Are the youth in your church on the radar?

How are youth perceived in your church?

Are they kids to be entertained? Those unreachable ones that someone has to "connect with" so that they come to church on Sundays? Perhaps they're a group of people who are seen as being able to contribute, but in only rudimentary ways. Are they the ignored ones? Or are they well-loved?

Are they seen for their potential? How about as ones who have a legitimate voice? Are they considered leaders, or inexperienced?

Being a Rescue-Mission Angler

The past few posts have focused on defining discipleship. This is mostly because 1) it's important and 2) there seems to be a lot of not seeing eye to eye in churches when it comes to discipleship. I'm not attempting to give the final answer to the question, but rather to help focus some lines of thought about discipleship for you, church leader, who might just be talking about discipleship to a congregation of people who might not all be on the same plane. Maybe even you, church leader, are a bit confused about discipleship, or in your own mind the idea is not all that clear.

I've been suggesting we start with Jesus. Duh. Even saying "let's start with Jesus" does not clear the air immediately. There are probably many places one can turn as a starting point within the corpus of Jesus' teaching and example in the gospels. As a starting point, I'm suggesting we select one of the first things Jesus says when he invites soon-to-be-disciples onto his wagon: the call of disciples in Mark 1:17.

This week, the part of that passage we focus on is that discipleship is an invitation to be fishers for people as part of God's rescue mission.

Discipleship is for the Benefit of Others

Discipleship means...


In a previous post I pointed suggested we define discipleship according to Jesus' call to follow in Mark 1:17. I drew attention to four points:

1. Discipleship means we stop trying to be followed.
2. Discipleship is two-sided: following and fishing.
3. Discipleship is fishing as part of God's rescue mission.
4. Discipleship is about group fishing.

This post focuses on the two-sided nature of discipleship. Following and fishing.


So back to the "discipleship means" prompt. How do you answer this? What do people in your congregation think? How do their lives reflect an answer to this? Popular ways to complete or answer the "discipleship means" statement might be: Becoming more like Jesus. Or maybe it's growing closer to God/Jesus. Perhaps it's "spiritual growth" (whatever that might mean).


I wonder...how often do we think of discipleship as other focused, rather than focused on our own personal development?


I wonder if we should.

Discipleship: Leaving Behind (whatever it is that gave us identity and purpose)

Discipleship is a catchy word in church ministries these days. It's not a new idea, but it seems to have found a new level of popularity in recent years. However, not everyone is on the same page when asked what "discipleship" is all about or whether we're actually accomplishing this in our churches and ministries.

In last week's post, we looked at discipleship through the lens of Jesus' invitation to his soon-to-be disciples in the gospel of Mark. His invitation was:

Follow me, and I will make you into people who fish for people. (Mark 1:17)

Last week I drew out four points from this passage that might help us focus our understanding of discipleship and our efforts as leaders in ministry to "be and make disciples." The points were:

1. Discipleship means we stop trying to be followed.
2. Discipleship is two-sided: following and fishing.
3. Discipleship is fishing as part of God's rescue mission.
4. Discipleship is about group fishing.

This week, we'll focus on the first point: Discipleship means we stop trying to be followed.

Discipleship as Fishing

Among Jesus' first words to his would-be disciples was:

Follow me, and I will make you fishers of people. (Mark 1:17)

A recent article in Christianity Today suggests that church leaders and church-goers are not on the same page with how they understand "discipleship" and how to go about growing in discipleship. There is a difference between whether pastors think discipleship is taking place and whether church-goers do. And there is a diversity of words and ideas used to describe "discipleship": "becoming more Christ-like," "spiritual growth," "spiritual journey," "sanctification." Not all of these are mutually exclusive. But they do reflect diverse ideas and that maybe not everyone is on the same page.

Jesus' first words quoted above are an invitation to a life of discipleship--to a life of following Jesus. If a major part of Jesus' life included making disciples, Mark 1:17 gives us Jesus' most succinct phrase that tells us what it's all about.

The New "In" Thing...

"Discipleship" is all the rage these days. It's a main catchword for church activity.

It's even the title of IOLBC's Beyond Ministry website: www.everydaydiscipleship.org and our family blog: www.discipleshipkitchen.blogspot.com

There is good reason for this. Jesus' followers are called "disciples." Jesus invites them to be "disciples." And Jesus commanded disciple reduplication. In fact, it is the one main command Jesus gives the disciples at the end of Matthew's gospel:

As you go about your lives, make disciples of all peoples...(Matt. 28:19)

Still, it can be a little concerning when it gets mixed up with American consumer-Facebook-media driven-"what's in" culture. Or a lot concerning. A recent article from Missio Alliance reflects this concern. The article questions the use of "discipleship" as some sort of fixer to ignite more excitement and participation in church. Discipleship is not to be a church program or a catchy idea to get those people who are not quite "in" on the church thing.

