The doctrine of the Church is one of the most glorious, practical, and discussed doctrines in the New Testament. Simply looking at the metaphors the New Testament authors use to describe the Church gives you a sense of it’s importance. The Church is the “body of Christ,” the “bride” of Christ, the “household of faith,” a “holy temple in the Lord,” and much more. The ideal Church as laid out in the New Testament overcomes the gates of hell and overcomes the world through faith in Christ, the Church’s chief Shepherd.
But how do these realities guide you in choosing a particular local Church to attend? How do they give you wisdom for deciding if and when to leave a Church? After all, the glorious vision of the Church in the New Testament is not lived out in its fullness within every local body. So what should you, as a normal believer, do when you struggle to find the “ideal Church?” In this post, I want to lay out three practical steps for applying the doctrine of the Church to your life.
Know the local Church ideal as laid out in the New Testament
If you and I only knew and believed the truths about the local Church as laid out in Scripture, how many of our problems would be solved? The local Church is not merely a Sunday morning service you sit through once a week. If you want to start getting excited about the local Church and having a Biblical view of it’s importance, the first step is to study and internalize what the Bible says about the Church.
I would recommend taking a month or two to read through the book of Acts. Pay attention each time Luke mentions the Church, what it does, and how it grows. Acts 2 in particular has one of my favorite passages on the “ideal Church.”
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Acts 2:42-47, ESV emphasis added
Why do I recommend studying the New Testament Church?
You will never make the right decisions about where to go to Church, what to look for in a Church, or what to value in the Church if you don’t first understand the Church as presented in the New Testament.
Everyone can give you different opinions on where you should go to Church and what your role should be in that Church. But only in Scripture do we have the authoritative record of what God expects of local Churches and you as a Church member. So remind yourself of the glorious doctrine of the local Church as expounded in Scripture.
Commit to a local Church that partially lives up to that ideal
Once you have a biblical vision of the ideal Church, find a local Church that approximates that ideal. What do I mean by this? You will never find a local Church that perfectly exhibits all the desired traits given in the New Testament. In fact, local Churches in the New Testament time didn’t even exhibit those traits perfectly (see 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, and the letters to the 7 Churches in Revelation). So when you are looking for a local Church to join, look for one where you see its members and leadership who are aware and are striving for the New Testament ideal.
Others have developed countless resources to determine whether a Church is healthy or not. But at the end of the day, all the “tests”, “marks”, or “criterion” for a healthy Church are simply ways of answering the question “is this local Church aware of and pursuing what the New Testament teaches about the Church or not?” And in the end, whatever Church you end up joining will have some strong areas and some weak areas. That is expected in a fallen world. As I said, even the first generation of local Churches had some areas of strength and other areas where they needed correction.
The key point here is to commit to a local Church that partially lives up to the New Testament ideal.
It will do you no good to memorize every passage on the local Church if you never actually formally join one.
An analogy is helpful here: you might have an idea of what you want in an ideal spouse, but if you never actually marry a real human being, your ideal will do you no good. And, as every married person discovers, the person you marry will at the best only approximate the ideal spouse you conjured up in your head. So don’t spend your whole life looking for that “perfect New Testament Church.” Commit to the best option God provides for you locally, then move on to the final step.
Work to make that local Church better reflect the ideal Church
As soon as you are a member of a local Church, you are now partially responsible for ensuring that local collection of believers obeys what Scripture teaches about the ideal Church. You, not someone else. As you stay committed to a local body over the years, you will see more and more clearly the ways in which your Church falls short of the New Testament teaching. When this inevitably happens, the temptation will be to either complain, or to leave to find a different Church.
Now, there are certainly situations where you should leave a local Church. But in modern America, most reasons people give are neither Biblical nor wise. Your default when you notice an issue in your local Church should be:
Do not complain or sow discord
Seek to understand the problem
Prayerfully seek to find a way to help fix the issue
If every Church member had a selfless, serving-others-before-myself mentality, a lot of issues in local Churches would evaporate. Seek to lead in working to help your local Church better reflect the ideal Church. Take responsibility. You don’t have to be an elder or a deacon or a particularly wise or smart person to make your Church more holy and godly.
If you are a local Church member, you are part of a body. And every part of the body is sovereignly knitted together by God to serve a purpose.
In conclusion, don’t over complicate the local Church. Understand clearly from Scripture what the local Church is and should be. Then commit to a body in your local area that approximates this ideal Church. And then spend your days seeking to help that local body better reflect what the ideal Church is in Scripture. Being an average Church member is a high calling. So go and serve your local body for the glory of Christ and the edification of the saints.
When you hear the word “Church” what image pops into your head? A sanctuary full of pews? Pews filled with people? People with their Bible’s open listening to God’s Word? “Church” is most commonly used to describe the Sunday morning sermon and accompanying service. You go to Church in order to hear a sermon.
But the Church is so much more than a Sunday morning sermon. In fact, if you equate Church to a worship service between the hours of 10-12 am, then you are going to miss out on a lot of the joy and excitement that the Church is. In this post, I give you a three “mindsets” to develop. Each will help expand what you think about when you hear the word “Church”.
1. The Body Mindset
The Church is a dynamic gathering of Saints
You might have heard the phrase “the Church is not the building, it is the people.” Someone could also say “Church is not the Sunday morning sermon, it is the people.” Men, women, and children who are redeemed by Christ, united by the Holy Spirit, and who have covenanted together in a local assembly. When you drive to Church on Sunday, you are driving to gather with that “body” of people.
Having this “body mindset” keeps you from what I will call “movie theater mindset.” When you go to see a movie, you come in and sit together with a bunch of total strangers. This random group made up of different families and individuals watches the movie together but then leaves to return to separate homes without ever interacting or acknowledging each others’ existence. “Movie theater mindset” is coming to Church to listen to the Pastor preach alongside a bunch of strangers who you do not know and who you do not interact with after service is over.
In contrast, the Church as laid out in Acts is a completely different type of gathering:
44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Acts 2:44-47 ESV, emphasis added
You don’t “go to Church”; if you are a Christian you are a part of the Church, this dynamic body of believers. This means you gather together with fellow Saints past 10-12 am on Sunday morning. It means you see yourself as a part of their lives and realize each Church member is an important part of your life. You have to fight “movie theater mindset” and seek to know those in the pews next to you.
Thinking of the Church as a body changes how you come to Sunday service and how you plan your weeks.
2. Warfare Mindset
The Church equips the Saints to do ministry
Passive listening is the enemy of Christian preaching. I have written about getting more from your Pastor’s sermon and created tools to help you stay engaged during a sermon. Why? Because a sermon is not a motivational speech, a lecture, or entertainment. Preaching is training grounds for the spiritual battle you face each day of your life.
Paul says in Ephesians 4 that the Church “equips the saints for the work of service.” One of the main means God uses to equip you is the Sunday morning sermon. But “equipping” implies not just a passive listening to preaching. It implies that you go out an apply what you learned to your life as you go throughout the week.
Each time you go to Church, God is arming you to go out and fight the good fight of faith the rest of the week.
This simple shift in thinking will completely change how you approach Church. You aren’t driving to an old building on a Sunday morning while scrambling to get kids fed and in the car merely to have a few “positive thoughts” before starting your week. Equipping, not entertainment, is the goal of preaching. Equipping you as a Church member to leave Sunday morning service ready to serve the Lord wherever He calls you that week: at home, at work, with family, interacting with unbelievers. Go into Church to prepare for going out and ministering to others.
