I’m discipling these two men is through weekly Bible reading meetings. This is how I do it:

-Every Wednesday night these guys come to my house to join in our Neighborhood Group with people from our church and neighborhood.

-I have the guys come 30 minutes early so the three of us can read the Bible together.

-Each week we read one paragraph of Scripture together and talk about it. Right now we’re reading Philippians because it’s the book I’m preaching through, it’s the book all of our Neighborhood Groups are studying, and because I think Philippians is a pivotal book to master for new believers.

-Each week I ask the guys two questions about the text: 1) What did this text mean in its original 1st century context? 2) What does this text mean for our lives today? As we work through these two questions I connect our thoughts to Jesus and the bigger storyline of Scripture.

-From 30 minutes of Bible reading and these two questions, we end up covering a ton of theological and practical ground. Last week’s study of Philippians 1:3-11 led to conversation about the Trinity, the second coming of Christ, how to pray, and God’s sovereignty and human responsibility.

Most believers have never been intentionally discipled and most believers have no clue how to go about discipling a new believer. The problem is that people don’t have a good understanding of what discipleship is. Here’s a definition we use:

Discipleship is truth transferred through relationship.

It’s that simple. What I’m doing with these two men on Wednesday nights is transferring truth through a meaningful relationship. I love these two men, and they know it. In relationship with them, I’m teaching them the truth, and at the center of that process, we’re learning how to read, rejoice in, and apply God’s Word.

This post originally appeared at JustinBuzzard.net.

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Justin Buzzard is founder and lead pastor of Garden City Church, a new church plant in Silicon Valley. Buzzard has been dating his wife for nine years and is the father of three young sons. He speaks widely, writes at JustinBuzzard.net, and earned an MDiv at Fuller Theological Seminary. He is the author of Consider Jesus and mostly recently Date Your Wife. Twitter @JustinBuzzard

Edwards explains that this happened in five seasons or “harvests” spread over Stoddard’s 60 years in ministry. Edwards tells us exactly when they happened:

Harvest one erupts, and many are saved… Four years pass… Harvest two comes, and a great number of people are converted… Thirteen years pass… Harvest three happens, many come to know Christ… Sixteen years pass… Harvest four comes about, people flock to faith in Jesus… Six years pass… Harvest five errupts, and many are saved.

Years passed - sometimes more than a decade - between the times in which this church saw God bless them with great seasons of numerical growth by conversion. This great man of God pastored in the same place for nearly 60 years, pouring his life out for the sake of Jesus, working hard to make disciples, and was blessed to see amazing things.

We like to talk about those periods when growth is happening. It’s exciting. It’s energizing. We love to tell stories of churches that are seeing many people coming to faith. New services are started. Locations are multiplied. Baptisms are happening. But my question is: what about the seasons in between? What was happening in Stoddard’s congregation then?

For every harvest there must be a sowing. When you add up the numbers, for 39 of his 60 years in ministry Solomon Stoddard didn’t see extraordinary growth. To be sure, people came to faith. Undoubtedly, the Spirit of God was at work. But, by most standards today (at least those we use in the American Church), Solomon Stoddard wasn’t much of a success.

At the heart of his ministry is a quality that is unfortunately all but forgotten by many: faithfulness. If Stoddard had been evaluated today, he might have been told to give up. To reevaluate his call. To change things up, try something new, adopt another strategy. Why? Because we are so tempted to trade the call to faithfulness for the allure of success. It is not sexy or glamorous to spend decades faithfully preaching the Word of God, investing your life in the people God has entrusted to you while seeing very little visible fruit.

But for a true harvest to come, there must be seed sown. Cared for. Watered. Tended to. Protected. Nourished. It is only after this hard work of faithful care has been done that a lasting harvest can come.

My prayer today is that God would give us the long view of ministry, and that our desire would be to give our lives in faithful service – trusting God to bring a tremendous harvest!

Bill Streger serves as the Lead Pastor of Kaleo Church, an Acts 29 Network church in Houston, TX. Born and raised in Houston, he attended Houston Baptist University and is currently pursuing his M.Div. from Reformed Baptist Seminary. Bill is a husband to Shannon, daddy to Mirabelle and Levi, and a life-long Houston Rockets fan. Twitter @billstreger

Answering the Question Socially

When people of other faiths rival Christian character, we face a tendency to affirm all religions as valid ways to God. We make a theological decision based on social experience. Rather than investigate the answer to one of the most important questions, we prefer to glaze the question with inch-deep reflections upon the character of people we meet. Understandable but not wise.

What if we became known for not only posing great questions but also grappling deeply and sincerely with great answers? Many Christians claim that belief in Jesus is the only way to God. Others insist there are many ways to God, a view popularly called religious pluralism (academic religious pluralism advocates inter religious dialog not that all religions lead to the same God. Here we will deal with religious pluralism in its popular form). Let’s examine the claims of religious pluralism.

Over the past five years in Austin, Texas (a case study city for Harvard’s Pluralism Project), I have had the opportunity to meet, know, and talk with both Christian and non-Christian pluralists. As I have reflected on these conversations, it seems that there are at least three reasons people embrace religious pluralism. They believe it to be more enlightened, humble, and tolerant. Let’s examine each of these reasons more closely.

Is Religious Pluralism Enlightened?

Is the belief that all religious paths lead to the same God more enlightened or educated? Comparatively, each religion teaches very different things about who God is and how humans reach the divine. In fact, there is a lot of disagreement between the religions regarding the nature of God. Buddhism, for example, doesn’t believe in God. Islam teaches an impersonal monotheism, Allah. The Koran states that God reveals His will, but not His person. Christianity teaches a personal trinitarianism, where God is three persons in relationship, Father-Son-Spirit that can be known and enjoyed. Hinduism varies on this question, ranging from polytheism to atheism. This is due to the absence of definitive revelation to clarify Hindu “theology.” Instead, Hinduism has multiple sources of revelation (Upanishads, Vedas, etc.)  Contrary to Islam, Hinduism has no presuppositions about the nature of God. In short, religious views of God differ. If so, it would seem far from “enlightened” to claim that all religions lead to the same God, when their views of God are, in fact, radically different. This claim of religious pluralism contradicts the tenants of the religions themselves.

Religions not only teach different things about who God is but also how we “reach him.” Buddhism suggests the 8-fold Noble Path, Islam the 5 Pillars (Shahadah, Prayer, Fasting, Charity, Pilgrimage) and Christianity the gospel of Jesus. Therefore, to say that all religions lead to God is not only unenlightened it is inaccurate. This is the thesis of Stephen Prothero, Boston College professor, in his book God is not One. He writes:

And it is comforting to pretend that the great religions make up one big, happy family. But this sentiment, however well-intentioned, is neither accurate nor ethically responsible. God is not one.

