Discipleship Archives - Page 126 of 167

One big issue with church today is where, when, and how we meet. So as we think about reinventing church, there are several questions that need to be asked.

What if the meeting times, places, and format were different?

What if the best time for a church to meet is not on Sunday morning?

What if the best place to meet is not in a building?

What if the best format is not song, announcements, songs, prayer, sermon?

What if believers realized that church has nothing to do with the building on the corner?

What if we didn’t have the financial black hole of a building?

What if when we had “service” we actually did some service?

What if our only “service” of the week was service? (Meet. Eat. Teach. Serve.)

Ministries
What if we started ministries based on what spiritual gifts were present in the church, not based on what the church down the street was doing?

What if we didn’t feel like we had to offer all things to all people?

What if we had fewer ministries, and did not expect people to be involved or present in all of them?

Church Planting
What if our goal for church planting wasn’t to plant churches, but to make disciples?

What if our goal wasn’t to get a crowd together, but to change the world, to turn the world upside down?

What if our way of “doing church” was so simple, basic, memorable, easy, reproducible, that anybody could do it, no matter how long they have been a Christian, or how much they know, or how much training they don’t have?

What if… (Part 2)

By Jeremy Myers

3 Comments

Reinventing church requires looking at all that we are and all that we do and asking ourselves, “Is this biblical? Is this the best way of accomplishing what the church is supposed to be and do? Is there a better way?” One key area that such questions need to be asked is in the area of Outreach and Evangelism. (You’ll see by the way I’ve worded some of the questions below that I feel very strongly about this issue.)

What if Outreach, Evangelism and Missions were different?

What if the pastor was not seen as the one who does the evangelism through his sermon?

What if evangelism wasn’t often defined simply as “inviting someone to church for a special event or to hear a special speaker”?

What if the people in church viewed themselves first and foremost as missionaries? How could pastors help them develop this paradigm shift?

What if we viewed supporting missionaries as more important than building a new building or upgrading our existing one?

What is “mission” anyway? Who are “the missionaries”?

What if all our people knew how to share the message of eternal life?

What if there was more to evangelism than simply sharing the message of eternal life (or the four spiritual laws, the Romans Road, or whatever)?

What if we don’t have “evangelism events” but instead trained people to simply love others?

What if we didn’t have “revivals” but instead focused on 1-to-1 discipleship?

What if we stopped praying for revivals and the “evangelization of the lost” and actually went across the street and served somebody?

What if we stopped trying to plan and program our own “serve the community” events, and just joined in the events which the community was already doing? (For ideas, go look at the bulletin board in the Town Hall or the Supermarket. Call the Courthouse, the Fire Department, or the Police. Contact your mayor for a list of events.)

What if evangelism took place in people’s homes as we invite them over to our houses, and us to theirs?

What if we showed as much grace toward believers and unbelievers as God shows toward us?

What if evangelism was just as much about right living as it is about right believing?

Would more people want to become followers of Jesus if we lived life with more joy, laughter, love, patience, kindness, and gentleness?

What if we didn’t care about people using profanity in our presence, or if they smelled of alcohol and cigarettes?

What if, rather than trying to impress our views upon other people, we tried to learn about their views instead, and asked them what they believed?

What if, rather than trying to get people to act like us, talk like us, look like us as soon as they “get saved” we let the Holy Spirit work in them at their (and His) own pace?

What if we stopped saying “Praise God” and “God Bless You” at the end of every sentence?

What if we stopped telling people “I’ll pray for you” and tried to help them instead?

What if, instead of practicing “apologetic evangelism” where we are always trying to defend the faith against the heresies of the heathen, we loved people and served people?

What if we let people get involved in church who weren’t sure yet what they believed about Jesus or God?

What if evangelism and discipleship were the same thing?

What if we didn’t focus so much on evangelism, but on discipleship?

What if the gospel was more than just a set of doctrines, but an all-encompassing claim on life?

What if nearly everything in life could be redeemed for discipleship?

What if we stopped using Christian music, Christian movies, Christian literature and started watching and reading the same things that our neighbors and coworkers are?

What if, instead of starting Christian Coffee Houses, Christian Work-Out Centers, and Christian Bridge Clubs, we started just going to these places that were already in our community and meeting the people who go there?

What if we stopped “having church” in our Christian buildings, and instead went down to the local beach, or the local restaurant, or the local bar?

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Feel free to provide your own questions in the comment section below.

What if… (Part 1)

By Jeremy Myers

8 Comments

Following the theme of my last post, I want to take several posts and simply raise questions. You don’t reinvent the wheel by setting out to reinvent the wheel. The first step is to simply raise questions about the current model, and dream about what could be. In the next few posts, I will share some of the questions I have been asking myself.