3. Eschatological Mindset
The Church is the bride of Christ from every tribe, tongue, and nation
The whole reason I write on this website is because I love the local Church: the average Christians who live their lives week by week seeking to glorify the Lord in their specific, small corner of the world. But sometimes a local Church mindset can lead you to imagine the Church is small. It isn’t. Your little local Church is one piece of a much bigger puzzle. And you see how the puzzle fits together in one of the greatest passages in the whole Bible:
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,
Revelation 7:9 ESV, emphasis added
You need an “eschatological mindset” when you come to Sunday service. This means you see clearly that your local body is a part of God’s plan from all eternity to save a group of sinners through Christ for His glory. Sure, there are problems and difficulties within your body. I am sure it is a struggle some Sundays to get to Church or stay awake during the sermon. Maybe your Church is small and seemingly insignificant. But remind yourself that there is nothing insignificant about a part of God’s plan.
It does not matter if your local congregation is small. It is a part of God’s infinitely wise and glorious plan.
Coming to Church knowing that each Sunday is fitting you and your fellow Church members for an eternal weight of glory puts you in a much more worshipful state than if you come to Church merely thinking about the here and now. Open your eyes to the beautiful Scriptural truth that God is sovereignly saving sinners from every corner of the earth for an eternity with Him. And you, as a Christian, get to be a part of that plan in your little Church.
Conclusion
To summarize, come to Church with these three mindsets:
Body Mindset-you aren’t there to just listen to a Sunday morning sermon, you are there to interact with a dynamic body of Saints
Warfare Mindset-you go to Church to get equipped by the Word of God to go out and live for His glory throughout the week
Eschatological Mindset-your Church, no matter how small, is a part of God’s cosmic plan of redemption
As you cultivate these perspectives, you will find how you think about Church will change from something static and dull to something glorious and exciting.
This post is part of an ongoing series of reflections called “What I learned from…“. If you found this post helpful, share on social media below and subscribe below if you want new articles delivered directly to your inbox. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram for more content.
My Church held a men’s retreat this past weekend. This was my Church’s first men’s retreat in years and, as the lead planner for the weekend, I did not fully know what to expect. Would the weekend be spiritually profitable or a waste of time? Thankfully, the Lord blessed the weekend and it was an incredible time of fellowship and focus on God’s word. Now that the weekend is over, I have been thinking about the many benefits of a men’s retreat. 7 in particular come to mind.
1. A focused time of worship
Most Christian’s would agree that worshiping Christ should be a daily priority. However, oftentimes in the busyness of the week, worshiping the Lord can take second priority over more “pressing” concerns. One of the benefits of a men’s retreat is you have time to simply worship. There are little distractions around you. You can’t make excuses. You are stuck in a singular location with other believers for the sole purpose of listening to the Word, praying, and singing.
One of my favorite things about my Church’s men’s retreat was the singing. At Church, you might sing 4-5 hymns on a given Sunday. But at the men’s retreat, we sang 5 hymns each teaching session. There is something about praising the Lord loudly from the heart with a group of believers over and over again that revives your soul. It lifts your affections and reminds you of the surpassing value of Christ. The sheer amount of focused worship which takes place when you set aside a weekend for a retreat is one great reason to schedule one.
2. A structured context for fellowship
As I have written before, most people even within the Church are somewhat lonely and crave connection with other believers. But where to start? Oftentimes, a quick conversation before or after morning worship is not going to cultivate the deep closeness that you crave. A men’s retreat gives the men of your Church a structured context to simply talk and be around one another. Although it can feel “forced” or “artificial” at first, sticking a bunch of Christians together for a weekend of mealtimes, singing, preaching, and free time is fertile ground for growing closeness among your congregation.
The closeness you cultivate with others during a weekend retreat sticks around long after the retreat is over. Those shared memories, those unexpected conversations, those fellow Church members you talked with for the first time suddenly become fuel for future conversations and meet-ups in the future. Shared experiences are powerful means to connect people together. Creating a context for those memories to be made is one of the greatest benefits of a men’s retreat.
3. A temporary step-back from daily responsibilities
Personally, my normal week-day is one long list of responsibilities. I have things I need to get done at work, I have chores that must get done, I have projects to complete and a hundred other things I “need to do.” While responsibilities are good and given by God, sometimes the urgent cares of the day can get your mind stuck on “things below” rather than “things above where Christ is seated.”
A retreat gives you the chance to temporary set aside your daily responsibilities. This isn’t so that you can forget about them. Rather, this temporary break is so you can seek the Lord and ask that He revive your soul. Then you can then go back and do those daily responsibilities with even more zeal for His glory. You can think of a retreat as a time of refocusing and revival. By removing the normal, daily responsibilities which choke your schedule, you have a whole day or two free to seek the Lord with your whole heart. The excuse of “I don’t have time” no longer applies; you have nothing on your “to do list” but to get your mind re-focused on Christ.
4. Teaching that can deal directly with a pertinent topic
Expositional preaching through a book of Scripture is the best way to consistently expose a congregation to the Word of God. However, every so often a “deep dive” into a pertinent topic addressed is needed. It can be difficult for Pastors to pause an ongoing series to deal with specific topics. But one of the benefits of a men’s retreat is you can choose a single topic to focus on for a weekend.
For my Church’s men’s retreat, we had a guest speaker give three sessions on Biblical manhood. The first session was the “theological foundations of manhood,” the second was “manhood in the context of the home”, and the final session was “manhood in the context of the Church.” Then we had a question and answer session with the Elders to directly address some of the pressing issues brought up. All of the teaching was needed, practical, and edifying for the men of the congregation and there was no better time or place to address such a topic than at a men’s retreat.
5. Time for long and lingering spiritual conversations
Is there anything more edifying than conversations amongst believers? I have taught before on how conversations with other believers are mutually encouraging and impart spiritual blessing to all parties involved. But the most beneficial spiritual conversations often require lingering and long discussion. Dealing with tough theological questions or meditating on applications of a text or sharing a specific spiritual struggle all take time. A normal Sunday service does not provide adequate time to talk about some of these necessary things.
A men’s retreat provides time for believers to talk and to talk long. In the course of a weekend, I had multiple conversations on personal difficulties I have been having, discussed what doctrines Christians should divide over and which ones they should not divide over, thought through the different aspects of God’s character, shared my thoughts on what it means for a man to protect his home, and a host of other conversations. I can’t remember every detail or conclusion these conversations reached, but I can still feel the closeness that came from talking openly with fellow Church members.
6. A time to re-prioritize Christ and His Church
Jesus warned that the “cares of the world” and the “desires for other things entering in” could choke the Word and cause it to become unfruitful. One of the benefits of a men’s retreat is it gives you a chance to “clean house” within your own hear, so to speak. What idols have you picked up during the course of living in this sinful world? What desires do you need to crucify? What excuses have you been making for sin that need to be removed?