Prothero goes on to point out that just as God is not one, so also all religions are not one. They are distinct and make very different claims about God and how to reach him. In light of what we have observed regarding what religions teach about the nature of God and how to reach him, religious pluralism must be reconsidered. Subscribing to religious pluralism because it is more enlightened or a more “educated” view of world religions is not only unenlightened but also inaccurate.

Is Religious Pluralism More Humble?

Despite very clear differences on the nature of God and human access to the divine, religious pluralists continue to insist that there are many ways to God. Why would educated people persist in an inaccurate view of other religions? One major reason is because they believe it to be an act of humility and love. Very often I hear people say: “Who am I to judge someone else’s religion, to tell them that they are wrong?” This implies, of course, that maintaining Jesus is the only way to God is arrogant. I’ll be the first to admit there are arrogant Christians who rudely insist that Jesus is the only way to God. I’d like to apologize for those kinds of Christians. Arrogant insistence on your beliefs actually runs counter to the life and teachings of Jesus. However, just because someone is arrogant doesn’t make him or her wrong.

People are arrogantly right about all kinds of things—Math, Science, Religion. You probably work with someone like this. (Dwight Schrute?) The arrogantly right person always talk down to others with an air of arrogance because they have the right answer. It might not be nice, but it doesn’t mean they are wrong.

For all the Christians who are arrogant about Jesus’ exclusive claims, there are many more who have ardently searched religions, compared their claims, and humbly come the conclusion that Jesus was telling the truth, that personal faith in the Messiah is the only way to God. This doesn’t make them arrogant; it makes them authentic. They are willing to stand by what they discovered to be true. Insisting on what is true doesn’t automatically make you arrogant. There are both humble and arrogant ways to insist on Jesus’ claim that he is the only way to God. After all, it is Jesus who said it, and Jesus was quintessentially humble, especially if he is who he said he was. By contrast, religious pluralism exclusively insists that its view—all ways lead to God—is true while all other religions are false in their exclusive teachings.

When religious pluralism claims that there are many ways to God, it is not humble. It actually carries an air of arrogance about it. How? Religious pluralism insists that its view—all ways lead to God—is true while all other religions are false in their exclusive teachings. Religious pluralism dogmatically insists on its exclusive claim, namely that all roads lead to God. The problem, as we have seen, is that this claim directly contradicts many religions like Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity. The claim of the religious pluralist is arrogant because it enforces its own belief on others. It says to other religions: “You must believe what I believe, not what you believe. Your way isn’t right, in fact all of your ways are wrong and my way is right. There isn’t just one way to God (insert your religion); there are many ways. You are wrong and I am right.” This can be incredibly arrogant, particularly if the person saying this hasn’t studied all the world religions in depth and makes a blind assertion. Upon what basis can the religious pluralist make this exclusive claim? Where is the proof that this is true? To what ancient Scriptures, traditions, and careful reasoning can they point? The lack of historical and rational support for religious pluralism makes it a highly untenable view of the world and its religions.

Is Religious Pluralism Truly Tolerant?

Very often people hold to religious pluralism because they think it is more tolerant than Christianity. I’ll be the first to say that we need tolerance, but what does it mean to be tolerant? To be tolerant is to accommodate differences, which can be very noble. I believe that Christians should be some of the most accommodating kinds of people, giving everyone the dignity to believe whatever they want and not enforcing their beliefs on others. We should winsomely tolerate different beliefs. Interestingly, religious pluralism doesn’t really allow for this kind of tolerance. Instead of accommodating spiritual differences, religious pluralism blunts them. Let me explain.

The claim that all paths lead to the same God actually minimizes other religions by asserting a new religious claim. When someone says all paths lead to the same God, they blunt the distinctions between religions, throwing them all in one pot, saying: “See, they all get us to God so the differences don’t really matter.” This isn’t tolerance; it’s a power play. When asserting all religions lead to God, the distinctive and very different views of God and how to reach the divine in Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam are brushed aside in one powerful swoop. The Eightfold Noble Path, the 5 Pillars of Islam, and the Gospel of Christ are not tolerated but told they must submit to a new religious claim–religious pluralism–despite the fact that this isn’t what those religions teach. When it does this, religious pluralism places itself on top of all other religions.

The Religion of Religious Pluralism

People spend years studying and practicing their religious distinctions. To say they don’t really matter is highly intolerant! The very notion of religious tolerance assumes there are differences to tolerate, but pluralism is intolerant of those very differences! In this sense, religious pluralism is a religion of its own. It has its own religious absolute—all paths lead to the same God—and requires people of other faiths to embrace this absolute, without any religious backing at all. This is highly evangelistic. Religious pluralism  is preachy but under the guise of tolerance. In the end, it is a step of faith to say there are many paths to God. Says who? The idea that all paths lead to the same God is not a self-evident fact; it is a leap of faith. It isn’t even an educated leap, nor is it as humble and tolerant as it might appear.

Here is Stephen Prothero’s response to this tenant of religious pluralism:

Faith in the unity of religions is just that—faith (perhaps even a kind of fundamentalism). And the leap that gets us there is an act of the hyperactive imagination.

As it turns out, each of the reasons for subscribing to religious pluralism—enlightenment, humility, and tolerance—all backfire. They don’t carry through. Religious pluralism isn’t enlightened, it’s inaccurate; it isn’t humble, it’s fiercely dogmatic; and it isn’t really all that tolerant because it intolerantly blunts religious distinctions. In the end, religious pluralism is a religion, a leap of faith, based on contradiction and is highly untenable. Christianity, on the other hand, respects and honors the various distinctions of other religions, comparing them, and honoring their differing principles–Karma (Hinduism), Enlightenment (Buddhism), Submission (Islam), and Grace (Christianity). As we conclude, let’s explore Jesus’ exclusive claim that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life as well as the charge that his teachings in Christianity are arrogant, unenlightened, and intolerant. In particular, we will examine the unique principle of grace.

Christ Teaches Us Humility

First, Jesus is the Way. What does this mean? Does it mean that Jesus is our trailblazer, clearing the other religious options aside so we can hike our way to heaven through spiritual or moral improvement. If I keep the Ten Commandments, if I serve the poor and love my neighbor, if I pray and read the Bible enough, then God will accept me. No. As the way, Jesus doesn’t create a path for us to hike. We can never make it—do enough spiritual, moral, or social good to impress God. Much less love him with all our soul, mind, and strength. We can’t make it up the path. We all fail to love and serve the infinitely admirable and lovable God. In fact, we love other things more, that’s a crime of infinite proportions. It’s against an infinite God. The sentence for our crime must be carried out.

