Discipleship + Mission Workshop | Invitation & Challenge

 

3DM 2014 Discipleship + Mission Workshop in Foxboro, Massachusetts on Wednesday, February 5, 2014 

These posts are for the 3DM Discipleship + Mission Workshop that was hosted in Foxboro, Massachusetts during a blizzard between Tuesday, February 4 – Thursday, February 6. 

• Discipleship + Mission '14 1 of 3 | Covenant & Kingdom

Quick review of 3DM's values: 

Jesus as the Model

 Because the way of Jesus is as important as the words and works of Jesus

  Family at the Core 

Because who we are becoming is as important as what we are doing

Life on the Edge

 Because leaders by definition are the ones who go first

Listening for the Word

 Because becoming like Jesus is a journey of both Spirit and Truth

Celebrating along the Way

 Because purpose and play make the family work

Plenty of what I have learned from them has made its way into my teaching and my life. I'm still reveling in the impact the workshop had and will continue to learn from what was shared.

Invitation + Challenge

Jesus' discipleship involved:

• Invite to come and see. 
• Challenge to go and share.  

The journey of the Christian is believing good is God along the way. We want to pray for understanding (knowledge) and experience (grace) in order to have:

• Spirit-fueled faith to trust God completely
• Kingdom hope to continue to care deeply for others through conflict and peace

In Matthew 16:13-28, Jesus both invites and challenges Peter. He invites him to realize who Jesus is (Messianic King) and to have Jesus build His Church through him. Peter can follow the King and receive the keys to the Kingdom.

But Peter misunderstands how the Kingdom will come through who Jesus is as well (Suffering Servant). Jesus challenges Peter to realign his heart with the Father's.

Jesus reveals that we need both a high invitation and high challenge culture in order to create strong disciples who seek the Kingdom first.    

 

Most churches fall into one of the four types of cultures:

1. Comfort culture: enabling, entitled, cozy, all rest (high invitation, low challenge)
2. Stressful culture: guilt-driven, discouraged, serious, all work (low invitation, high challenge)
3. Apathetic culture: boring, status quo, inactive, no effort to follow or embody following Jesus (low invitation, low challenge)
4. Discipleship culture: empowered, encouraged, visionary, Word- and Spirit-fueled, resilient in work and rest (high invitation, high challenge)

For churches that want to move into a discipling culture, they are going to have to endure a time of high challenge that is going to feel like a "stressful culture" for those who are used to being consumers rather than producers. 

The goal is when people transition from being consumers to being producers. This is when we see in their lives them actively obeying Jesus' call to love, serve, suffer, share and show the life of Jesus with others in their neighborhoods, workplaces, etc. In order to do this, we need to have an intentional process for helping each other learn how to follow Jesus, and we need to evaluate how it's working so that we're continuing to:

1. listen to the Father's voice
2. follow the leading of the Spirit, and 
3. become more like Jesus together. 

What Is: In order to understand where you and your church are at, it's helpful to do a SWOT analysis that considers areas of failure, frustration, battle and breakthrough.

Weakness + Opportunity = Frustration: lack of ability to speak the Gospel in all areas of life, new to missional living, still (in some ways unconsciously) consumer- and comfort-oriented

Threat + Strength = Battle: fear of cost of discipleship, learning how to recognize a "person of peace," misunderstanding of "church," lack of discipline in spiritual disciplines

Weakness + Threat = Failure: socioeconomic and ethnically homogenous group

Opportunity + Strength = Breakthrough: beginning to open homes regularly, reorienting schedules and calendars around people instead of programs, praying more

A growing culture of discipleship that will move from frustration and/or battle to breakthrough will involve the Word and the Spirit humbling people to be learners who:

• Ask questions
• Desire to grow beyond what they think or imagine

 

 Listen to hear, not to respond. Don't miss people's potential. With Jesus, all of life has opportunity for spiritual transformation.

Next post: 3DM '14 Discipleship + Mission Workshop 3 of 3 | Repentance + Belief

– Sully
 
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