I believe revival is a sovereign work of God that cannot be manufactured. But simply setting aside a weekend to seek the Lord as a group of believers can revive your heart in a lesser sense. By focusing your mind on Christ and His Church for an entire weekend it reminds you that nothing in your life is half as important as the Gospel. You are reminded of the value of Christ and your heart longs to return to “your first love.” A men’s retreat can be a very convicting time, but that conviction gives you opportunity to repent and refocus your mind and heart on Christ and what He did for you on the cross.
7. Growing friendships within your congregation
On any given Sunday, there are about a dozen people I want to talk to and need to talk to. The question always comes after the last hymn plays: should I find and talk to the people I already know but need to talk to? Or do I go talk with someone I do not know? A men’s retreat gives you enough time to reach out to believers in your body who you seldom connected with. Suddenly a person who you only swapped a few sentences with before becomes a new friend.
Certainly believers are spiritually united in Christ and Church members in particular are committed to loving and serving one another. Yet having real friendships among believers makes all of this easier and more tangible. A men’s retreat gives your congregation the time and space to either develop new friendships or grow old ones. The hope is that these real friendships would continue past the retreat and grow your body closer together.
Conclusion
These 7 benefits of a men’s retreat are by no means exhaustive. But if your Church has not tried to do a men’s retreat or any other type of retreat (women’s retreat, family retreat, elder-deacon retreat, etc.), I would encourage you to start planning something annually. It can be tough to plan and coordinate a retreat, but the spiritual benefits of a men’s retreat far outweigh any difficulty you might have getting it set up.
This post is part of an ongoing series called “What I learned from…” If you found this post helpful, share it on social media and subscribe below. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get more content.
I would guess if you are reading this post that you either live in an apartment or neighborhood. That means there are dozens of individuals, couples, & families who live incredibly close to you. How are you striving to get to know your neighbors better for the purpose of sharing the Gospel with them? Getting to know your neighbors can be intimidating, which is why in this post I want to go through 3 easy ways to reach out to your neighbors.
You will rarely get a good opportunity to share God’s truth with your neighbors if you don’t know them, hardly talk to them, or don’t sacrifice some of your time & open up your home for them to get to know you. The things I recommend in this post are easy in the sense that they are straightforward. You could do any or all of them today or tomorrow without needing some sort of fancy plan. But they are hard because they require valuing outreach to those around you more than you value personal time and personal space.
With that said, here are some of the most practical ways to reach out to your neighbors that I have found.
1. Invite them over for dinner
Of all the ways to reach out to your neighbors, this one is essential. There is no way around it: if you really want to get to know someone you leave close to, you are going to have to invite them over for dinner. Don’t expect to have too many deep conversations with your neighbors until you have made the first step of opening up your home. A dinner invitation is not only a necessary first step: it is also a perfect foundation for a continuing relationship with your neighbors moving forward. Your neighbors will remember the tangible, visible love you showed them by initiating and scheduling a time to get to know them.
The first dinner is the hardest, but after you actually get it on the schedule and commit to it, you’ll leave that dinner knowing your neighbors so much more than you did before. Dinner will break the ice and make both parties are more comfortable in future interactions in conversations. Not only that, but you will get a chance to clearly communicate to your neighbors that you are a Christian through blessing the food and dinner conversation. But the key here is you must initiate. Don’t wait around for your neighbors to invite you to dinner. Take the first step, as awkward as you may feel. After the first dinner, you will find it easier to extend dinner invitations in the future.
2. Leave them a baked good (and perhaps a note)
A Christian can turn baking into an indispensable tool for outreach. The simple act of sharing a delicious bread, cake, or cookie with another person is a thoughtful gesture which causes people drop their guards. I have known people who have started entire relationships by knocking on people’s doors and leaving giving them a set of cookies they have made. If going door to door is not your style, maybe leave a note with the baked goods introducing yourself.
This way to reach out to your neighbors also works after you have already had a dinner with them. Baking something has a lower time commitment then hosting a meal and it still shows that you are thinking about your neighbors. Leave a Gospel tract with a note explaining why Jesus is so important to you with your baked goods. Or write a personal note telling them how much you enjoyed your last dinner together. The possibilities (and opportunities) are endless.
Next time you are baking anything for your family, why not double the recipe and make an outreach opportunity for yourself? There are very few things people appreciate more than home-baked goods; leverage them for your neighbors’ spiritual good.
3. Invite them to join you during normal things
You perform dozens of tasks each which alone which you could easily do with a neighbor. To put another way, turn ordinary things you do throughout the week from a solitary tasks to an evangelistic opportunities. Here are just a few ideas of things you can invite another person to participate in:
Working out
Grocery shopping
Evening walks
Yard work
Cooking dinner (as an added bonus, you can then invite your neighbor to dinner)
What is keeping you from inviting your neighbors to participate in these activities? Most of the time it is either a personal preference (“I’d rather do these things alone”) or a cultural bias (“No one I know invites other people to do these things with them”). But if you honestly want to reach out to your neighbors, you are going to have to shift your mindset from “my home or my time after work is for me and my family only” to “my home and time are tools God has given me to use for the advancing of His kingdom.”
There are prime opportunities for outreach each week that you don’t even realize. Next time you are planning your weekly activities, go through your list and ask of each task “could I invite someone else to do this with me?”As I have written about before, you should have a list of potential people to invite to cycle through. That way if someone turns you down, you can invite someone else.
Conclusion
Reaching out to your neighbors can be scary at first. But you don’t need some grand gesture to initiate a relationship with those around you. These three ways to reach out to your neighbors are not complicated or difficult but they are some of the best ways to develop a relationship with the people who live closest to you.
It is only through opening up the home God gave you and investing the time God has allotted to you into the lives of others that you can start getting to know your neighbors. And by getting to know your neighbors you are creating opportunities so share the Gospel with them and to show them Christ’s steadfast love.
If you are interested in becoming better at hospitality, read other posts on my page “Practicing Hospitality.” Share this post on social media below if you found it helpful and subscribe so you don’t miss future posts. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get more content.
How you think about your job will directly affect how you work day to day. Sadly, many people have a very wrong perspective about their vocation. There is good reason for this: modern culture finds much of it’s identity in their 9 to 5 job. Additionally, countless books have been written on how to improve your work, how to land your dream job, and a host of other work-related topics.
For Christians, the primary source for how you think about your job is Scripture. Proverbs in particular is incredibly instructive when it comes to how to perform your vocation. But recently I read a book that I think helpfully deals with this question of how you view your work: “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” by Cal Newport. Of the different secular books I have read on the topic of work, I find Cal Newport’s analysis both the most helpful and the most consistent with Biblical principles.
Today, I want to look at a quote from “So Good They Can’t Ignore You” that summarizes the thesis of the book. The quote deals with two mindsets: the “passion mindset” which most people in our culture adopts and the “craftsman mindset” which is the mindset Newport argues for. As we will see, it is also the mindset which best lines of with Biblical teaching.
The craftsman mindset focuses on what value you are producing in your job while the passion mindset focuses on what value your job offers you.
“So Good They Can’t Ignore You” by Cal Newport
What the quote means
This quote summarizes the entirety of Newport’s book. Newport wants to correct the common modern mindset that the key to enjoying your job is to find a job you are passionate about. He calls this the “passion mindset.” I am sure you have often heard this mindset expounded by those around you in various forms:
“Do what you love”
“Follow your dreams”
“If you love what you do, you won’t work a day in your life”
“Why waste time in a job you don’t like?”