When Jesus takes the arduous hike for us he goes down into the valley where the criminals die. He hikes down into our sin, our rebellion, our failures and he heaps them all on his back and climbs on a cross, where he is punished for our crime, a bloody gruesome death. The innocent punished for the guilty. If he doesn’t take our punishment, then we must endure it—forever separation from God. If you reject Jesus, then you will pay the infinite consequences. However, if you embrace Jesus in his sin-absorbing death you get forgiveness, and Jesus hikes not only through the valley but up the mountain to carry your forgiveness to God, where he pleads our innocence (Hebrews 10). This is what it means for Jesus to be the way. He hikes into the valley of our just punishment and up the mountain for our forgiveness. He is the redemptive way. He takes our place. This understanding of Jesus as the way should make us incredibly humble not arrogant. We realize how undeserving we are and how much mercy we have been shown.

Christ Enlightens Us

Jesus is also the Truth. What does that mean? In John chapter 1, we are told that God became flesh and was full of grace and truth in Jesus. The truth is that God is Jesus. Christianity is the only religion where God is born as a man, becomes fully human. This is the height of enlightenment. All other religions teach that humans must work their way toward divinity. The truth is Jesus. The truth is a person who dies in our place, for our crimes, and in turn gives us his life. The truth is that God works his way down to humanity and dies for us. That’s grace. See, the truth isn’t a special prayer or code word we say at the pearly gates. In Christianity, the truth is essentially revealed in a Person, Jesus, full of grace and humility. All other religions God is impersonal, but in Christianity we meet God in Jesus. The truth is a Person who dies for us. Wonderfully enlightened, moving.

Christ Guides Us to Persuasive Tolerance

Finally, Jesus is the Life. As if it wasn’t enough to be our way, incredibly humbling, and the truth, truly enlightening, Jesus caps it off by offering us not just his death but his life. What life? Later on in John, Jesus says he is the resurrection and the life, and that whoever believes in him, though he die yet he will live (11:25). He goes down into the valley to take our death, and rises up from the dead to up the other side of the valley where he prepares a new place for us to enjoy life with him forever. The hope of Christ’s life should break into the lives of Christians today, making us persuasively tolerant. We tolerantly extend people the dignity of their own beliefs. We don’t minimize the differences between religions. We honor them. The life of Christ produces in us true humility. But it also produces in us true enlightenment. We’ve come to grasp grace, that God works his way down to us, dies for our moral and religious failures, and offers us life. If this is true, we must lovingly, humbly try to persuade others to believe in Jesus—who alone offers the wonderful promise of the way to God, the truth of God, and life of God.

In the end, it doesn’t matter how nice or moral a person is because there is not enough niceness or morality to pay for our rejection of God. Either we must be rejected or we turn to Jesus who was rejected for us. This is the heart of the gospel. Jesus lays down his own life for those who reject him, for his enemies, for those who don’t believe in him, and offers them forgiveness. Why would we reject such a man?—such a God? Jesus’ claims are better than the claims of religious pluralism. Christianity delivers where pluralism cannot. Instead of being unenlightened, Jesus is truly enlightening. He is God—full of grace and truth. Instead of being arrogant, Jesus should make us incredibly humble. He created the way to God for us at the expense of his own death. Finally, instead of being intolerant, Jesus should make us persuasively tolerant, granting people the dignity of unbelief but pleading with them to accept true life!

We all have a choice—where to place our faith. Will we place it in unenlightened, dogmatic, and intolerant pluralism? Or will we place it in Jesus, who is the incredibly humbling way, the enlightening truth, and the persuasively tolerant life? Both require faith. In The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, Leslie Newbigin wrote: “Doubt is not autonomous.” We can’t rely on doubt alone. We can’t doubt one thing without placing our faith in another. We can doubt Jesus and trust pluralism, or we can trust Jesus and doubt pluralism. We cannot say, “I believe Jesus is the only way,” and also say, “I believe all religions lead to God.” Ask yourself, will you place faith in Jesus who is the way, truth, and life? Or, will you place your faith in religious pluralism?

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Jonathan Dodson (M.Div, Th.M) is happy husband to Robie, and proud father to Owen, Ellie & Rosamund. He is also the lead pastor of Austin City Life church and directional leader for PlantR and Gospel Centered Discipleship.com. Jonathan is also the author of Gospel-Centered Discipleship (Crossway, 2012). He blogs at jonathandodson.org, enjoys listening to M. Ward, watching sci-fi, and following Jesus. Twitter @Jonathan_Dodson

Luke has some helpful insights about discipleship. The first eight chapters are focused on “who is Jesus?” But there’s a shift in chapter 9, where Peter with the help of the Holy Spirit realizes that Jesus is not one more in a succession of prophets and teachers. Peter says, “You are the Christ of God” – you are the Messiah, the one who is bringing the ruling power of God back into the world to heal and repair all the brokenness—whether it’s spiritual, psychological, social, or physical.

From the time Jesus’ identity is revealed, he begins to say, “Follow me.” If he is who he says he is, what does it mean to follow him? Being a disciple of Jesus Christ means setting a new priority, finding a new identity, and living a new mercy. All three are critical; they all fit together. Let’s look at them.

Setting a New Priority

Being a disciple means setting a new priority. In Luke 9:57–62 Jesus meets three eager men, all willing to follow him. Jesus’ responses to them are surprisingly blunt.

The first man says, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus says, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” It’s as if Jesus is saying, “There’s nothing wrong with what you just said, but I discern a wrong attitude underneath your statement. Do you know what kind of Savior I am? I’m not the kind that rallies constituents, pulls together armies, and then triumphs. I am a Savior who saves through being condemned, through dying, through giving my heart to be broken. Let’s apply this to one area of your life: I see that you have a home, a nice standard of living. Are you willing to put me before that? Are you willing to lose those things for me?”

Then Jesus addresses two other men, similarly concerned with their families. One says, “I’d love to come with you, but first I have to bury my father.” The other says, “First let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” There is nothing wrong with having a funeral for your father or going back to see your family, but behind these requests Jesus sees a wrong attitude of heart. He’s saying, “I know you. For you specifically to go to your father’s funeral—or back home—would be a bad idea. I must come first.” Notice their language. In both cases they say, “Lord, first, let me do this.” Jesus says there can’t be any but first. “I must be your first priority.” That’s what he means when he says: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Anyone who plows a field must be completely focused on plowing. And following Jesus is no different, “My disciple has to be utterly focused on me.” By the way, “fit for the kingdom” is an unfortunate translation; the word there means “useful.” You might think he’s saying, “Unless you’re totally committed, you don’t qualify for my kingdom.” Of course no one qualifies for Jesus’ kingdom. It’s all by grace. He’s saying: Unless delighting Jesus, resembling him, serving him, and knowing him is your highest priority, the healing power of the kingdom of God will not be flowing through you. You will not be a useful vehicle for it.

