Currently I’m reading Post-christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World by Stuart Murray. He argues convincingly that discipleship was one of the most important things to disappear in a world dominated by Christian culture and power (Christendom). Christian community also suffered. In a short discussion of church buildings he quotes Jurgen Multmann as saying that in Christendom, ‘Community with the church replaced community in the church.’ (125)
It struck me that this legacy of Christendom continues in many churches today. New comers are taught about the values and mission of the church as an organization, they’re told what the organization requires of them for membership, and the organization seeks to incorporate them somewhere into the organizational structure. In other words, they’re taught how to develop a relationship with the church (as an organization), but not how to develop relationships in the church.
This may even be true of my own church. Any ideas how we could proactively do this differently?
Relationships aren’t unique to the Christian community. In fact, as many wounded Christians (and nonChristians) can testify to, often times those outside the church are better at relationships than we are.
Two things that are especially helpful in building a Christian community are taking the posture of student and a servant. We begin by keeping our eyes and ears open to discern what God is doing and where people are at. We seek to be a part of what God is doing rather than seeking to bring God and others into what we’re doing.
Second, we look for ways to serve. Simple ways. Doing things that others don’t want to do. And doing it without calling attention to ourselves. Doing it even if it doesn’t produce any results nobody notices.
Jesus did both of these things. He only did what he saw His Father doing, and he asked lots of questions. He washed feet. The omniscient One was a student and the omnipotent One was a servant.
Eugene Peterson points out in Christ plays in 10,000 places that Jesus’ final night with his disciples as recorded in John’s gospel begins with him kneeling before his friends and ends with him kneeling before his father. He washes their feet and then he prays for them.
This, I think, is the essence of Christian community.
Great question and observations. There is a lot of pressure in many circles to “make disciples.” I fear that in responding to pressure to produce growth and the multiplication of disciples, that people become projects instead of people. We can kneel before them and serve them – even without really loving them. Our service becomes a strategy instead of an act of love. Jesus served because that was His nature not his strategy.
Perhaps it is our western mindset but we still measure our effectiveness by how many people attend our church services and how rapidly that number increases – so we work to connect them to the church. We don’t measure how many discipling relationships are happening and we don’t measure kingdom growth in a region.
I think we have to continue lead people to be imitators of Christ – becoming servants – loving as He loved.
More and more I dislike the word ‘strategy’ in regards to ministry. However, in our own leadership here we require leaders to have a formal disciple-making strategy. The reason is that we want discipleship to be central to what leaders do.
Maybe it would be better to describe disciple-making as a spiritual discipline rather than a strategy.
Can you think of better ways to describe it?
I think Jesus had a strategy – I believe He looked for those who were hungry for more; taught them; gave them ministry experience; filled them with His Spirit and commissioned them to make disciples. His strategy flowed out of who He was – out of His relationship with the Father.
I think sometimes the strategy is more about tasks to be done rather than a life to be lived. Perhaps disciple-making as a spiritual discipline is a better way of looking at it. I like the concept.
Jesus could not, not make disciples. It was who He was. It seems that our relationship with the Father should be such that disciple-making is a lifestyle.
Strategy as tasks seems to be the problem. And when I talk about strategy its too easy to simply leave God out of the picture.
Recently I’ve had nonAmericans tell me that discipleship may be an American way of doing church, but it doesn’t work in Africa or Asia (I wish discipleship was so prevalent in America!). I’ve also had people say things like, ‘We tried disciple-making and it didn’t work’ as if discipleship was like being a Purpose Driven Church or some other church growth fad. And still others have said, ‘Discipleship is fine, but we need a strategy to grow the ministry so we have someone to disciple.’ This separates growth from discipleship.
Maybe there’s a difference between seeing discipleship as a strategy and having a strategy for discipleship.