And so on. The entire book Newport writes is spent exposing the flaws with this mindset and offering an alternative: the “craftsman” mindset. In the quote above, Newport says the fundamental issue with the passion mindset is it focuses on what your job offers you instead of what value you are producing for your job.
The reason Newport uses the word “craftsman” to describe the alternative mindset is craftsmen focus on how they do their work. The focus is on creating an excellent product, not primarily on personal enjoyment. Certainly craftsmen get enjoyment from their work, but this enjoyment is an organic outcome of doing their work well. In short, the craftsman mindset focuses on the work itself and how to do it well while the passion mindset’s primary question is “do I enjoy this work?”
Why it is important
Newport gives two very helpful categories, and most people I know (including myself) have fallen into the trap of the passion mindset. When all of your focus is on how much you enjoy or do not enjoy your job, your perspective is on yourself rather than on the work. Certainly some jobs are “better” than others but it is a dangerous cultural assumption that your job is primarily about your fulfillment or enjoyment.
Christians can take further issue with the passion mindset: God is ultimately in control of what job you end up in. Therefore, the Christian is less concerned with the question “do I enjoy this job” and more concerned with answering “how can I glorify God in the job He has given me?”
Christians find fulfillment in the Lord. Therefore, they should be less susceptible to the modern worldview that makes one’s job the end-all-be-all of one’s life.
Furthermore, Christians should be concerned with how they do their job. The “craftsman” mindset is just a new name Newport puts on an old Biblical concept: what your job is matters far less than why you do your job and how you do your job. The “why” of Christian work is tied to a theology of God’s glory in all things:
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 ESV
“How” Christians work is tied very closely to Newport’s “focus on the value you are producing” mindset. Where do I find this? Scripture consistently praises skillful work. Proverbs 22:29 has the most explicit statement on the topic:
Do you see a man skillful in his work?
He will stand before kings;
he will not stand before obscure men.
Proverbs 22:29, ESV
In the Old Testament, the Lord also used skilled workers to build the tabernacle and the temple:
And Moses called Bezalel and Oholiab and every craftsman in whose mind the Lord had put skill, everyone whose heart stirred him up to come to do the work.
Exodus 36:2, ESV
You have an abundance of workmen: stonecutters, masons, carpenters, and all kinds of craftsmen without number, skilled in working gold, silver, bronze, and iron. Arise and work! The Lord be with you!”
1 Chronicles 22:15-16, ESV
Finally, in the Psalms musicians are called to worship the Lord skillfully:
Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
Psalm 33:3, ESV
“Skillful” work is focused on the quality of the work, not on the amount of pleasure the work brings you.
Takeaways
1. Ask yourself “how can I do my job better? How can I increase the quality of my work? How can I make my work more valuable?”
If you want to wake up and go to your job excited, you need to change the way you think about your job. Focus on what value you will add to your place of employment that day, or think about what you can do to increase the quality of your work. Pray the Lord would show you ways to perform your job excellently. Go to work with an eagerness to improve how well you do your job.
There will certainly be bad days along the way and days you don’t want to go into work. But once you accept this is the job God has provided for you currently, you are free to do that work excellently. Accept God’s will, then work for God’s glory. If Christians are constantly complaining about their job, if they are always seeking a different or “better” job, what does that say about the Christian worldview?
If you want a better visible testimony at work, “do all things without complaining or disputing” and work unto the Lord in all you do at your job.
Most people complain about their job and don’t do their job particularly well. Christians can stand out by joyfully serving well in the job the Lord provides. What does that practically look like? Develop a craftsman mindset, focus on doing valuable work, and improve each day how you do your job.
2. Derive pleasure from the quality of the work you do, not the job in which you are currently employed
There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God,
Ecclesiastes 2:24, ESV
Enjoying your work is a gracious gift from the Lord. But in 21st century America, enjoyment and fulfillment at work is demanded as a right rather than received as a gift. The result? If you find yourself not enjoying what you are doing, you either complain about your job to no end or you leave it to find greener grass elsewhere. But notice what the author of Ecclesiastes says: “There is nothing better for a person…(to) find enjoyment in his toil.”
You aren’t just to find enjoyment in your perfect dream job. Biblically, you can enjoy toil, hard labor, wearing effort. This is good news for the Christian: you don’t have to make a big career change to enjoy your job. The Bible says God graciously gives people enjoyment even in toilsome labor. How is this perspective lived out?
When God created the world, He spoke, saw what He had made, and then pronounced it “good.” In other words, God enjoyed the goodness of what He had created after He created it. This is the same pattern you see in Newport’s “craftsman” mindset: you derive pleasure from the quality of the work you do. Don’t get stuck wishing for a better job. Do your work excellently every day so that when you leave, you can say that day’s work was “good”. Then pray that God would grant you enjoyment in your labor.
There is much more that could be said. Newport’s contrast between the craftsman and the passion mindset is helpful for Christians to think through in light of Scripture. In the end, the most important mindset a Christian needs to have with regards to their work is a God-glorifying mindset.
Click here to read previous “Book Quote of the Week” posts. For more of my thoughts on Christians and work, click here. If you found this post helpful, share on social media and subscribe below. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram for more content.
Before Jesus ascended into Heaven, He told His disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. Jesus Himself had set a perfect example of what discipling others practically looks like. But what is “discipleship” at the most basic level? My goal for this post is for you to leave with discipleship defined clearly in your mind. Discipleship is a rich Biblical concept and Christians must know what it is, and what it isn’t in order to properly obey Jesus’ command.
What does the Greek word mean?
The word “disciple” in Greek means “follower.” Simple enough. If you have heard any good teaching from the Gospels, no doubt you already know this basic definition. A “disciple” is a person who follows another person. But this following is not merely a physical walking behind another person. Rather, a disciple seeks to learn from another person.
What does a disciple want to learn? Most likely a number of things: learn about the world, learn a way of life, learn about the divine. But in the New Testament, all true disciples follow one person: Jesus. The 12 apostles physically followed Jesus during His earthly ministry and disciples throughout the history of the Church have looked to Jesus as the source of truth, grace, and eternal life among other things.
Therefore, to disciple someone else is to make them a follower. But Christian discipleship is not focused on getting people to follow you per se. Rather, the goal of Christian discipleship is to call another person to “imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1).
If you want to disciple someone else, your goal should be helping them become a more obedient follower of the Biblical Jesus.
This is why true discipleship always points back to God’s word: it is only through studying the inspired Word of God that anyone alive today can come to know the resurrected Jesus.
What discipleship isn’t
“Helping other people better follow Christ” is a good starting definition of “discipleship”. But if we want discipleship defined, we are going to have to consider what discipleship isn’t.
First, discipleship is not focused on drawing people to yourself. Your aim in discipleship is not to amass followers for yourself or to convince people of your particular “brand” or “flavor” of Christianity. Paul critiqued this kind of discipleship when the Corinthian Church was dividing itself by people saying “I am a follower of Paul” or “I am a follower of Apollos.” Biblical discipleship, however, is primarily concerned with pointing people back to the Word of God so people can know Christ better and then obey more fully His teaching.
In a modern world full of the pursuit of fame, it is very easy to miss this point. Sin can distort your discipleship efforts so that you become more focused on the good feelings which accompany people listening to you rather than focusing on “Christ being formed” in the other person.