The second and more cryptic line is, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” Obviously physically dead people can’t dig graves, so the first noun must refer to the spiritually dead. To be spiritually dead means to be as blind and insensitive to spiritual reality as a physical body is to physical reality. You may be saying, “Well, I believe in Jesus, but I can’t put him first right now. I’ve got my career; I’ve got to wait till my parents die, because they would be unhappy if I became a Christian . . . I see who he is and what he’s done, but I’m not going to put him first just yet. Someday I will.” When someone says, “I understand Christianity. I’m just not ready to put it at the central place in my life,” then that person really doesn’t understand it yet! Jesus says: Putting anything before me reveals spiritual deadness. Let the dead bury their dead. If you put your father before me, there’s a spiritual deadness in your life.

Talking this harshly is not my style, but I’m afraid to mute the smelling–salts-ness of Jesus’ message: Let the dead bury the dead! No one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God! Foxes have holes, birds have nests . . . But “I have to be the first priority in your life, or you’re not a disciple; if you don’t put me first in your life, it’s not that you’re just uncommitted or lazy, disorganized or undisciplined. No, you just don’t get it! You don’t really see who I am and what I’ve done; you don’t understand the meaning of my life and work. You need to wake up!”

Let me illustrate. In 1971 I heard a talk—two illustrations—that changed my life. The woman who gave the talk, named Barbara Boyd, said, “If somebody says to me, ‘Come on in, Barbara, but stay out, Boyd,’ it’s a bit of a problem, because I can’t separate them. It’s not like the top half of me is Barbara, and the bottom half of me is Boyd. So if you won’t have Boyd, you can’t get Barbara. If you’re going to keep the Boyd out, I can’t come in at all!” She continued: “To say, ‘Jesus, come into my life, forgive my sins, answer my prayers; do this for me, do that for me—but don’t be the absolute master of my life; Jesus, Savior, come in; but Lord, stay out,’ how can he come in at all? Because he’s all Savior, and he’s all Lord. He’s Lord because he’s Savior. He’s Savior because he’s Lord.”

I remember her second illustration: “If the distance between the Earth and the sun, which is 92 million miles, was the thickness of a piece of paper, the diameter of our galaxy would be a stack of papers 310 miles high. And our galaxy is less than a speck of dust in the part of the universe that we can see. And that part of the universe might just be a speck of dust compared to all the universe. And if Jesus is the Son of God who holds all this together with the power of his word, is this the kind of person you ask into your life to be your personal assistant?” Then she asked us all to go outside and for one hour say nothing. “Just think about what this means to you.”

She was expanding on Jesus’ message:  If you intellectually assent, “Yes, I think Jesus is probably the Son of God; I think he probably died for our sins,” but he is not the center of your life, then you may think you understand, but you really don’t. It’s not just a matter of commitment or lack of discipline, there’s spiritual deadness; you don’t really see it, understand it, get it. Wake yourself up!

Finding a New Identity

Discipleship is not just a matter of bending your will to Jesus’ will; it’s melting your heart into a whole new shape. A disciple is not someone who simply sets a new priority; a disciple finds a new identity. We see this in Luke 9:23–25. At first sight verse 23 looks like it’s just another way of saying set a new priority: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” But there’s more to it than that. In Semitic literature, the second and third sentences often restate the first. And here the second and third sentences say, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for me will save it.” The word life is not the word for physical life. There’s a good Greek word for that: bios, from which we get our word biology. The Greek word that’s translated “life” here is psyche, meaning “self.” He’s talking—pretty radically—about the psychological, inner life. “Your old way of having an identity, of gaining a sense of self, has got to end. In a sense you have to die to it. And I can give you a whole new identity. You’ll get a whole new true self.”

Let’s look at this more closely. Verses 24 and 25 show what he’s not saying. He’s not taking the typical Eastern or Western approach to identity. In Buddhism the deepest consciousness of enlightenment is losing all sense that you are an individual self. The boundaries between you and the rest of reality disappear. The Eastern way to humility, to peace, is to actually lose the sense of an individual self.

But Jesus doesn’t stop at, “I want you to lose yourself.” He says, “Lose yourself to find yourself,” which means, “I want you to die to your old approach to identity, and get a new sense of individual self.” He’s not going the Eastern way. But he’s sure not going the Western way either.

W. H. Auden wrote a work called The Age of Anxiety in which he satirizes the modern Western obsession with “finding yourself.” In it there’s a great line that reads: “Miserable wicked me, / How interesting I am.” Others have also noted our obsession with finding and fulfilling your deepest desires as the main thing you’re supposed to do in life. It almost seems that Jesus has us in mind when he says, “You’re never going to find out who you really are by trying to find out who you really are. You’re going to have to lose yourself in serving me.” Some things happen only as a byproduct, and identity is one of them.

“What good is it for a man to gain the whole world?” (9:25). Gaining things from the world is the normal way we try to get a self. In fact, the three men at the end of Luke 9 are examples of this. Some people say you’re nobody unless you have a lucrative career. People in more traditional cultures say you’re nobody unless you have a family. But Jesus is saying, “If you get the whole world, it cannot give you a stable self.” He says, “If you lose yourself for me . . .” In other words, “Instead of trying to gain a self by gaining things, build everything in your life on me, on who I am, on what I have done, then finally you’ll have a true self that is stable, because you were built to know me.”

A disciple is not only someone who has set a new priority, but someone whose entire identity has been reshaped and forged. But how is that possible?

Living a New Mercy

The key to setting a new priority and finding a new identity is in living a new mercy. And this is also evident in Luke 9. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and, it says in verse 52, “He sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him.” They rejected him. “When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?’”

Let’s try to understand them. Remember that there was a prophet, named Elijah, who called down fire upon some soldiers who were seeking to arrest him. And on the Mount of Transfiguration, Jesus had appeared—to James and John—with Elijah and Moses. The message of the Transfiguration (Luke 9:28–36) was that Jesus was even greater than Moses and Elijah.

So think of the logic of the disciples: You’re greater than Elijah. These people have rejected you, and that’s even worse than rejecting Elijah. That adds even more effrontery to the godhead. Shall we not bring down fire and destroy them?

This would be the kind of prophet the world can relate to. But Jesus Christ doesn’t rebuke the unbelieving Samaritans; he rebukes the disciples! He is the absolute un-Elijah. Can you imagine their continued perplexity if they still believe he’s greater than Elijah? The soldiers come after Jesus to kill him—in the Garden—and what does he do? He heals an ear that was cut during a skirmish. Later on, the soldiers are pounding nails into his hands, and what does he say? Father, forgive them; they really don’t understand what they’re doing.

Why doesn’t fire come down on the Samaritans? On the soldiers? The answer comes in Luke 12, where Jesus says, “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.” That’s very interesting for two reasons. One is that fire, in biblical imagery, always means the judgment of God. Second, he says he comes to bring fire on the earth! This is perplexing because, after all, he has just rejected Elijah’s fiery approach. Ah! Semitic literature: the second sentence is a restatement of the first; this is what he actually says, in Luke 12:49–50: “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!” He’s already been baptized with water, so he’s clearly talking about something else. “I’ve come to bring fire. How constrained I am until it’s completed. I have come to undergo a baptism, how crushed I am until it’s over.” Why didn’t the fire come down on the Samaritans or later on the soldiers? Because the fire came down on him. He was baptized. He was the one immersed in the judgment of God. He got what we deserved. This is the answer to all the riddles.

