Making Disciples of Jesus

After some delay, below is the plan that we're currently using as we re-launch Bow Down, a community in the inner-city of West Palm Beach, looking to become and make disciples of Jesus. Each item is in order of priority, more on that, and on each element, later:

1. Workout Plan with Workout Partners. Our first and foremost shared activity will be some sort of spiritual "workout" plan with two or three other people. A workout can be virtually any plan--a set of spiritual and not-so-spiritual disciplines--chosen by the workout group. It's not rocket science, but neither is it too common, for a group of professing Christians to look honestly at Jesus and ponder, "What practices would lead me toward becoming like him?" A group of 2-4 folks just have to prayerfully ask that question and see what seems good to the Holy Spirit and to them, and then do it. A few points on this practice: ~ There is no official workout of the church; there are virtually an unlimited number of good options (some are already using a modified version of the 12 steps, or the Daily Office, for example). ~ Each group can determine the appropriate length of the workout plan ("until we've all finished the 12th step", or "for six months", etc.). ~ As each group comes to a close, we encourage each person to begin again the process of finding workout partners and a workout. ~ We recommend that each workout group plan on meeting or talking together at least once a week to give each person a couple of partners in their process of being Jesus' disciple. ~ Everyone should take time, before beginning a workout with a group, to think and pray about whether they are really ready to give the time required for a workout and to be in relationship with the partners, and what, in a broader sense, they think being Christ's disciple will require; ~ Finally, we encourage that every other weekly meeting of the workout partners be at one of the small groups:
2. Small Groups. A few venues, meeting every other week, will be created where a few workout groups can all get together for a more typical small group meeting, where everyone can eat together with communion, sing together, pray for each other, and talk about what's going on. In this way, people can get exposure to some of the workouts that others are doing and get some meaningful connection with people within and outside of their workout group. One of the elders will facilitate each small group.
3. Worship service. Our final shared practice is our worship service. This will be a service not significantly different from many evangelical/charismatic congregations, though we may be more urban in our music, give more time for testimonials, talk more about the process of discipleship, and be more plural in our teachers. On the teaching front, it is the express goal of those currently involved in teaching to bring others into the work as gifting and character allow.

As I mentioned, we're going to attempt to make the above practices a priority in the order listed. The main reason being that we think our chief job is make mature disciples of Jesus (and become such ourselves). We need more Christ-like people and families downtown. We have had many converts, but see few "little Christs." Like many of the monastic orders or even like many educational theorists, we don't think that a typical worship service, as the express or implied chief communal practice, is going to result in significant progress toward this end, though it can be helpful toward that end as a lower-tier activity. Each person must respond to the call of discipleship and take intentional, if not aggressive steps if they intend to actually be a disciple of Jesus who makes progress in the effort. At the weekly service and elsewhere, we will routinely announce Christ's invitation to be his apprentice and how we at Bow Down are structuring our response with workouts in micro-communities with the Holy Spirit. Responsibility must be taken by each disciple for what they are becoming, and the process must be undertaken together and with God's direct help.

In a nutshell, after asking what practices would lead us toward "Christ fully formed within", we have come up with the above plan of action. Your comments and feedback (even the "You're crazy and a heretic!" variety) are welcome.

Blame Kyle

Below is a response I was going to leave in the comments to the last post, BUT, after thinking about it, I wanted to (i) highlight Kyle's comment (because it's highly informed and thoughtful, and he has his own significant learning and teaching experience which is different from mine), which you can read in the comments of the previous post, and (ii) give my thoughts on it separately here:

Yo! Kyle,

You can opine here anytime! I'll take your comment above all as a double compliment: 1) that my post was interesting enough to read through and comment thoroughly upon, and 2) you must believe my attention span to be above average. :)