The only barometer of success for discipleship is the extent of which those who are listening to you are loving Christ more deeply and obeying Him more fully.
All your authority in any discipling relationship is derivative: you have no truth, no insight, no wisdom to give apart from what you can show from Scripture. This is another key point: discipleship is not focused on displaying your great insight to others. Oftentimes when people come to listen to your thoughts on Scripture or the Bible, pride can creep in and you end up using God’s truth as a way to stroke your ego rather than to display Christ. Don’t make this mistake. You have nothing to offer except what has been granted to you from God. Steward it humbly instead of using God’s good gifts as means to puff up your pride.
Finally, discipleship is not merely meeting up with other Christians. A group of Christian friends can go to coffee or watch a movie together, but this is not discipleship. It is good to have social meet ups, it is good to have friends at Church, it is good to talk about general topics like work or music or family. But for discipleship to actually occur, there must be a direct, explicit spiritual focus. That doesn’t mean that discipleship is only teaching: some of my most profitable times of discipleship have been observing other believers in action. But whether you are discipling in action or teaching explicitly, the person observing or listening to you must walk away with some greater sense of who Christ is in order for it to be “discipleship.”
Discipleship defined by way of two summary sentences
Now that I have given you the most basic definition of discipleship and gone through what discipleship is not, I want to close this post with two summary sentences defining discipleship. The first sentence is more focused on you, the discipler, while the second sentence is focused on what God is doing through you.
Discipleship is investing your time and effort into someone else’s life for their spiritual good.
The metaphor of “investing” is one of the most helpful metaphors I have found for what discipleship is. Most people in the modern world have a general understanding of what investing is. If you were to invest your money into a stock, you are giving up something in the present in hopes of gaining something in the future. This is exactly what you do on a spiritual level by discipling another person: you give up your time and energy in the present in hopes that the other person will gain a greater understanding of God’s truth.
This “investment” language makes it explicit that Biblical discipleship will almost always involve sacrifice on your part. It isn’t always easy, and just like when you give up your money to invest in a stock, you often will need to give up your time or your comfort or your schedule in order to disciple others. But the upside of this investment is tremendous; “the harvest is plentiful.” Now for the second summary definition:
Discipleship is when God uses you as a means to bring about Christlikeness in another person’s life.
Discipleship is not merely something you are doing. God is using you: in discipleship you become a tool of sanctification God uses to shape someone else. If you only focus on what you are doing in discipleship and lose sight of what God is doing, you will either become easily discouraged or worse: you will focus on drawing people to yourself rather than pointing them to Christ.
Always remember: you are the instrument, not the main goal. Worship of Christ in heart and action is the goal of discipling someone else.
As a tool, you are not important in and of yourself. But you are useful when God uses you to build up those around you.
So invest yourself in other people’s lives. Grow to love Christ more yourself and then help others to do the same. Discipleship is costly, time-consuming, exhausting, exhilarating, magnificent, joyous, astounding, humbling, and worth it.
This post is part of an ongoing series called “Becoming a Discipling Christian.” Click here if you missed a previous post. If you found this post helpful, please share on social media below and subscribe to The Average Churchman email list. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get further content.
I always enjoy reading and recommending books on how to become a better Church member. There are many books on becoming a better preacher, counselor, or pastor but not as many focused on the average Church attender. Many believers don’t fully understand what their role is as a normal Church member. One outworking of this uncertainty is how people respond to their Pastor’s sermon. A question commonly asked is how to get more out of your pastor’s sermons?
One of my favorite books to recommend for instructing normal Church members is “Duties of Christian Fellowship” by John Owen. It is short, accessible, and intensely practical. If you have not read this book, I recommend you do so and then purchase a few dozen to give out at your Church. It truly is gold and I cannot possibly recommend it enough. Drop whatever you are currently reading and get through this book first; it is that important.
The first section of the book deals with the question of how to get more out of your pastor’s sermons. The quote below is worthy of consideration, particularly the last sentence.
The failure to consider these principles is the cause of all the negligence, carelessness, laziness, and indiscipline while hearing the world, which has taken hold of so many these days. Only a respect for the truth and authority of God in the preaching of his word will bring men to hear it soberly and profitably. It is also the case that men grow tired of hearing the word only after they have grown tired of putting it into practice.
“Duties of Christian Fellowship” is organized around “rules” for Church members. The first 7 deal with how Church members should interact with the Pastor and the second set of 15 focuses on how Church members should interact with each other. The quote given above comes after the very first rule Owen gives: Christians should regularly attend a local Church to listen to preaching and to partake in the ordinances.
But as in every era of Church history, not every person puts a high emphasis on the public preaching of God’s word. Owen’s answer is given in the quote: most of the time believers tire of hearing the word preached because they have long since stopped trying to apply the sermons they here. In other words:
If you fail to correct your life based on the sermons you hear, you will eventually become a passive listener.
What Owen does here is shift the focus of the question “how can you get more from your pastor’s sermons” from the pastor to the Church member in the pew. If you aren’t “getting anything” from the faithful preaching of God’s word, the first problem to examine is in the mirror, not the Pastor. What Owen writes is right in line with the first chapter of James:
But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.
James 1:22-25 ESV, emphasis added
Why it is important
It is easy to approach Sunday morning as a consumer rather than as a worshiper. This means going to Church thinking to get some type of “product” whether that is a “good sermon” or “authentic worship”. If you are not pleased with what you get, then the consumer-mindset blames the Pastor or the worship leader or someone else. And there is no aspect of corporate worship in which it is easier to think as a consumer than preaching.
In today’s culture, congregants can often attend Church wanting entertainment, a “positive, inspiring message”, or a practical self-help type talk. When you come to service with any of these expectations and those expectations are not met, you naturally blame the Pastor. “That sermon wasn’t his best,” you might say or “It was alright, but I wish it was more relevant or practical.” Worst of all, you can give the Sunday sermon the epitaph of “I just didn’t get much out of it.”
What I love about this Owen quote is it directly challenges anyone who listens to a sermon as a consumer. There are only two questions for you to ask after listening to your Pastor’s sermon:
Did the sermon faithfully and clearly explain the truth of Scripture as God has communicated it?
If so, how does my life need to change based on what God has communicated to me through the pastor?
Owen says to the person who “didn’t get much out” of their Pastor’s sermon that the problem is most likely a passive, rather than an active mindset. A believer with an active mindset goes to Church to hear the Word preached so their lives can be confronted and conformed to Scripture. A passive mindset leads to a “eh, I’ll take it or leave it” response to preaching.
Your heart as you drive to Church on Sunday should be brimming with anticipation not because you expect some entertainment or life-changing emotional moment. Rather, you should be excited that God is going to teach you through your Pastor so that your life can change to better reflect Christ in the coming week.
Takeaways
1. Spend more time reflecting on the sermon than on critiquing it
If you want to get more out of your Pastor’s sermon, step one is humility: your job is not to be the resident “sermon reviewer”. Rather, your job is the mull over the Pastor’s exposition in your mind until you are gripped by the truth of the text. To get really practical, watch closely how you talk to other people about your Pastor’s sermon. If you find yourself saying things along the lines of “this is how well I think my Pastor preached” instead of “this is what God taught me through the Pastor”, you might be taking on the role of sermon critic.