Not Everyone is the Same Kind of Christian

This is the third post in a series that attempts to think through some matters related to the church today, based on a series of posts by Ed Stetzer at Christianity Today. Click to go to part 1 or part 2. 


Not everyone is the same kind of Christian.

We all get this. There are Lutherans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Reformed, E-Free, Mennonites, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and so on. Even within these denominations there is much variety. Some might say division.

But, I'm not talking about these groups.

This is REALLY Crazy!

Part II of a series on the church today. See part I here.

So I came across this news the other day. Some scientists are talking about bringing the woolly mammoth back. From extinction. See the video here.

Regardless of whether or not it can actually happen, I'm more interested in the thought behind it.

What's wrong with being extinct? Isn't extinction part of the natural order? Do we want to mess with that? Maybe I'm over simplistic in my scientific understanding, but it seems to me that it's actually good for things die out and new things to replace them. It's an important part of life.

Churches in America...Leaders Take Notice

Over at Christianity Today's blog, Ed Stetzer began a blog series on "Churches in America" this summer. Over the next few weeks, we'll course through this with some thoughts and questions to engage you, church leaders, with some of what he says.

His first post is here.

_______________________________________________

"Facts are our friends." This is an important point Stetzer makes. We can embrace them or ignore them.

One fact: the church's influence on people is fading. It's a slow fade, to be sure. But it's still fading. It might be that the slow fade has been part of the problem. It's been slow and gradual enough that too few churches and church leaders really noticed. But now, for many churches, the fade has hit a crucial point, and it seems for some that there's no return.

Stetzer also points out, however, that there is no credible research that shows Christianity is dying. It's just people are less interested in attending church and less influenced by the church. That, I think, is a really interesting dynamic.

Owning It.

There are some recent buzz words, especially among Lutheran circles--"sharing your story," "telling your story," and the like.

I'm not a fan of buzz words or catch phrases that become their own insider lingo. But I do like the idea that these particular ones are trying to get across.

With "sharing your story," the idea seems to be that it is important for people to be able to tell about their lives, where God has shown up in their lives, how they see their lives connected to what Jesus is still doing in the world.

This is more than just "sharing" one's story, though. This is "owning it"--personally expressing how one's life has been drawn into the family of God, swept up by the Holy Spirit. Some evangelical circles used to (and still do) call it "giving your testimony." Lutheran and other circles for whom this is a new catchphrase are really just using different language to talk about the same thing that evangelicals have been doing for a long time.

What's Your Plan for Youth Ministry?

Doing youth ministry well requires time and planning. A youth minister can hang out with kids a lot. But it takes time and planning to go somewhere with the relationship. And it takes time and planning to turn "youth ministry" into ministry to youth and ministry with youth in a way that turns youth into agents of the gospel in the world and generates vibrant involvement from other in the church. Doing this in a way that keeps youth ministry from being nothing more than the thing the young gal or guy on church staff does takes time, planning, and vision.

The summer months are a great time to start this sort of thing as you look ahead to what you want to accomplish in the coming year.

Over at Churchleaders.com, they have a helpful little article that gives some steps to develop a strategic plan for youth ministry. I recommend it to you--youth leaders or just those invested in ministering to youth.

Here are the main points briefly:

1. Assemble a team. The more investment from those in the congregation, the better. 
2. Develop a specific purpose/vision. You may have an overall church vision/mission. What you do should fit into this. If the church mission/vision is too vague or needs work, then this might need to be another conversation. But even beyond this, you will want a specific vision and mission for what exactly you want to accomplish in the coming year. You can even have a mission/vision for smaller increments of time (a semester, Advent season, etc.)
3. Look at the landscape. You must always reassess the landscape, because it changes. What you did last year may well not work because this next year is different. You need to get a pulse on the youth and their families and listen--what's going on? What are the needs? What questions are they asking? Your plan for the year should fit on the landscape.
4. Develop a plan. How exactly will you get from point A to point B? What steps will you and your team take?
5. Set a date for review. Don't wait until the end of the year to do this. Set review times throughout the year to get a pulse on how things are going and to maybe tweak things as you go.

Go to their website to read the whole thing.

Happy planning!

What are our ministries designed to achieve?

In their book, Right Here, Right Now: Everyday Mission for Everyday People, authors Alan Hirsch and Lance Ford make a very thoughtful statement:

"we are perfectly designed to achieve what we are currently achieving."

Interesting statement, isn't it? It begs us to look at what we are currently achieving in our ministries. Whether we're experiencing "success" in our ministries or not, taking this statement seriously might mean rethinking. It might mean "back to the drawing board." This is potentially a very tough question to face because of what it could tell us about our ministries and what we're not doing well.