I realize I’m extremely late in getting into this conversation…I just came across this blog. However, this is an extremely critical topic, in my opinion. I have some thoughts on it that I thought I would share. I agree; Jesus absolutely had a strategy. LOVE. My understanding of the Gospels and the message he preached in preparing the people for the establishment of His Church (Acts 2), was all about Relationships. Of course, first with God and then with others. This is exactly why the church was set up. However, that is not was stands out in our religious culture today. From what I’ve seen, there are certain aspects of ‘relationships’ that are expressed, for instance, “the Social” aspect. People who go to Church to have social connections, however, these relationships are shallow. Another one is “the Networking” aspect. People who go to Church to have Networking Connections. These relationships are self serving. But what about the “Correct, Rebuke and Encourage with great patience and careful instruction” aspect? These are the kinds of Relationships we DON’T see in Churches today. Not the way Acts 2:42-47 reveals to us. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” I think Northpointcc is absolutely correct by saying that “we still measure our effectiveness by how many people attend our church services and how rapidly that number increases – so we work to connect them to the church. We don’t measure how many discipling relationships are happening…”; so much so that churches and their leadership today forget about the individual and place more emphasis and strategy on how to grow rather than building great relationships and tying people into the Body of Christ. I can’t help but believe that the reason “God added to their number daily those who were being saved”, was because of the Relationships. Their strategy was LOVE. Everyday meeting together (not just Sunday Friends); They Gave to anyone as they had need (Selfless); Broke Bread in their homes and ate together (I think we miss the fact that Church wasn’t in a ‘mega-building’ with hundreds and thousands at a time getting lost, or even in a building at all…They broke bread in their homes…they worshiped and took communion in an intimate setting and ate together…This is the Relationship to one another that churches are missing. People visit church, there is an alter call, they approach all emotional, “pray Jesus into their hearts”, and then are processed into the church after service. I’m not trying to be offensive or a jerk, but this is what is happening today whether we want to admit it or not. The reason we are missing the “Relationship” aspect of what God designed is because we have drastically altered what it means to actually become a Christian. There is no true teaching on “Denying self”, taking up our Crosses or even being “Fishers of Men”. “Seeking First His Kingdom and his Righteousness”, is something I had never heard in church. If we get that, we get “Relationships”. And the reason I believe we get Relationships, is because “the Kingdom” is God’s Reign and His Reign is All about Relationships. True Godly Relationships taught to us by God through his Word.
Thanks for the observation, Jarrod. To paraphrase Paul, ‘We can have 5,000 people in church on Sunday morning, but without love it is nothing more than a crowd.’
As deliberate as we’ve been in trying to fill the pews and make the budget, we need to be even more deliberate in becoming a school of love.
Thanks for the reminder.
how can l have relationship in the church.
I thank the contributors for their thoughts and the vast show of knowledge and understanding they laid bare for us to learn from. Basically, there are two types of relationships that are found in the church: Spiritual relationship developed with the Father and social relationship developed among members of the church.
One of the relationship types look within and the other looks without. But one thing that is common to both is LOVE. It would be utterly impossible to develop any workable relationship with people when you do not have any love for them. Jesus demonstrated this basic truth when he laid down his life for the redemption of mankind.
The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13:1-8 noted that without love whatever we do in the church – prophecy, giving etc – become meaningless unless it is done in love. So in creating and maintaining relationships in the church, we need to let love flow through us naturally towards others. We must be concerned about the betterment of others as well. Jesus reminded us that we should love our neighbour as we love ourselves. Without this we would not please the Lord.
After all, all human beings are “social animals” which are expected to live in a social grouping or class. As such, the church is seen as a social grouping of different and various families coming together to promote a cause – the Kingdom of God. We need to show love and concern for other in order to realise our corporate church and Kingdom development goals.
Love would definitely turn an organization into an organism, and as you point out, love among us is not possible without the love of God. Organisms thrive when all the parts are working together and for one another. Thanks for the contribution!
What an interesting post. I think that we tend to see the church as a separate entity that needs relating to rather than a place for relationships to take place, as you mentioned. But the problem is then that we hierarchize all of our relationships as human beings–and if the relationship to/with church takes precedence over all other relationships, as Christians are often taught, then that explains how so many interpersonal relationships are neglected within church–we’re told that they’re simply not as important as the relationship we have to church. I think our teachings on and understanding of church need to be retooled–church is not an organizational entity, it’s a gathering place for the people of God.
It’s a general statement, but it appears many churches focus on getting new people ‘plugged in’ rather than helping them see ‘Here’s how Jesus makes us as a family different. Would you like to know Jesus in this way?’ It’s the relationship with Jesus that transforms our other relationships in the Body. It’s so easy to neglect the spiritual dimension, however, and just turn church into a Sunday morning event with club member activities throughout the week.