Really, thanks for interacting with some really good stuff (how's that for an educated vocabulary?). This was my favorite quote: "The pedagogy of the early third century Eastern theologian, Gregory Nazianzen, was, 'let us teach dogmatically today and discuss tomorrow.' I'm with you on not dismissing lecture altogether (which you'll see in the next post). I just lectured a little last night, as a matter of fact. (Though, I wonder if Gregory would substitute a reading assignment for a dogmatic lecture if his entire church had access to what we have access to . . . just a thought.) For me, the issue of teaching is at least significantly one of emphasis within all our formational practices, and what we're hoping to accomplish when we teach. That will affect how we teach and many other things. I think teaching is important. That said, the sermon/lecture has become the evangelical sacrament in many, many circles (faith comes by hearing, and that of the word of God), sometimes an end in itself, rather than one of many tools to assist in the making of mature disciples.

Relatedly, having a "head pastor" has become the chief necessary ingredient in Evangelical ecclesiology. To quote or at least paraphrase John Wimber, "The modern era has been a blessing in many, many ways, but it hasn't done much for our pneumatology." Similarly, it's also created distinct and easily recognizable problems in our ecclesiology and our soteriology especially. These all affect what churches pursue in the world and in their own people, and how. For example, I don't think that you should be saddled with the burden of a 'holier-than-other-Christians' title in order to be given space in your community to use your gifts and training with passion and as often God inspires within broad communal boundaries. Why can't there be multiple people whom the community has recognized as having a particular gift to teach? These folks can work together and sharpen each other and the community. Can't they, in turn, train and involve others in their discipline and work, all within one community? Certainly. And when it comes to decision making in the body, the Quakers, some monastic orders, and even AA have, in my view, embodied a more biblically sound practice and government, namely, a "pneumocratic" body of brothers in which the members discuss and discern together, looking for consensus, not mere 'majority vote' on what God is doing in a particular situation. Of course, some voices will carry more weight than others, which is appropriate, but the Spirit can also speak through the most unexpected sources, and many will recognize his voice when they hear it, no matter the messenger. There is more here, but you get the idea.

Though, clearly, modernism has not and does not stop God from accomplishing wonderful things in the most modern (and lecture oriented!) churches, many times over. To not see this is a mistake.

But the splinters remain for me, both from experience and from what I see God doing (and how) in the scriptures. BTW, my favorite take on a functional approach to church decision making is stated nicely in a brief study by the Center for Parish Development, called "Gathered Together to Seek and to Do God's Will."

Hope you all are doing well. I'll roll out the next post soon.

A little background . . .

Hopefully, this post and the next will help to make more sense of some of the last few posts. First, a few bits that shape my perspective, in no particular order, so you know some of where I'm coming from when it comes to the subject of teaching and learning:

• I've grown up in the evangelical church and never left. My mother took us to Southern Baptist churches growing up, I went to a Lutheran grade-school, a non-denom evangelical middle school & highschool (bible class every day, chapel once a week), attended and led small groups & then college ministry at a Vineyard in college & law school. Since then I've been a part of two evangelical church plants. (My point: I've heard a moderately high amount of teaching in the evangelical format, and even given my share of it.)
• As far as non-religious schooling goes, I've had about as much as I can get without changing fields of study. I have a B.S. in Business, a law degree and a master's in tax law. I've also been working as an adjunct professor at a local Christian university for two years. My classes, two per semester, have approximately 30 students each. (So I've also heard a relatively high amount of teaching in the academic format, and even given my share of it.)
• FWIW, in the academic setting I generally got great marks as a student and as a teacher (at least in the academic setting, you get formally evaluated on these things). Whether as a small group leader, college minister, professor, etc., I really have cared about what people who were part of these groups were taking away from them. Though questions about teaching have been in my mind for decades, doing the teaching/leading work myself kicked them into high gear as I attempted to help people learn and see something, and even be shaped differently.
• The current church plant that I'm a part of is coming out of a parachurch ministry in downtown West Palm Beach--Urban Youth Impact ("UYI"). It's largest program is an after-school tutoring program, but it also does a variety of evangelical outreaches, bible studies and community service projects on a regular basis, and has been in the community for over a decade. Like most strongly evangelical organizations, UYI's outreaches were typically designed to get conversions--getting kids to say a prayer so that they can go to heaven instead of hell whenever death inevitably comes. UYI has gotten several thousands of these conversions over the years, which they sought to "follow up" with bible studies and the like. But here is the fact: UYI can only point to a handful of people who show substantial change toward Christlikeness out of the thousands who have "converted."

