Acts 29 New England Regional Discipleship Training with Jonathan Dodson in Woburn, Massachusetts on Monday, May 5, 2014
These posts are for the Discipleship Training I had the privilege to participate in back in early May with Jonathan Dodson and more than 90 churches represented in the New England area. The topics covered were "Unbelievable Discipleship", "Re-Evangelism", "Gospel Metaphors", and "Gospel Counseling".
I'm still soaking in the thoughtfulness and wisdom that was shared. If you'd like to do some soaking yourself, here are video links* to three of the talks followed by my notes from the specific session this post is focused on:
- Unbelievable Discipleship (46:56 minutes)
- Re-Evangelism (39:14 minutes)
- Gospel Metaphors (36:15 minutes)
*I would highly encourage you to watch the videos as Jonathan provides more research and great real-life examples during his talks that I wasn't able to record below.
Discipleship Training with Jonathan Dodson Part 1 of 4 | Unbelievable Discipleship
Who is engaged in unbelievable evangelism, or what Jesus might call unbelievable discipleship? Though the missional church movement has been going for more than 25 years since Darrell Gruder's book Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America came out, we are only now seeing a focus on evangelism within the missional church.
In order to recapture the heart of sharing the gospel message, we need to focus on our motivation. Why do followers of Jesus, when tasked with declaring and displaying the good news about Jesus, more often respond with "I can't" or "I won't"?
"Why are there not many more of us finding our infinite worth in Jesus and becoming more like Him in being winsome, culturally-discerning gospel-tellers?"
Here are three potential "defeaters" that warp our motivations:
- Pressure evangelism: this view of "successful" evangelism or discipleship is more based on our performance (i.e. sealing the deal) and that we actually got up the nerve to say something rather than focusing on the person we are sharing Jesus with
- Checklist evangelism: this view of "successful" evangelism or discipleship is based on how many times (i.e. project-oriented) we've shared and what information we share (i.e. answer-oriented and heaven-oriented instead of Jesus-oriented) instead of learning how to love others in Jesus' name
- Reactionary evangelism: this view of "successful" evangelism or discipleship is that we don't want to misrepresent the gospel or provide the wrong example or information, so we don't really share the gospel with anyone, or we only share certain things in order to counter what we don't want people to think we are like
We need to become more Jesus-centered in how we declare and display the gospel to ourselves and to others. After all, the gospel is the announcement of good news! Do we believe this? And do we understand just how good the news is?
Today, in the United States, more than 40 million people are practicing "secularism," while being open to or seeking spirituality. But instead of finding our security in Jesus to share Him with them, we tend to succumb to more "defeaters" such as:
- I don't want to be preachy.
- I don't know enough.
- I'm going to be rejected.
- I don't want to be impersonal.
- I don't want to be intolerant.
This is not to say that there isn't wisdom to be learned from our defeaters. We don't want to be any of the above in a way that's not like Jesus. But we also do not need to be defeated by any of them.
"Preachy self-righteousness says: ‘If you perform well (morally or spiritually), God will accept you.’ But the gospel says, ‘God already accepts you because Jesus performed perfectly on your behalf.’ There’s a hell of difference between the two. The gospel sets us free from performance and releases us into the arms of grace. Self-wrought performance is a death sentence, but the obedience of Christ on our behalf is eternal life. What people need to hear is grace, audacious, seems-too-good-to-be-true but so-true-it’s-good, grace. Grace is God working his way down to us, so that we don’t have to work our way up to him. He comes down to us in Jesus. We need to make Jesus the stumbling block, not preachy self-righteousness or spiritual performance.” – pgs. 30-31, The Unbelievable Gospel: Say Something Worth Believing
So we do not need to be defeated by any of of our defeaters, including "I don't want to be preachy". We learn from them, grow past them, and continue to share the message Jesus gave us as we walk in step with His Spirit. We are already completely accepted in Christ regardless of how we might make mistakes or misrepresent Him (which, let's be honest, we all do). He loves us and wants to work in us and through us.
We have been invited into Jesus' mission and He has given us His Spirit to help us make disciples, baptize and teach how to obey everything He commanded. We begin with Jesus. We end with Jesus. He is the One in whom we live and move and have our being. If we rest in this truth and promise, then we will grow in our desire and ability to share about Him because we see how much He has shaped and changed us with others out of love instead of fear.
"As the Pope says, 'Proselytizing builds walls; evangelism builds bridges. Proselytizing recruits for a cause; evangelism loves a person.'"
We also need to realize gospel evangelism and discipleship is an inconvenient and long road. Why? Because love is inefficient. People need time and experience to see the love that Jesus said people would know we are His disciples by. Most of the time, there is no immediate reaction to hearing the good news. Out of those who hear the gospel, less than 30 percent turn to faith in Jesus on the spot, which means more than 70 percent need the process of hearing and seeing the gospel again and again.
Jesus-centered evangelism and discipleship will require you to love others and serve them more than you serve yourself, or the way you think things should go. You will need to practice. You will need to sow more so you will be able to reap more. Then you will need to trust Jesus with those He has sent you to. And you will need to find Him worth all of the above. Because if He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, then He is worthy of our devotion.
“Without the shining light of the gospel of glory of Christ (2 Cor. 4:4), darkened hearts aren’t illuminated and dead bodies don’t truly live. The problem, however, is that through our mindless, impatient, and unwise evangelism, we pile stones on top of their graves. Good evangelism removes the stones and shares the truth in such a way that the good news can travel down the shaft of gospel light into darkened hearts.” – pg. 20, The Unbelievable Gospel: Say Something Worth Believing
"When you're with the person you are sharing the gospel with, do you act like Jesus not only belongs in your life, but in the person's life you are sharing Him with? Jesus acted on our behalf so we could belong. He was perfectly righteous so we can stand before a perfect God and be welcomed. This reconciliation and peace is our motivation. This comfort and hope is what makes our discipleship believable.
If we don't understand the depth of the grace we have been given, then with Jesus, we can approach the throne of grace with confidence, read His Word, and ask the Spirit to help us understand more of what He has given us in His Son so that we can be ready to share the hope we have in Him with others."
Next post: Discipleship Training with Jonathan Dodson Part 2 of 4 | Re-Evanglism
– Sully
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