Look back over the years, and you will see that when people want to atone for their sins and be forgiven, they put a sacrifice on the altar and burn it with fire. There’s something inside us that intuitively says, “That can’t be enough to put away sins.” That’s right. All those fires were pointing to this fire. It didn’t come down on the Samaritans or the soldiers, because it came down  on Jesus Christ. He came to take it. He came to bear it. Luke 9:22 says, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected . . . and on the third day be raised to life.” They rejected him; shouldn’t they be rejected? He’s rejected for them. The Son of Man came to be rejected and to be killed. This is the secret to the change of identity. You have to be melted and amazed and astounded that he took the fire, the punishment, for you. And that’s the key to everything else.

Here’s the reason: You cannot change your identity without a radical experience of mercy; without a radical experience of grace; without a radical experience of love.

I’ve heard people say, “You’re right. I probably should change my identity, build my identity on God.” But you can’t change your identity by just deciding. It’s not an act of the will. A person can’t just say, “You know, I’m having a problem in my life because I built my identity on my parents’ expectations. I think I’ll build my identity on my career and accomplishments.” You can’t do that! That’s not transformation; that’s acting. Your heart is not a computer in which you can just install a program. There’s only one way that the root of your personality can be changed, and that is by an experience of love. Only when your heart experiences love from a new source beyond anything it’s ever known before will your heart start to move toward that source, and begin to be deeply changed.

Thomas Chalmers, the well-known Scottish preacher, in his famous sermon, “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection,” says it all: Seldom do any of our habits or flaws disappear by a process of extinction through reasoning or “by the mere force of mental determination.” Reason and willpower are not enough. “But what cannot be destroyed may be dispossessed… The only way to dispossess [the heart] of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one.” A young man, for example, may “cease to idolize pleasure, but it is only because the idol of wealth has become the stronger and gotten the ascendancy,” and is enabling him to discipline himself for prosperous business. “Even the love of money ceases to have the mastery over the heart” if it’s drawn into another world of ideology and politics, “and he is now lorded over by the love of power.” But “there is not one of these [identity] transformations in which the heart is left without an object. Its desire for one particular object may be conquered, but . . . its desire for having some one object” of absolute love “is unconquerable.” It is only when admitted “into the number of God’s children through the faith that is in Jesus Christ [that] the spirit of adoption is poured out upon us. It is then that the heart, brought under the mastery of one great and predominate affection, is delivered from the tyranny of its former desires, in the only way that deliverance is possible.” So it isn’t enough to hold out a “mirror of its imperfections” to your soul. It’s not enough to lecture your conscience. Rather, you must “try every legitimate method of finding access to your hearts for the love of him who is greater than the world.”

Until you’re melted by the amazing sight, knowledge, and sense of Jesus taking the fire for you, you can’t have that transformation of identity. You can’t just decide, “I think I’m going to change my identity.” It can’t be done. It has to be an experience of love.

Jesus is saying that your career can’t buy it for you. Even the best parents can’t give it to you. “Don’t give the title deed of your heart to anyone but me. Don’t have any other master but me, because I’m the only one that will never leave you, and if you fail me, will forgive you.”

So you have to have all three. There must be an experience of this new, radical mercy, which leads you to find a new identity, which in turn helps you set a new priority.

Being a Disciple

Notice three practical things about being a disciple. First, discipleship is not an option. Jesus says that if anyone would come after me, he must follow me. If you want to come after me—it’s a general term—if you want to have any experience of me, any relationship with me, you have to be a disciple. There are not two kinds of Christians: regular Christians and people who are really disciples. There’s only one: to be a Christian is to be a disciple. To have anything to do with me is to follow me in the way I define it: setting a new priority, finding a new identity, experiencing living out of a new mercy.

Second, having said that it’s not an option—on the other hand, it is a journey. It’s rhetorically brilliant of Luke to note this. In verse 51 Jesus sets out on a journey toward Jerusalem. It’s Jesus’ journey of discipleship, “He sets his face to go to Jerusalem.” And it’s from the moment he begins his journey toward the cross that he begins all his teaching about discipleship. All the next nine chapters, all the teaching on discipleship, comes as he’s going on a journey. This is Luke’s way of saying that discipleship is a journey. In other words, on the one hand, there is a decisive point. You have to leave. Have you left? To go on the journey means saying, “I take my hands off my life.” To go on the journey means saying, “I give up my right to self-determination.” To go on the journey means saying, “I will obey you, Lord, and I’ll get rid of all the if’s. Not “I’ll obey you if,” but obey. Period. I drop my conditions. I drop the if’s; they’re gone!” Not until you say that have you begun the journey. However, after your decisive beginning, the fact remains that it’s a journey. It’s a process that takes time. You’re not going to have it all together. It’s very important to keep that in mind, because if you think that discipleship is the way you’re saved—that by being committed and focused and giving Jesus the priority you’re going to please God and that will get you saved—you’re missing the point. Look at the order. He doesn’t say, “If you follow me, I’ll go to the cross for you.” He says, “I’m going to the cross for you, so follow me.” You’re not saved because you’re a disciple; you’re a disciple if and only if you understand what he has done to save you.

There is one last thing. The sign of true, growing, gospel disciples is their gentleness. What really amazes me about the heart of this passage is that the disciples say, “We’re going to show you how intensely committed we are to you. Look at those people rejecting you. Don’t you want us to bring fire down on them?!” And what does Jesus say? “You don’t get it.” And here’s why.

My experience is that committed disciples of any religion, philosophy, or political cause are hard on themselves and on other people too. They’re committed to the cause, so why aren’t you committed to the cause? You should all be committed to the cause; what’s the matter with you? But the gospel is utterly different. The harder you are on yourself and the gospel, the easier you are on other people. Jesus Christ is saying: My disciples are not terrorists. My disciples know they’re saved by grace, so when they look at people who aren’t doing it right, they don’t say, “Why aren’t you as good as we are? Why aren’t you as committed as we are?” They don’t call fire down from heaven. Jesus says to his disciples: You don’t understand yet. You haven’t had the transformation of identity, because you don’t yet understand my mercy. You don’t know what I’ve done for you, because as yet you can’t, but someday you will. These disciples are probably racist; notice this: they’re calling down fire on the half-breed Samaritans. A lot of Israelites have done a lot of things to reject Jesus, but this is the first time any of his followers wanted fire to come down. Perhaps there’s racism; there’s definitely self-righteousness. Superiority, bigotry, stridency, harshness—they go away, the more you become a disciple. They go away as you become aware that Jesus took the fire for you, as it becomes more central in your heart. And that’s a sign that you’re not just trying to save yourself, not just being religious.