So what? Well, obviously I've not studied learning theory (yet), and have no formal education training. My experience is only as a congregant, a disciple of Jesus, a 'secular' student, and as a church leader and professor. But each of these undertakings have been wonderfully helpful and also left some splinters in my mind about the learning process, specifically as it applies to our apprenticeship to Jesus. Here are some splinters, again, in no particular order, that I haven't yet fully dug out (the next post will be the tangible structures that the current church plant is adopting that these splinters helped shape):

• In all the above experiences (and as a parent), I've seen lots of ways one can teach, and lots of ways one can learn. Some ways of teaching are less effective (i.e., less likely to change the hearers intellectually or more thoroughly) than others. The evangelical church tends to emphasize, even revere, the least effective form of teaching of which I'm aware--uninterrupted lecture by the same person.
• Jesus, speaking to the apostles, whose 'teaching' responsibilities were only going to increase, told them not to let anyone call them "Teacher" or "Father", and gave essentially two reasons: There was only One worthy of such titles, and they, the apostles, were all equals with anyone they'd be 'teaching'. I have no doubts that changing the title to "pastor" or some other term designed to honor and distinguish a servant from the other brothers somehow remedies what Jesus was trying to prevent here.
• Relatedly, being given the task and gift of teaching by God is different from letting people put a title on you. Gifts give energy and life to the giver and the recipient. But few things in life are heavier than a religious title, whether for the individual or the individual's family. Do your leaders a favor: call them by their first names, and think of them that way.
• The longer one stays in academia, listening to experts give lectures, the less one feels qualified to do anything. One has to actually do something themselves and see it work to build confidence with the subject matter.
• Parents whose goal is maturity don't primarily teach by lecture; talking is just step one.
• I don't think we're making as many disciples of Jesus as we think we are.
• While I realize that "not many" should aspire to biblical teaching (for the harsher judgment and the general challenges of the tongue), didn't the early churches enjoy a plethora of teachers (how could Corinth play favorites if they'd only ever heard one guy; how could Timothy know if a potential elder is "able to teach" if the candidate has never done it; if the Jerusalem church "devoted themselves to the apostleS' teaching, that church had at least a dozen teachers, not even counting James, Jesus' brother, and some other folks who likely also taught; if "two or at the most three" prophets would speak per gathering in Corinth, do we really think it was the same two or three every gathering, etc., etc.)
• Guest speakers in my class have a big advantage in being effective just by having a different voice and face and personality than my own.
• Prioritizing "new births" over "Christ fully formed within" will play itself out in actual living results.
• Students tend to retain a lot more if WE discuss, than if I lecture.
• I learn a lot by prepping to teach. I learn even more if I ask the students good questions and listen to their answers and questions.
• No amount of lecture (or even discussion) can make up for a student who doesn't really want to learn what I'm teaching.
• Creating learners is more helpful than teaching, and there is a difference between the two.
• A truth discovered sticks and shapes several times better than a truth heard.
• Seeing and doing something in action (apprenticeship) is so much better than classroom "learning", it's hard to even compare them, but apprenticeship is much slower and requires a lot more "teachers", and a lot more work by the student.
• Would the apostles be horrified by our near permanent "delegation" of the teaching to one person per church, with lecture being the typical method?
• As Dallas Willard has suggested, are we getting the results we now have not despite our efforts but at least partially because of them?