Focus your energy on reflection rather than critique and you will begin to get more out of your Pastor’s sermons.
2. Set aside times during the week to remind yourself of what your Pastor preached on Sunday
One of the reasons I have spent time designing tools to help you reflect on your Pastor’s sermon is most of the time you forget what last Sunday’s sermon was about by the time you get to the next week. Humans are forgetful, especially when we don’t use the information we hear. So if you want to better remember what your Pastor preached on, start building in times throughout the week where you revisit the sermon text, your sermon notes, or even listen to the sermon itself a second time.
This is also a great action to take with others. If your Church has a small group, that is a great context to reflect on the previous Sunday’s sermon. Perhaps you meet up informally with Church members during the week. That is also a great time to reflect as a group on what God is teaching you corporately.
3. Prayerfully consider what God wants you to start doing, stop doing, or continue doing based on your Sunday sermon
There are dozens of sermon application questions out there to help you practically live out the truths you hear. But if you want three simple and memorable questions to ask after a sermon, look no further:
What do I need to start doing in light of the sermon?
What do I need to stop doing in light of the sermon?
What things should I continue to do in light of the sermon?
I love this list because it is so easy to remember and gets at three aspects of God’s word: it instructs us what we should do, it corrects our behavior when it is sinful, and it encourages us to persevere in doing what is right. By thinking in terms of “start, stop, continue”, you can figure out what God’s word is communicating to you each week. Like I discussed above, both the Epistle to James and John Owen make it clear if you stop trying to apply God’s word, you are going to forget what you heard or think there was “nothing in it for me”.
If you want to get more out of your Pastor’s sermons, come to your Sunday service ready for your life to change.
Don’t get tired of hearing sermons every week: even on your Pastor’s worst Sunday preaching there is some truth God is sovereignly ordaining you to hear. Let us be doers of the Word when we hear it for there is no greater stewardship then obediently responding to God’s glorious Word.
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Once Jesus was resurrected, He commanded His disciples to “go and make disciples of all nations.” But what does that discipleship look like? How does one go about obeying this command practically? How would the original apostles have gone about doing this? I think the answer is clear: Jesus had spent the past several years discipling the apostles, setting an example for how discipleship is to be done. In short, the apostles would have learned their discipleship principles from Jesus. And so should you.
In this post, I want to extract practical discipleship principles from Jesus by looking at how He behaved towards His disciples. This post will look at the Gospel of Matthew in particular. There are many different ideas and methods put forward today for how to disciple someone. But the most important and foundational principles are laid down by Jesus in the Gospels. You must internalize and meditate on how Jesus interacted with His disciples in order to be effective at discipling others in obedience to the Great Commission.
1. You must initiate the discipling relationship
While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he (Jesus) saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Immediately they left their nets and followed him.
Matthew 4:18-20 ESV, emphasis added
It goes without saying, but the 12 apostles didn’t choose themselves to become Jesus disciples. Jesus initiated the relationship. Jesus called the 12 from their different areas of life and commanded them to follow Him. Furthermore, in Matthew 4 Jesus states His goal with discipling Peter and Andrew: He will make these brothers fishers of men.
“Fishers of men” is an apt metaphor for discipleship. No one goes fishing by sitting at home and waiting for the fish to swim up on land and come to them. Fishing means going out and catching the fish yourself. If you want to disciple other people, you are going to have to initiate the relationship. If you sit around waiting to be swarmed by individuals dying to glean wisdom from you, you will be waiting a long time.
Fishing for men means taking responsibility to go out and find people to disciple.
Now, unlike Jesus who has all authority, not everyone you approach with immediately follow you as Peter and Andrew did Jesus. But this discipleship principle from Jesus still holds: if you want to have a discipling relationship with someone, you are going to have to take the first steps.
2. Discipleship involves both direct teaching and setting an example with your lifestyle
The 12 apostles were around Jesus for the length of His earthly ministry. During that time, Jesus both taught the disciples directly, and set an example by His conduct. The Gospel of Matthew contains several sections recording the teaching of Jesus, including the famous section “The Sermon on the Mount.” Beyond this formal teaching, the 12 apostles received teaching not given broadly, such as Jesus interpreting parables for them.
But it would be foolish to limit Jesus’ discipleship of the apostles to His teaching ministry. The apostles also:
Witnessed Jesus’ miracles
Watched Him respond to the Pharisees
Listened as He answered questions from the crowd with wisdom
And more. Because the apostles were around Jesus constantly, they had the unique position to both hear what Jesus said and observe how Jesus acted. And this “hearing and seeing” is crucial to any discipling relationship. Certainly a good amount of time discipling others will involve teaching. But just as important is how you yourself behave and conduct yourself.
If you disciple someone, you are not only saying “listen to me.” You are also saying “imitate me as I imitate Christ.”
Just like Jesus, you need to modelin practice what you teach in precept. You oftentimes have more opportunities to display godly character in action than you do communicating godly characteristics in word.
3. Discipleship is honest about the joy of following Christ and the cost of following Christ
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30 ESV, emphasis added
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Matthew 16:24-25 ESV, emphasis added
Jesus did not sugarcoat the cost of following Him. Neither did He undersell the peace and joy He provides. Discipling involves teaching this tension. Following Jesus will lead to suffering and difficulty in this world, but Jesus is worth it. If you lose either part of this tension, you will end up obscuring the Bible’s teaching.
A major part of discipling others is displaying for them the worth and value of Jesus. Since the Gospel is at the heart of the Christian faith, you always return to it. You show how it is Jesus and Jesus alone who gives rest for people’s souls. And this rest was only made possible by His sacrifice.
But at the same time, you don’t ever want to make Jesus sound like a “ticket to heaven” or a means to material gain or someone who demands nothing of His followers. Just as Jesus called His disciples to self denial and dying to themselves, so to you will make it clear to all you are discipling that following Jesus requires leaving behind much of what people hold onto in their flesh.
4. You cannot disciple everyone at the same level
Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him.
And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.
And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.
Matthew 5:1, 10:1, 17:1 ESV, emphasis added
Jesus did not disciple every single person He came in contact with. Even amongst the 12 apostles, He chose three to disciple more intimately. Jesus on several occasions brought only Peter, James, and John with Him to witness key moments in His ministry. You can see these three “levels of discipleship” in the verses above:
Jesus had a large crowd of disciples following Him who He taught formally
The 12 apostles were specifically selected by Jesus to minister alongside Him
Of those 12 apostles, Jesus chose three in particular to devote the most of His time
What is point here? You cannot disciple every single person at the samelevel. If you have been given an opportunity to teach formally at Church, that is a form of discipleship. Whether a pastor or a teacher, you disciple the congregation by expounding the word to them. But you cannot possibly have the entire congregation over your house every week. You will have to select a subset of the congregation to prioritize when doing that kind of discipling.
But even within that subset that you prioritize, you cannot go deep with every single person. You cannot live out all aspects of a discipling relationship with that entire group of believers. Within the subset of the congregation you devote your time to, there might be a handful that you really disciple at a deep level. And that is okay.
Don’t feel like you have to disciple every person you meet at the same level of depth in order to fulfill Jesus’ command.