Are you becoming more gentle? More tolerant? More gracious with people around you? More kind? Follow Jesus. He’ll give you what you need. He’s a wonderful counselor. One guy comes and says, “I’m ready to follow you wherever you go.” Jesus says, “Go home and think about it.” Another guy says, “I want to go home and think about it.” Jesus says, “Follow me.” Why? Because he’s the perfect counselor. All other counseling theories look flat next to his, because he never gives you a template. He gives you exactly what you need. Follow him, and he will love you singularly. He will love the real you, and love you into a whole new identity. He will give you exactly what you need.

—

This is a sermon by Timothy Keller given February 9, 2003, at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York. Edited and transcribed by the C.S. Lewis Institute. All rights reserved. Reprinted here with permission. – Ben Roberts, GCD Editor-in-Chief

Timothy Keller is the founding pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he started in 1989 with his wife, Kathy, and three young sons.  For over twenty years he has led a diverse congregation of young professionals that has grown to a weekly attendance of over 5,000. Dr. Keller’s books, including the New York Times bestselling The Reason for God and The Prodigal God, have sold over 1 million copies and been translated into 15 languages.

To sum up, the life of the Christian is one of continual repentance and belief, without which we slip into a boss/employee, earn/wage, work/rights relationship with our God.

It then becomes the loving responsibility for each of us to run gospel diagnostics to determine whether or not what motivates our heart and lives is “in step” with the gospel (Gal. 2:14).

Here are twenty gospel questions to ask ourselves:

(1) What is my greatest nightmare? What do I worry about most?

(2) What, if I failed or lost it, would cause me to feel that I did not even want to live? What keeps me going?


(3) What do I rely on to comfort myself when things go bad or get difficult?

(4) What do I think about most easily? Where does my mind go to when I am free? What pre-occupies me?

(5) What prayer, unanswered, would make me seriously think about turning away from God?

(6) What makes me feel the most self-worth? What am I the proudest of?

(
7) What do I really want and expect out of life? What would really make me happy?

(8) What position of authority do I desire to give me a sense of power?

(
9) Whose opinion of me do I hold so dear that if lost I would be undone?

(10) What type of financial loss or gain would change my sense of security?

(11) What one criticism would cause me to respond in anger (wife, children, work, ministry, family, friends, etc.)? What am I most touchy about when brought to my attention?

(12) If I had ______________, then I’d be truly happy and feel as if my life has meaning and value.

(
13) If I lost ______________, I would be undone.


(14) I’m impatient because I’m ____________.

(15) I’m critical because I’m _____________.

(16) I’m angry because I’m _____________.


(17) I’m unhappy because I’m ____________.

(18) I’m in despair because I’m ____________.

(19) I have hope because I’m ___________.

(20) I feel worthy because I’m ___________.

These are only a few questions to help us be truthful with ourselves about the gospel. There is no benefit answering these questions with the “right” answers at the expense of the “true” answers (how we really feel and think).

It is only when the “true” answers come to light that the “right” answers will have any power.

We must spend time excavating our idols by asking these questions. When we sin, we do so because some idol has promised us power, prestige, influence, joy, peace, satisfaction, security, pleasure, etc. – that is far more attractive than Christ at the moment. We don’t sin with a gun held to our heads. We sin willingly because it is overwhelmingly appealing.

We need to discover why sins are so appealing by asking these questions and then remind ourselves that idols:

• are weak 
- can’t deliver when you succeed
• can only raise the bar
• 
can’t forgive when you fail
• will only condemn you
• are harmful to you and to others
• hurt you spiritually, emotionally, and physically
• 
hurt others by undermining your ability to love
• 
are grievous to God

By pursuing this idol you are saying to God, “Jesus is not enough. I also need ______ to be happy.”

Our daily struggle is to realign ourselves with the truth of the gospel, to discover new ways to surrender our trust to Christ and grow.

—

David Fairchild was the co-founder and preaching elder of Kaleo Church in San Diego and now serves as the Lead Pastor of Mars Hill West Seattle as well as a founding member of The GCM Collective. He currently lives in Seattle with his wife, Grace, and their two children, Michael and Madison.

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m an overprotective parent. I have a tendency to overdo it and obsess over the little things that don’t really matter. I guess that’s why I was intrigued by TIME magazine’s cover story a couple of years ago, “The Case Against Over-Parenting: Why Mom and Dad Need to Cut the Strings.”

Nancy Gibbs begins her article with these provocative words: “The insanity crept up on us slowly: we just wanted the best for our kids.”

Ironically, a good desire has led many parents to become obsessed with their kids’ safety and success. Gibbs calls them “helicopter parents” as they hover over their children’s lives from the classroom to the ball field protecting them and pushing them to succeed.

The result? By worrying about the wrong things, Gibbs says, “we do actual damage to our children, raising them to be anxious and unadventurous.” (Pediatricians have also found that this hurried lifestyle of constant pressure and stress can contribute to health problems like childhood obesity and depression).

So what’s the solution? Well, if the problem was simply hovering over our children’s lives, the solution would be to simply back off and lighten up. And there’s some truth to that! But the problem goes much deeper.

The problem is that we are afraid. If our greatest aim as parents is to protect our children and prepare them to receive some kind of academic or athletic recognition, than most likely we are parenting out of fear. Why? Because deep down we’re scared if they don’t succeed. We feel like we’ve failed as parents. So we work hard to prepare our children to make the grade or make the team so we would look good. It’s like our children are little trophies that we, as Paul Tripp says, “secretly want to display on the mantels of our lives as visible testimonies to a job well done” (Age of Opportunity, p.35).

If we were honest, we would admit that much of our parenting is motivated by fear. That’s what keeps us from lightening up and letting go of the reins. And what’s more, as Christians we spend so much time protecting our children from the world that we fail to prepare them to make a difference in this world. Biblical parenting, however, pictures parents as courageous warriors getting ready to release their children into battle. Psalm 127:4 says:

Like arrows in the hand of a warrior so are the children of one’s youth.

Arrows were made to fly. They can’t sit safely in the quiver or rest on the bow forever. They must be released! That’s what our preparation is ultimately for–to release our children into this world equipped with the gospel of Jesus Christ to serve people for the glory of Christ.

So lighten up all you helicopter parents! (me included). Let go of the reins. Parent your children as God parents you. Protect them, yes. But all the while prepare them … so you can release them … to fly into the battle with the glory of the gospel.

Missional Parenting

Much of our parenting is motivated by fear. Consequently, we’re more concerned with protecting our children from the world than preparing them to make a difference in this world. Gospel-centered, missional parenting is much different. It pictures parents as courageous warriors getting ready to release their children into battle. Psalm 127:4 says,

I see missional parenting happening in 3 stages. Of course these stages are fairly fluid with some overlap to be expected.