As I said, next post will be the structures our new church plant is adopting, which have been shaped in part by these splinters.

Maturity and "teaching"

Here's a comment I made on one of Brant's posts. His issue was more general, about babies and bathwater in the church and which is which. My comment was specific to the relationship between teaching (as we typically practice and prioritize it) and maturity:

[I]t's fairly defensible that the "end" God has in mind is fully formed, fully functional Christ-likeness, writ-large. If that's where we're headed (or where God would like to lead us), what shared, corporate practices are likely to lead us there? I know you're a fan of [spiritual disciplines], so there's much positive to be said here. On the negative (bath water) side, though, I think that delegating the vast bulk of the teaching to one "expert" person on a near permanent basis, and, secondly, having our teaching be almost exclusively without dialog are likely to help the very young in the faith for a while, but will actually hinder the maturing process after the infancy/child stages. Why aren't pastors typically multiplying themselves out of a job asap? Don't our biblical examples tend toward that kind of multiplication? Our "ecclesiology" is currently best designed to produce babies (converts) and minister to those babies in the faith. It is difficult to argue from typical church practice (centered on lectures, usually by one "expert") that we are geared toward maturity. Our priorities of practice, our ways of doing teaching, etc.--bathwater. Not necessarily bad, but definitely best used for babies.

I hope I'm being clear that I'm not opposed to teaching. I do, though, from a biblical and practical perspective, question how we do it, how we (generally fail to) train others to do it, and how both of the above tends to produce spectators of the faith rather than ambassadors of it. So, are there any biblically faithful alternatives to our typical "plan"? What and how so? Is an alternative approach really necessary at all? I'll be posting on an alternative we're working on at UYI very soon.

I'm not writing you a new orthodoxy but an old one

This post (and the others in this very interesting series) by Michael Patton got me thinking about "orthodoxy." The term literally means "right teaching" or "right thinking", though Patton gives some more thorough definitions according to various camps of Christianity. If you look at the lists of beliefs that constitute orthodoxy in Patton's post (and he did a great job assembling these), you can see that most Christian camps refer to "orthodoxy" not really as "right teaching" of Christianity as a whole but rather right teaching of specific, so called "essential" teachings of Christianity. Several questions immediately come to mind, but a few that I want to discuss here are:

• What teachings, thoughts, beliefs are "essential" to Christianity?
• How (and by whom) are such "essentials" to be determined?
• How are people's beliefs to be determined for purpose of measuring them against the orthodox ones that are selected?

Along these lines, here are the guts of my comments at Scot McKnight's blog about this:

I fear that [these lists] represent what I hate to see (but frequently do) in discussions of “orthodoxy”–we don’t use Jesus’ life, ministry and teachings as the plumb line, we use some favorite [or historical] interpreter(s) of him, which leads to deeper divisions in Christ’s body, just as it did in Corinth and continues to do today. . . These lists of beliefs are, therefore, better used as history of past battles over particular pieces of reality than as wholistically accurate pictures of orthodoxy. Let’s not measure men by lists. Let’s measure men by the Man. The lists, at best, present a very partial picture of orthodoxy. Whereas, the best wholistic picture we have of who God really is and wants to say and do is in Jesus’ teachings and actions. And of course, there are very good scriptural reasons to believe that God will use Jesus own life and teachings as the means of measuring everything that needs measuring. . . . We . . . may not like that putting Jesus at the center messes with our theology and puts more mystery in the whole issue of orthodoxy than we’d like, but let’s at least be express about the plumb line and let the cornerstone be the cornerstone if we’re going to measure who “lines up.” . . . Where on these lists, for example, is the belief that love of God and neighbor are the most important guides to life? Isn’t it at least a little disconcerting that the very teaching that Jesus said was the most important of the entire revelation before him isn’t mentioned in these lists of “essentials”?

