Ministry is a translation of the New Testament Greek word diakonia, which means "service." Ministry is service. And ministry as "service" needs leaders--leaders who serve, not leaders who just develop programs, or teach, or organize committee groups. Ministry needs leaders who serve others for the purpose of growing and taking steps toward Christlikeness so that they can become leaders in service who serve the world as the body of Christ "who came not to be served but to serve."
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
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.
Wednesday, November 2, 2016
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:
- Discipleship means we stop trying to be followed.
- Discipleship is two-sided: following and fishing.
- Discipleship is fishing as part of God's rescue mission.
- Discipleship is about group 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.
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