There is a breadth to discipleship to be sure, but there is also a depth of getting to really know a few Christians at the level where you feel comfortable sharing your struggles against sins, your doubts, your spiritual victories. Jesus discipled many people during His ministry, but not all at the same level. We would do well to take this lesson to heart when we strategically plan who to disciple.
5. Discipling others involves both asking questions and answering questions
Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Matthew 16:13-16 ESV, emphasis added
As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
Matthew 24:3 ESV, emphasis added
This discipleship principle from Jesus you see throughout the gospels. Jesus is an expert question-asker. His questions get right to the heart of whatever issue or whatever person He is dealing with. Questions are tools to make the other person think and to confront someone else’s thinking. Matthew 16 gives a great example: Jesus asks a general question to frame the discussion and then asks His disciples directly “what do you think?”
If you want to disciple someone else, you will have to become good at asking questions.
It is always tempting to simply tell someone else what they should think. But the goal of asking questions is to lead the other person to see the conclusion for themselves. It takes a lot of practice but no tool is more useful in discipleship, besides prayer and Scripture, than asking good questions.
Of course, the opposite is also true: you will have to answer questions if you disciple others. This leads to another key principle: discipleship is not one-sided. You don’t get to ask all the questions; sometimes you will have to answer hard questions yourself. In Matthew 24, Jesus is asked about the end of the age and ends up teaching for some time before finally answering the question directly. Since you don’t have all knowledge like Jesus, you will often have to consult Scripture yourself as you are asked tough questions from those you are discipling.
6. Discipleship requires patient perseverance
Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Matthew 16:16-17, 22-23 ESV, emphasis added
I love the juxtaposition of these verses in Matthew 16. In verses 16-17, Jesus blesses Peter because of His confession. Soon after, Jesus rebukes Peter for adopting a satanic mindset with regards to Jesus death and resurrection. Why would Peter rebuke Jesus in the latter verse when he just confessed Jesus was the Son of God in the former verse? These verses illustrate a vital reality to keep in your mind: discipleship involves both encouraging and discouraging moments.
Think of your own life: is spiritual growth for you a never ending ascent into further and further godliness? Or is it more of a “one step forward, two steps back” kind of a process? Discipleship aims at teaching others to “observe all that Christ has commanded” but when you invest your time and life into others you will be hurt and disappointed often. One moment you will feel encouraged by the other person’s spiritual growth only to weep when you hear about a besetting sin this other person fell into.
What will you do when you get the discouraging news? Give up? Resign yourself to the fact that “it must not be working?” If you learn your discipleship principles from Jesus, you will take none of these options. Jesus persevered with Peter, despite Peter’s frequent mistakes, sins, and setbacks. Discipleship takes perseverance and patience. There is no other way. People don’t change overnight and sanctification is a life-long process. Don’t be discouraged when there are setbacks and issues to deal with. Instead, these setbacks are reminders to persevere in discipling since your work is never done “until Christ is formed” in the other person.
7. Discipleship requires involving someone in your life for a period of time
Stepping back for a moment, you realize that Jesus only had a handful of years to disciple the apostles. During that time, Jesus called them, the apostles went everywhere with Jesus, and Jesus taught them. But that time of walking with Jesus ended. It didn’t end Jesus’ death since Christ conquered death. Rather, Jesus sent out His disciples after His resurrection and then ascended into heaven.
The takeaway here is if you want to disciple other people, you are going to have to involve them in your life. Discipleship is not the occasional coffee shop meet up to catch up on life. Discipling also means inviting people to your home, being willing to talk when it is inconvenient, chatting as you do dishes, coordinating your schedules so you can frequently meet, including your family in discipling interactions, and a host of other things.
Discipleship is less about scheduled occasional meet-ups and more about constant continued closeness between believers as they live their lives week by week.
But don’t think every discipling relationship is a life-long commitment. People move away. Life-circumstances change. There is change and loss. A brother who discipled me in high school I stay in contact with, but I see him only occasionally. So he cannot be my primary means of being discipled. The brother who discipled me in college moved away a year or so ago. When he visits, we talk and go deep. But I need to be discipled by someone physically close to me, someone who can be involved in my life and I in his.
Enter each discipling relationship with a “season” mindset. What I mean by this is don’t assume you have an infinite amount of time to build up this person. You don’t. Instead, start the relationship with the mindset of “in this season of life, God wants me to invest in this person.” Then embrace the season, apply these discipleship principles from Jesus, and when that season ends, find the next person God would have you disciple.
Conclusion: Imitate Jesus, the ultimate disciple-maker
There is much more to say about discipleship and how to go about discipling others. In fact, future posts will look at what other Scripture teaches on the subject. But these 7 discipleship principles from Jesus in Matthew are a helpful and necessary starting point when thinking about how best to obey the Great Commission.
Don’t feel discouraged if you don’t live up to Jesus’ example. Remember: Jesus in giving the Great Commission also promised to be with His Church as they endeavored to obey it. Trust in Jesus, the ultimate disciple-maker, and rely on His strength as you go out and teach those around you what it means to live as a Christian.
The past couple weeks, I have found 6 different answers to these questions. While certainly non-exhaustive, these 6 things have helped me focus my mind on the Lord as I have been walking, standing, or sitting with a baby in my arms. What is the goal of all this? Redeeming the time in accordance to what God says:
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.
Ephesians 5:15-16, ESV emphasis added
Even if you don’t find yourself holding a baby, no doubt you have free moments throughout the day. These free moments may be short, but they are opportunities to invest in your soul and in your relationship with the Lord. Here are some ways to spend those moments.
1. Pray
Before having a baby, I often asked the Lord to give me more time to pray throughout the day. He certainly answered that request by giving me a son. The first couple sleepless nights in the hospital I sat holding my son in the dark and the silence-alone except for me, my son, and the Lord. I will never forget the sweet times of prayer in the hospital holding a baby I cared so much about and who I wanted to know Christ one day.
This taught me an important lesson:
You don’t have to wait around for an opportunity to pray. You can do it now.
Communion with the Lord is made possible through Christ and that communion is possible at any moment. The key is to take the times of silence God gives you to turn our attention back to Him. Holding a baby is one of those opportunities, but so is a host of other life circumstances. Next time you find yourself having a free moment, keep your phone off. Don’t turn on music or flip on the television. Dedicate those fleeting calm moments to pray to the God who made you, knows you, and loves you.
2. Read
If I am holding my son and he is asleep, I most likely have one hand free. That means I can hold a Christian book or, better yet, the Bible. I normally can get through a chapter or two of Scripture or a couple sections of a book before my son wakes up. I personally don’t care for audio books or e-readers, but I imagine both of these are even more accessible while holding a baby.
A consistent diet of Biblical truth is what you and I need to grow. Like the Psalmist in Psalm 119, you should be longing for God’s word. This longing will manifest itself in picking up the Bible or a book on the Bible any chance you get. Don’t feel like you have to get through Calvin’s Institutes in one sitting. Just have a book nearby and pick it up when you have a free moment.
3. Sing hymns
When I am holding my son, he is not always silent or happy. That means praying or reading might be difficult or impossible. What then can I do? Sing hymns of worship. This has two joint benefits: I get to worship God and my son gets to hear Christian hymns (hopefully soothing him). There are two ways to do this:
Have a hymnal nearby
Memorize as many Christian hymns as you can
This is one of my favorite uses of time holding my son. And guess what? There are dozens of other opportunities God gives you throughout your day to sing praises to hymn beyond holding a baby. Remember what James 5 says:
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise.