What I'm getting at is that one would not likely get the same list of "essential" teachings by studying primarily the teachings of Jesus himself; in fact, some of the teachings that were thematic for Jesus and even the apostles are not considered "essential" to teaching Christianity rightly. I'm thinking, as I mentioned in the comment, of the command that Jesus said summed up all the law and prophets--loving God with every facet of our existence and our neighbors (and enemies) to boot. It is difficult to argue that this was not "essential" according to Jesus' own thinking, or even the thinking of Paul or John or Peter, if their letters are to be believed. One could argue pretty easily based on a casual reading of the New Testament that teaching this "love" is even primary in the faith. And there are others, such as the teaching that one's conduct shows what one truly believes.

So, I'm wondering, first, what would a list of 'essential teachings' look like if we based our list on what appeared to be Jesus' own "essential" teachings and actions (and secondarily those from the rest of the NT). That would be interesting and maybe helpful. But I'm wondering even more, what if we made Jesus himself--his life, his "walk" and his teachings--as our standard for evaluating how far or close a given person or group is to "orthodox Christianity"? Isn't he the plumb line, the cornerstone? Isn't he the walking and talking definition of orthodox Christianity?

If we use him as the Standard instead of a partial list of teachings for determining orthodox Christians, we'd get at least a few benefits:

• We'd find that he's the only one being perfectly orthodox in his thinking and acting, which will give us all a more graceful tone when evaluating someone else's "orthodoxy" (which not coincidentally will make us more obedient to one of Jesus' own teachings).
• We'd be more appropriately and equally concerned with a person's actions as we'd be with their stated "beliefs" when evaluating what they actually believe (which again, Jesus seemed to think was a good way to think about such things).
• We'd be more concerned about our own deviation from the Standard than other people's (yet more obedience to Jesus' teachings).
• We'd realize that Christianity is more of a Path, more of a growing (or fading) relationship to a Person, than a checklist of right beliefs that can be verbally affirmed and checked off. More important than a snapshot of beliefs is the direction one is heading and whom one is trusting to proceed with life.
• We'd encourage and make more 'learners of Jesus' than 'affirmers of lists'.
• We'd be less likely to end up with whole groups of supposedly "orthodox Christians" who are content, even entrenched, to act in direct opposition to several of Jesus' teachings.
• We'd be using the Standard that God himself will use to judge us all.

Our response to God's offer, part I

The twin invitations of entering God's government on earth and becoming Jesus' apprentice beg the question: what is an appropriate response to such invitations? Ironically, if a prayer was going to be the response, it would be the one Jesus taught us to pray (the "Lord's Prayer"). But is a prayer, even that prayer, the kind of response that "Follow me" is intended to illicit? I think prayer is certainly part of what following Jesus means, but prayer alone, even his own or one in which we call him 'lord', doesn't seem to be what "Follow me" is all about. Talk of any kind certainly isn't what the government of God is about; it's about power, right dealings with others, and joy, all through the Holy Spirit. God's invitations are invitations to get oneself on board with a leader, a God, who has a definite agenda and direction. It's about ceasing to be part of the problem and becoming part of God's healing solution through really trusting and following his son.

While there are perhaps an unlimited variety of plans of action that embody a wise response to God's kingdom/discipleship offer (for a fantastic article on the subject, check out this one from Dallas Willard; it's a really a short book, but really worthwhile), the 12 steps continue to impress me in so many ways as an appropriate and thoughtful response to the invitations into Jesus' kingdom and apprenticeship. The steps are about changing one's path and who controls it. They're about honestly facing the causes and effects of our own management and acquiring the humility on which all other virtues can be built. And letting God build those virtues is expressly named as a necessary goal. In a nutshell, they're about actually letting God reign instead of us. They're about God having his Way in us.

So, some friends and I (more on that later) are taking some version of the following 12 steps together, slightly modified from the current steps of AA, as a structured response to what God is offering us all through Jesus. The bold words highlight what's different from AA's current version; they're not for emphasis. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the point is not the steps, they're just suggestions, hopefully wise ones. "The goal is Jesus, the means is Jesus."