Gregg Harris says that in the time Psalm 127 was written, there were no arrow factories. Consequently, it took time for each arrow to be crafted with care and precision. The arrow had to have a good sharp tip on one end–that might deal with academic training and biblical instruction; and it had to have a good set of the fletching on the other end–which might apply to discipline. This would provide the arrow with a guidance system. So as parents, we must see ourselves as warriors shaping our young children during their formative years with doctrine and discipline driven by the gospel.

As children grow and mature we must give them opportunities to see the sinful reality of the world around them. Under our guidance and supervision we must expose our children to fallen creation and the crying need for restoration. Instead of an “us vs. them” mentality, we must teach our children to see and serve our culture through the lens of the gospel. We could picture this stage as the arrow being pulled out of the quiver and onto the bow.

Arrows were made to fly. They can’t sit in the quiver or rest on the bow forever. They must be released! Yet the point of release is often the most difficult time in parenting. As Gregg Harris says:

When you aim the arrow and release the arrow, beware–the greatest tension in your
relationship with your children will often be just before you release them. Because it
feels to the arrow like it’s going backwards when it wants to go forward. The tension is
building in the bow, the warrior is aiming, and then there’s the release. From that point
on, the guidance system that is in the arrow itself is what keeps it on track.

There comes a time when we must release our children into the battle. This is the purpose of the arrow as well as the purpose of parenting. We cannot be scared of this sinful world. Indeed, this is the world Jesus entered into and told us, “As the Father sent me, so I send you” (John 17:18). So let us follow our Savior with the attitude of a warrior as we prepare our children for the battle.

—

Doug Wolter served for eight years as family pastor at LaGrange Baptist Church in Kentucky. He is now senior pastor at Oak Hill Baptist Church in Humboldt, Iowa. He has an amazing wife and three incredible kids who continue to humble him and fill him with joy.  He enjoys drinking coffee, reading, exercising, and blogging at life2getherblog.com.

One of the biggest challenges church planters face is teaching new believers the essential doctrines of the Christian faith.  Many of the people who come to a new church know little if any about the basic doctrines.  

What is a Catechism?

You may be wondering, “What is a catechism?”  When I was a new believer, I had no idea what a catechism was.  For those of us who were not raised in the church, words like catechism, creed, or confessions sound like something you would learn in a catholic school.

So what is a catechism?  A catechism is the process of instructing believers both young and old in the basics of the Christian faith.  The Greek word for “instruct” or “teach” is katecheo from which we get our English word “catechize”. 

Catechisms provide basic summaries of the church’s teachings to ensure that all members of the church understand the essentials of the faith for themselves.  Most catechisms generally have questions and answers accompanied by Biblical support and explanations.

Brief History of Catechisms and Confessions

As early as the Middle Ages, the Church required new believers to learn the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, and the Ten Commandments.  During the time of the Protestant Reformation, the Reformers compiled many catechisms to help train new believers.

Donald Van Dyken says, “The great leaders of the Reformation, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, attacked the colossal ignorance they met in Germany, Geneva, and Scotland by making catechisms and by catechizing.”[i] Among these Reformed documents were The Augsburg Confession in 1530 and the Heidelberg Catechism written in 1562. 

Martin Luther whole-heartedly believed in using them.  He said, “In the catechism, we have a very exact, direct, and short way to the whole Christian religion.  For God himself gave the ten commandments, Christ himself penned and taught the Lord’s Prayer, the Holy Ghost brought together the articles of faith.”[ii]

The Puritans later developed catechisms, including the Westminster Confession and Catechisms in the 1640’s.  For many Protestant Christians everywhere, the Westminster Catechisms are the most important and influential of all the catechisms.  The Westminster Shorter and Larger Catechisms where written in the 1647 by English and Scottish divines.  These documents were written to provide children, new believers, and church members alike a short but comprehensive summary of the Reformed church’s doctrines. 

Evangelicals on the Catechism Trail

Today, there is a misconception that only non-evangelical liturgical churches use catechisms and confessions.  However, many evangelicals such as Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists have used them for a long time.  Some may be surprised to know that the Southern Baptists have a rich confessional history. 

Tom Nettles remarks, “Many contemporaries have a deep―seated suspicion of catechisms.  In our own Baptist denomination, many would consider the words “Baptist catechism” as mutually exclusive.”  However he goes on to say, “Baptists, including Southern Baptists, produced scores of catechisms for use in this variety of ways.”[iii]

Spurgeon on Catechisms

Standing in this tradition, the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon developed his own catechism from the London Baptist Confession of 1689 and the Westminster Shorter Catechism.  He believed that a good catechism was essential in training the faithful.  He said:

“I am persuaded that the use of a good Catechism in all our families will be a great safeguard against the increasing errors of the times, and therefore I have compiled this little manual from the Westminster Assembly’s and Baptist Catechisms, for the use of my own church and congregation.  Those who use it in their families or classes must labour to explain the sense; but the words should be carefully learned by heart, for they will be understood better as years pass.”[iv]

Using the Confessions and Catechism

Many evangelicals are rediscovering the benefit of a good catechism.  Both new and existing churches can benefit from using catechisms.  A catechism can be used as an individual study, times of family worship, or in small groups.  Catechisms are not a pass or fail fill-in-the-blank test, but an invitation to learn the doctrines of grace.  This invitation involves vital learning, ongoing reflection, and discussion within the community of faith. 

They are still as useful and as needed today.  Ponder each doctrine and let them speak to your head and your heart.  Share them with your children or your spouse.  

Here is a sample of the First Catechism for beginners that you can use in your church, with your family, or in times of study. 

1. Who made you?
   God.
2. What else did God make?
   God made all things.
3. Why did God make you and all things?
   For his own glory.
4. How can you glorify God?
   By loving him and doing what he commands.
5. Why are you to glorify God?
   Because he made me and takes care of me.
6. Is there more than one true God?
   No. There is only one true God.
7. In how many Persons does this one God exist?
   In three Persons.
8. Name these three Persons.
   The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
9. What is God?
   God is a Spirit and does not have a body like men.
10. Where is God?
    God is everywhere.
11. Can you see God?
    No. I cannot see God, but he always sees me.
12. Does God know all things?
    Yes. Nothing can be hidden from God.
13. Can God do all things?
    Yes. God can do all his holy will.
14. Where do you learn how to love and obey God?
    In the Bible alone.
15. Who wrote the Bible?
    Chosen men who were inspired by the Holy Spirit.[v]
    

    ---

We moved into our housing development 7 1/2 years ago, and for the first 6 years, we didn’t know anyone who didn’t live next to us. I’m serious. I didn’t know the guy across the street. By the way, his name is Trevor, and he’s getting baptized in my backyard. But, for the first 6 years, the extent of our reaching-out to our neighbors was leading a youth group and handing out bibles door-to-door and singing Christmas carols in the dark because people shut off their lights on us. Sometime while standing in the cold singing “O Come All Ye Faithful,” I started to think, “Maybe we need a different modus operandi for bringing the gospel to my neighbors.”

