Each of us must be on constant vigil to reach out and help members outside our cells. We must not only pay attention to our own families and missional cells. If we hear of a need and we can fill it, GO take care of it. Example: an individual is moving and nobody in their cell has a truck or young strong backs, another cell has a truck and still another has the bodies – we must change our schedules and make this happen – God promises to respond with blessings. ALSO, every member of The Bridge is responsible for getting folks connected who show up at our celebrations and start hanging around. We all need to get to know names of new folks, find out some things about them, and make suggestion of connection points. We can make suggest a missional cell family either in their community or one that is based on something that might interest them. Or, we can just invite them to Starting Point, or one of our many classes that will introduce them to the idea of community (Alpha, CA, SOG, Crown are all set in small groups of community).

4.The overall Body of Christ –
We are in a very large family called the Body of Christ. We want to partner with other churches locally and world-wide to deliver the Gospel to a dying world. WE MUST VIEW THIS RELATIONSHIP AS FAMILY. As we partner with other churches, our goal is not to enhance The Bridge, it is to extend this family. This is a real challenge because most churches view others as the crazy uncle (they do things so weird over there) or as the competing brother (we have to WIN). Do you remember hating to lose to siblings? These thoughts must go away from the church – capital 'C.' WE ARE FAMILY whether we like it or not!!

5.Familia with the unchurched, the lost, the unregenerate –
This one is tough because the Bible has multiple commands about how familiar to be with the WORLD. Our war with sin means that there has to be some separation from the world. If we have people in our lives that pull us toward our sin cravings, we cannot hang around them, let alone make them family. There may have to be some contact because some of these folks may be in some of the other groups. But the lost cannot be people of INFLUENCE in our lives. On the other hand, we are encouraging everyone to have relationships with people who live far from God. Jesus did. We want you to hang out in coffee shops, malls, Facebook, etc – where people who don't know God hang out. We want you (God does too) to invite folks to hang out at all four of our other family environments. Invite them to your house to be with your family, to your cell to eat & hang out with that family, to The Bridge for special events (concerts, conferences, Night in Bethlehem) and Sunday morning worship celebrations. We also have a lot of community church familia-wide events like BBQ's, bowling, or trips that your unchurched friends and family can join.
Just to conclude, we will all find out very soon that MISSIONAL CELL is ALL ABOUT opening up your familia to folks who live far from God.

2010 – Disciples who make Disciples – Part 1

Discipleship is all about the Holy Spirit transforming us as we experience 'life on life.' God, with us doing our parts, doesn't make disciples in nice tidy environments. It is messy and it is in community. Teaching and worship happen in the BWCK (Big White Chocolate Kiss, our building), comfortable and safe; on the other hand, discipleship – growth in the qualities and nature of Christ – happens mainly 'life on life.' IT happens DOING LIFE TOGETHER.
I am going to spend the few days writing responses to eight different concepts about discipleship developed by Jeff Vanderstelt of Soma (Greek word for body), a collection of missional communities that is very Biblical in its development of disciples. We will all be experiencing a lot of SOMA training over the next year, so here we go on a ride of Biblical fun, adventure, and chiseling (thank you Brian & Ronnie for the unbelievable Christmas Eve skit).

Concept 1 – Faithfulness
“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to RELIABLE men who will also be qualified to teach others.” 2 Timothy 2:2 (NIV)
Watch your life. Put sin to death. Develop people who want to watch God move powerfully in your life – who want to and are willing to do whatever it takes to help you be faithful. This includes both rebuke and encouragement. This will develop both of you. One person is great; a life coach, a mentor, a partner is necessary. A family is also necessary. Until you have decided that your faith in God is the most important thing in your life – FAITHFULNESS – making disciples who make disciples will not happen through you.

Concept 2 – Community Context
The 'one anothers' (Click Here to see them all) must be lived out in authentic community. This cannot be done to any effective degree in hundreds of people. These must happen in our immediate families or the Bible calls us the worst of sinners. But also, we with intention must build missional cell families. This community context will build disciples most effectively. What we cannot do with hundreds, we will do with a few faithful to the King and dedicated to one another. This the THE THING at The Bridge.

Tomorrow, we will only look at Concept #3 – the Familia.