1. We admitted that something was wrong, in us and in the world at large, and that we were powerless to fix it.
   
2. Came to believe that Jesus has ultimate power, goodness, and wisdom, yet is available to all.
   
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Jesus, God's choice of king.
   
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
   
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
   
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character and become like Jesus himself.
   
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings and to give us His Spirit.
   
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
   
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
   
10. Looking at Jesus, we continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through several helpful practices to improve our conscious and cooperative contact with God.
    
12. Having witnessed Jesus' work personally, we shared him with others, and tried to practice Jesus' ways in all our affairs.

First, the gospel

I said a few posts back that I'd give more on what's been stewing and happening lately. Here's the first bit. Both in time and importance, it starts with the gospel. Actually, the starting place for me has been Jesus, which got me thinking about his 'gospel'. Most that know me know that the favorite message of Jesus, the good news of God's government, has been messing with me for last 6 years or so. Without going into that full journey, here's a summary of where I am now:

The gospel, according to Jesus, is about accepting, trusting, the leadership and provision of God right now. Importantly, this government of God is led by his son, the 'christ'-ened king of heaven and earth, Jesus. Even though God could have sent the representative of his government to judge and toss all the human rebels and just start a 'new heaven and earth' from scratch--one in which the two dimensions were united under his leadership, he opted instead to offer amnesty to anyone that wanted give up their own doomed agendas for life and get on board with the king, Jesus, and the 'new creation out of the old' agenda of his government. To accomplish this, God sent Jesus to do certain things (to be discussed later) and with basically two invitations: the gospel ("good news") of the government of God and the invitation to become Jesus' 'disciple'. To me, these are the same invitation. Why? Because Jesus is the king of the government of God; apprenticeship to him, the king, is to give up your own agendas and ways (repent) and to trust instead that God is working through Jesus as God's own chosen leader for people (trust that the kingdom of God is at hand). Different language, same outcome when the 'discipler' is also the 'king'.

This king showed up teaching, healing, and generally undoing Satan's leadership (instead of, say, executing a just and terrible judgment on a world largely run amuck--this difference actually disappointed some). His goal is still to produce a 'new heaven and earth' that is united and holy and good--completely untouched by contrary leadership and its effects. But in order to include us in this new creation project, the cross was necessary. Thanks to his substitutionary death, all humans can actually be welcomed into this great plan God has for (new) creation instead of being thrown out as part of the problem. We can, thanks to Jesus bearing the cross and death, be given amnesty and become part of God's solution, part of re-creation of the world. He rescued us so that we could be his co-operative subjects and family.

But an important caveat: We have to decide now if we want to enter and receive the government of God personified by Christ's own leadership. "Why call [him] 'lord' and do nothing that [he] says?" Is that what biblical or even practical 'trust' is? Is that what it means to "receive" and "enter" the government of God--to stay hostile to what the king of that government says to do? No one who continues a life of rebellion against God's leading, against his annointed leader's priorities, has any part, certainly no inheritance, in the kingdom of God. "The time has come. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and trust this good news!", or, another way Jesus put the exact same choice, "Follow me." To "receive" him is to receive his right and qualifications to lead; to trust him is to do what he says; to love him is to obey him. Those who do the will of God will live forever. Eternal life is to know God, and Jesus whom he has sent, but the one who says, "I know him" but lives contrary to him does not know him.

SO, if the invitation is not to "receive a free gift" of eternal life but to receive Jesus and his government (which has life within) . . . man! Does that change things in church world!! How do we invite people into that--into what Jesus was inviting them into!? Perhaps more importantly, for those of us that want to receive ourselves what God is offering in Jesus, how do we structure our response? To me, Jesus' invitations are more 'path' invitations and require 'path' responses.
The invitation always structures the response. More on appropriate responses to God's invitation soon.