Since in years past, I saw “preaching” as the central function of the church, I will begin by questioning it. Please understand that my questions are NOT statements of what should be, but simply “What if?” questions…what would happen if…?

What if Preaching and Teaching were Different?

What if we didn’t preach…at all? This is near heresy for some of us (it was for me a few years ago), but really, what would happen? I imagine at first, all those people who are used to showing up on Sunday to hear a 45 minute sermon would sit around staring at each other, asking, “What are we supposed to do now?” Exactly. If we didn’t spend 30-45 minutes on a Sunday with the sermon, what would we do instead? On a related note, what if we stopped telling people how important it is for them to read the Bible daily? It wasn’t until about 500 years ago that people even had the option, and even then, it wasn’t until about 100 years ago that there was widespread literacy. I’m not suggesting we jettison preaching and Bible reading from our churches. The opposite in fact. But I wonder what would happen in our churches if we fasted from gorging ourselves on Scripture for a while?

What if, when we did preach, instead of trying to be funny and cute in three easy-to-remember points, we simply taught the Word of God? What if we didn’t mask what we were doing by changing a book series into a topical series (calling Preaching through Psalms, “How to Praise God.”), or trying to be more “relevant” by speaking to people’s needs, or mask that we preaching a text by giving lots of illustrations, stories, and images? What if we just said, “Today we going to study Ephesians 1:1-10.” What if, in doing so, we taught as long as it took to adequately explain the text, whether 10 minutes or two hours? Would this be a wise use of time? Would this be an effective way to teach Scripture? Who would it be for? All people or just some? Who gets to decide what “adequately explain the text” means?

What if we didn’t apologize for biblical terminology, but used it and explained it? Are simpler translations of Scripture actually better? Or do they tend to dumb us down?

What if the preaching/teaching was more dialogue/interactive than monologue? Would this depend on group size?

What if we used movies and art and music to teach from, and bridges with culture to direct us to Scripture? What if instead of condemning movies and art and music, we looked for ways to redeem them?

What if the teaching and preaching was not done only by those with seminary degrees and formal education? Who else would do it?

What if we stopped trying to make sure a person was “orthodox” (by our standards) before we let them teach? If the argument is that we need to protect our churches from false teaching, just look at our churches. Can we honestly say that preaching and teaching only by the “seminar-trained and ordained” has kept false teaching at bay? Would allowing “untrained lay persons” the opportunity to teach really introduce heresy (by our definition) or would it open up more streams for dialogue? Would doing this be too dangerous in some settings? Would it make a difference if the teaching setting was set up as a dialogue instead of a monologue?

What if, after every time we opened the Bible to read and study it, we wouldn’t move on until we had asked “What is this passage telling us to do, and how can we as a church do it?” What if we didn’t move on to the next passage until, as a community, we obeyed the first passage? Week 1: Teach. Week 2: Obey. What if obedience and service were built in to the teaching aspect of the church?

What if, as we taught, we added humility to everything we said? Everything. What if, rather than say, “This is the way it is” we said, “This is my current understanding”? Do people really learn better from teachers who are certain of their beliefs, or do all the conflicting certainties from various teachers just confuse them further?

What if we refused to draw lines of orthodoxy about which people were in and which people were out?

What if in our teaching, we refused to judge a group of people unless/until we actually were friends with some people from that group? Would this keep us from judging them? Is that wise?

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Feel free to offer suggestions to the questions above, or to ask a few questions of your own below.

What Goes Around…is Better

By Jeremy Myers

4 Comments

When it comes to church, I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard people tell me, “Don’t reinvent the wheel.”

I imagine back in cave-man history when they had square wheels, a certain caveman— we’ll call him Firestone—noticed that square wheels didn’t roll too well, and so started asking some “What if” questions. His first was probably, “Square wheels are easy to make, but those corners sure cause problems. What if we rounded them off?”

Probably the other cavemen came around and, through a series of grunts and club beatings, told Firestone, “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” He especially got grief from the wheel cutters, because they had been making wheels like this since their great, great grandfathers developed opposable thumbs. “Besides,” the stone cutters said, “if we have to round off the corners, it will take us a lot more time to make wheels. Right now, we can cut two square wheels a day. If we have to round off the corners, we can only make one wheel a day.”

For a while, Firestone was a little discouraged. But then one day, he came across a wheel cutter named Michelin who shared similar ideas. They sat for long hours into the night, talking about round wheels, and that even if it took longer to cut round wheels, it would save everybody a lot of time, because now the wheels could actually be used. “Why doesn’t everybody see this?” they wondered.