I decided to leave my one church to seek out help from people who have done this before, and I landed with Soma Communities. Truth be known, I am very prideful in the way I do things. Whether it is my orthodoxy or my orthopraxy, I feel like I have it down to some degree, which is a spillover from my success in business. It is wrong thinking, but I know this about myself. When coming to Soma Communities, I purposed to be a learner. What I asked myself was, “If you know so much, how come no one around you is repenting and being baptized?” So, even though I was soon asked to take a lead role in a Missional Community out in my suburban city, I decided to just sit back and learn. As I learned, as I listened, I began to be intrigued, and I finally had to act on it.

I asked a new friend of mine, Caesar, “How should I start? Where should I begin in my community?”

He suggested, “Ask the Spirit, ‘What’s next?’”

At that time, I rarely asked the Spirit to guide and empower me for mission because I was doing nothing that would require the Spirit. I was insular, hanging around only Christian people, and rarely ever engaging anyone with the Gospel or showing them the effects of the Gospel and how that might look in our community. There was no reason to pray. It would have been like asking God to help me flip the channels on my television.

Well. My wife and I prayed… Spirit, what’s next?

If you want to open the power of the Spirit like freeing a hungry lion from its cage, then ask the Spirit what’s next with a desire to show others what He’s like for the sake of making disciples.

The Spirit answered by simply telling my wife and me this: On July 4th, instead of having your BBQ in the backyard, move it to the front yard.

This isn’t earth shattering, but as Luke 16:10 puts it, he who can be trusted with a little, can be trusted with a lot. We agreed with the Spirit and decided that would be a good idea. Then He pressed. We ended up putting together a 4th of July wiffle ball tournament and cook off and going door-to-door handing out flyers. The response was overwhelming. This was the first time I met Trevor, my neighbor from across the street. He entered a wiffle ball team, and they won. Whatever. In the end, we had about 40 people play in the tourney and around 150 people at the 4th of July festivities. People continued to come up to me and tell me it was the best 4th of July party they had ever been to. It reminded us all of the Wonder Years. We didn’t want this to only happen once a year. So, we started throwing BBQs all the time and inviting people over to have dinner from the connections we made on the 4th.

As summer was drawing to a close, my wife and I knew one thing: we needed help to build this community to reflect the community of God. We started praying that God would send helpers and had other leaders within Soma praying for us as well. God answered. He ended up moving another couple to our city from a different Soma Expression and then sent us another couple from our old bible study. It was beautiful. We came together with a plan that we felt was from the Spirit. We sought to continue the dialogue with these new couples by hosting Saturday morning breakfasts at our house. We wanted these other couples to be there with us to engage our neighbors and become part of our community. To do this, they had to be willing to lay aside some of the things they might have been more comfortable with to pursue our neighbors. But, our goal was to have these breakfasts with an eye on going through the Story of God at some point with those people with whom we were building relationships. We figured this might take a year or so to build these relationships strong enough to engage them on a deeper spiritual level.

This whole time, my wife and I kept asking the Spirit, “What’s next?” Now, we were able to put names to these prayers. We started the breakfasts in October and by the end of the month the Spirit was opening doors for the Gospel like I’ve never seen. People were asking us, “Why do you do all these things for the community? (We had also arranged a Halloween party, game nights, etc.) Do you sell Avon? Are you Christians? What church do you go to? etc.”

We answered those questions, and then asked, “Would you be interested in walking through the story of what the Bible says about God and why we feel compelled to bring about this type of community? We can do it our house and have fun and eat like we always do anyways and then have this story time with dialogue among friends.”

We ended up asking about 6 couples from our neighborhood and 4 said yes, including Trevor and his wife. After 10 weeks of engaging in story and having a lot of fun, summer was back. We told those who went through the story that if they wanted to continue with us to dig into the Scriptures to see what the Gospel says about making disciples, we’d be happy to have them. Trevor and his wife agreed and really started to delve in. We again threw a huge 4th of July party with wiffle ball, cook off, and fireworks, and kept following up with BBQs and studied the word together as a Missional Community.

Now, this entire time, we had, as a group, been praying that God would put on our hearts those people in our lives who seemed to be pushing into the kingdom. We’d been praying (and are still praying), because we were going to once again be doing the Story of God coming up in January. We then had a study on baptism, and two things came out of Trevor’s mouth: 1) I want to be baptized 2) I’ve been praying and talking to my brother and his fiancé and they desire to not only come to the BBQs but also to the Story of God when we start it.

Praise God!

In two weeks we’ll be having Trevor’s whole family, some friends, and our Missional Community in our backyard for a BBQ and a baptism. He’s being commissioned to make disciples, but because he’s been watching me, and I’ve been walking this out with him day-to-day in normal everyday life for a year and a half, he’s already doing it. To him, a disciple of Jesus naturally makes more disciples.

Our Missional Community started the day I put aside my own comforts and moved my BBQ from my backyard to my front yard. We went 6 years without knowing anyone. Now, if we throw a BBQ, we have 70 people show up. We have 6 couples in our Missional Community. We are doing pre-engagement for one couple and trying to save another couple from going through a divorce. We think we might have to multiply coming up in January because we could have close to 40 people that desire to go through the Story of God with us.

I’m no saint. I’m nothing special. I’m not paid by the church. I’m not paid by the community. God pays me money through my business – not to hoard it, but so I can be making disciples who make disciples in the neighborhood where I live.

This story isn’t crazy. This story isn’t outlandish. It’s pretty normal. My family is pretty normal. That’s the beauty of it. This is a small taste of what has been happening in our neighborhood and also in our own spiritual development. You’ll notice as you live this out, life, as usual, isn’t perfect. There are times of much difficulty. As a dude in our Missional Community put it, “You only get really irritated with people if you actually get to know them. It’s hard to get irritated at others if you merely wave at them when putting your garbage at the curb.”

If you’re reading this, what’s holding you back from going to your knees tonight and just asking God, “What’s next?” Be careful. Once you’ve let this Lion of Judah out of the cage, He’ll take over the neighborhood.

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Seth McBee is the adopted son of God, husband of one wife, and father of three. He’s a graduate of Seattle Pacific University with a finance degree. By trade Seth is an Investment Portfolio Manager, serving as president of McBee Advisors, Inc. Today, he’s a missional community leader, preaching elder with Soma Communities in Renton, Washington, and executive team member of the GCM Collective. In his down time, he likes to do CrossFit, cook BBQ, host pancake ebelskiver breakfasts at his home and many other neighborhood events in his hometown of Maple Valley, Washington. You can find him on twitter @sdmcbee or at www.gcmcollective.com.