So one day, they stopped talking about it, and actually made a round wheel. At first, people made fun of them. Firestone and Michelin were scoffed at and ridiculed. “A round wheel,” they were told, “doesn’t look right on a square cart.” But then people noticed that the carts were actually moving and transporting things, and so the criticism shifted. “All that rolling,” they were told, “will cause the wheel to crack. Square wheels are better because they don’t roll, and so don’t crack.”

But Firestone and Michelin just kept making round wheels. After a while, they even had a few disagreements with each other on how to make the best wheel, and so agreed to go their separate ways. At first, the naysayers cheered, and said things like, “I won’t say ‘I told you so'” even though “I told you so” was exactly what they were saying. However, wheel production actually increased. Instead of one group making round wheels, there were now two. And the competition caused both cutters to continually refine and redesign their wheels.

Today, both Firestone and Michelin continue to “reinvent” the wheel, adding treading that sloughs off rain, traction that handles curves better, and studs for driving on ice and snow. A day may come when they will reinvent the wheel again, so that all of us can do life faster, smoother, and more efficiently. Maybe, eventually, they will get rid of wheels altogether, and we will ride on air.

I want to reinvent church. Why? A lot of it has become square and isn’t going anywhere. People come week after week, and work, and serve, and sweat, and teach, and give, and pray, and the church doesn’t go anywhere. There’s lots of lights and big, white-toothed smiles, warm handshakes, and media glitz, but the people aren’t going anywhere.

Don’t reinvent the wheel? Sorry. It needs to be reinvented.

Is Christianity True? (Part 4)

By Jeremy Myers

27 Comments

In this last post, I want to reveal the primary reason I believe “Christianity” is true. And remember, I’m not alking about the religion of Christianity, but the aspect of my life where I believe in Jesus for eternal life, and try to follow His leading and His example.

It seems that most studies in comparative religion look at all the various options, find the scores upon scores of similarities between the religions, and conclude that “they are basically all the same.” To me, that’s like taking an orange, an apple, and a mango and saying, “They all basically round, they’re all fruits, they can all be eaten, they all grow on trees,… so they are all the same.” Yet as everybody knows, these three fruits are certainly not all the same. You distinguish them not by focusing on the similaraties, but by focusing on the differences.

When it comes to “Christianity” and all other religions, there seems to be one primary difference: grace. (Diane and William mentioned this in the comment section of the previous post!) Grace is the reason I believe “Christianity” as true. Grace makes Christianity unique, and grace provides the only way for sinful people to be restored to God. Without grace, Christianity is just another religion.

And I don’t mean the weak-kneed concept of grace that is found in most our churches where we talk and teach it, but don’t really believe it. No, I mean true, no restrictions, no fine print, limitlness, boundless, liberating grace.

Let me be clear. As I observe people of all religions (including many Christians), most have a concept of grace. But the popular religious idea of grace does not come close to what I believe the Bible teaches about grace. Most religious people (including most “Christians”) believe that we have to gain and maintain a certain level of morality in order to stay in God’s good graces, in order to please and appease God. Most religious people I have talked to, speak about being “saved by the grace of God” (or some sort of similar terminology). But as I ask more questions, and dig a little deeper, I find that most people believe that God’s grace only extends as far as our obedience. If we rebell against Him, or persistently act contrary to His will and commands, He removes His grace from us. For many, being a recipient of God’s grace means that God gives us the grace (or gift) of having the power and ability to obey God.

This is not what I believe about grace, nor is it what I believe the Bible teaches about grace. I believe the Bible teaches that God’s grace is without limit, stipulations, or conditions. Once we have received God’s grace through faith in Jesus, there is nothing we can do or say to separate ourselves from God’s grace. His grace covers all sin, past, present, and future.

When people of most religions hear this (even “Christians”), they often say, “Well then, why can’t you just go out and sin all you want?”

When I hear that, I know I have done a good job explaining grace. This is the same reaction Paul got when he explained grace (cf. Romans 6:1). If your understanding of God’s grace does not lead to this objection, then let me suggest that you don’t understand grace.

So why do I think that grace separates “Christianity” from the rest of religions? Because grace teaches us that God, who loves us, wants so much for things to be restored between us and Him, that He did everything necessary to restore that relationship. He left nothing up to us. God knew that if He left anything up to us as far as obedience is concerned, all of us would fail. Without grace, nobody could be sure they were good enough, obedient enough, holy enough to be on “God’s good side.” But with grace, all of the fear and effort fades away, and we can simply focus on enjoying the presence (and presents) of God.

So there it is. Why is Christianity true? I think there are a lot of factors that contribute to it’s “trueness,” most of which, however, can be found in other religions as well. But the one characteristic which sets Christianity apart from all other religions is grace. And grace is the only way for sinful people to get back into a relationship with a holy God.

What if… (Part 4)

What if… (Part 2)

What if… (Part 1)

What Goes Around…is Better

Is Christianity True? (Part 4)

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