James 5:13, ESV
If you are feeling joy in the Lord, don’t let anything hold you back from singing. You and I have no excuse in the modern world where we have the lyrics and music to thousands of hymns at our fingertips.
Sing to the Lord so your kids can here you praising Jesus.
4. Recite a memorized Scripture passage
I don’t think Christians can over-emphasizethe importance of Bible memorization. It is easy to think in a culture where everyone can get the Bible on their phones that memorization is a relic of the past. But nothing could be further from the truth. Memorization is an essential spiritual discipline to get the truth of the Bible inside your head to stay.
Holding a baby is a great time to run through Scripture verses you have memorized. You can recite a whole book of the Bible to yourself and your baby if you have it memorized! This is not some feat only a select few Christians can achieve:
Scripture memorization is a test of consistency and discipline, not of inherent intelligence.
If you want a useful and easy method to start memorizing chunks of Scripture, look here.
5. Meditate on a verse or section of the Bible
If all you can hold in your mind is a single Bible verse, you have a truth you can meditate on while holding a baby. What is Bible meditation? It is musing over and over a part of the Bible, thinking through what it says, what other passages it relates to, and the passage’s implications. The Bible itself extols the value of meditating on God’s words “day and night.”
You know what I find myself doing day and night? Holding my son. Therefore, I have a perfect opportunity each day to live out what God says in Scripture. By meditating on His word, I can, with the Holy Spirit’s help, turn a simple everyday task of holding a baby into a sanctifying time of spiritual strengthening. You might not have time to do a full inductive Bible study every hour of your day. But I am certain if you committed yourself to meditating on Scripture, you could find time throughout your schedule to think over a precious truth or promise or command from God.
6. Listen to a sermon or Christian podcast or teaching
Do you have a phone? Then you have an almost inexhaustible library of Christian preaching and teaching at your disposal. I have half a dozen apps on my phone exclusively for solid, reformed Christian teaching:
Expositor FM (they appear to be currently updating their site)
Martin Lloyd-Jones Sermons
S. Lewis Johnson Sermons
Ligonier Ministries
Sermon of the Day from Desiring God
Grace to You
In fact, I bet your local Church has an online sermon repository which you can access. Why not listen through your Sunday sermon a second time throughout the week? In short, you can hear the word of God preached almost anywhere you go and at anytime you want. So why wouldn’t you take advantage of that?
There you have it: 6 spiritually profitable things I am trying to do while holding my son. Even if you don’t have a baby currently, I would encourage you to take advantage of each free moment you have. You don’t need to have hours on end in a row to pursue the Lord.
Worship God in the little moments as well as the big.
If you want to read more of my reflections on different life circumstances, click here. If you found this post helpful, please share on social media below and subscribe. Follow The Average Churchman on Instagram to get more content.
In a previous post, I laid out the theological foundation for discipleship. Christians are commanded by the resurrected Christ to make disciples of all nations for the glory of God the Father. Jesus not only commands this: He also is with His Church as they perform this task. The question is why is discipleship not always a primary focus among Christians and in Churches? I think there are 3 common barriers to discipleship that keep believers from living in obedience to Christ’s command.
These barriers to discipleship are not legitimate excuses for disobedience. Rather, they are subtle lies you and I can allow ourselves to believe that keep us from prioritizing discipleship. In this post, I want to go through each of these common barriers to discipleship and show how Scripture addresses them. You will never become a discipling Christian if you don’t fight these three lies which pull you away from prioritizing pouring your life out for the spiritual benefit of others.
“I am too busy for discipleship”
Is any excuse more common in our modern world that “I’m too busy?” I hear the excuse almost daily and, if I’m honest, I hear the phrase come out of my mouth more often than I care to count. “I’m too busy” is our society’s magic bullet for excusing ourselves from something. It is another way of saying “I am not going to do that or make time for it.” And this “I’m too busy” excuse is used to dodge the command to make disciples both within and without the Church.
The barrier of “I’m too busy for discipleship” is insufficient for a number of reasons. The first of which I already wrote about in a previous post: the command is given by the authority of Christ.
No Christian should be too busy for obedience.
Part of becoming conformed to the image of Christ is conforming your life to Scripture. That means, among other things, you let the Bible set your life’s priorities. If you feel too busy for discipling others, then the first step is to remind yourself that Jesus sets your schedule, not you.
Secondly, I have been discipled by half a dozen men throughout the course of my life and every single one of them had a busy schedule. Every single one of them could have made the excuse “I am too busy for discipleship.” They had jobs, family responsibilities, were involved at Church, had aging parents, and a host of other things I probably didn’t know about. But the reality is you can have a lot of responsibility and still make time for discipleship. It takes effort, but God will give you grace as you seek to obey His word.
Finally, God has much to say about how His people use their time. Consider the following verses:
Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time.
..you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Colossians 4:5, James 4:14, 17 ESV
Your time is a gift from God. Today is the time God has given you to live in obedience to His will and His commission to make disciples. If you have read this post or you have read Matthew 28, you know that discipling is the right thing to do. Therefore, to say you are too busy for discipling other Christians is sin per James 4:17. What is the solution? Ask the Lord’s forgiveness and start reworking your schedule so that you aren’t “too busy” for pouring your life into others.
“Discipleship doesn’t really work”
Rarely will you hear a Christian say “discipleship doesn’t really work” outright. Instead, it is an implicit assessment you and I can easily make each week. Discipling can be draining, time consuming, and seemingly fruitless. Why? Because you are spending time investing in sinful people. When discipling gets tough, it can become easy to think “well, this is a waste of time! There has got to be more effective and easy ways to serve Christ!”
You and I live in a “quick and easy”, “non-committal” culture. If you don’t like your job, you switch as soon as possible. Marriage problems? Get a divorce and find someone who can make you really happy. Is your food taking too long to cook? Just run out and get fast-food. This is what the culture values and if you are not careful, you can start wishing God’s plan included quick, easy, low commitment, low suffering obedience.
But discipleship is none of those things. Discipling takes endurance, patience, perseverance, love, and a host of other virtues. It involves sacrifice, suffering, and will sanctify you as much as you will help others. God’s plan for the nations involves making disciples and God’s plan will succeed. You must remind yourself that it doesn’t matter if you discipling others is “working” from your perspective or if it is “effective”. All that matters is you are being obedient to God’s plan.
When you are tempted to think God might have gotten it wrong by prioritizing discipleship, remind yourself of Isaiah 55:8-9.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV
Discipling takes faith: faith that God’s means by which people are brought into the Church and built up in Christ are the best means. Faith that God’s plans, God’s methods work even if you don’t fully understand them. If you find yourself doubting if discipleship “works” or wondering if it is as important as people make it out to be, the problem is most likely a lack of faith in God to accomplish what He promises in His word.
You must walk by faith not by sight if you commit to disciple others.
“I am not equipped for discipleship”
Maybe you are trying to make time for discipleship and maybe you do truly believe it is integral to God’s plan for your life. I think the most common barrier to discipleship is even simpler than these: you don’t feel equipped to disciple someone else. You don’t see yourself as the Christian who knows the most, who has the most spiritual experience, who is the wisest or as godly as other believers around you. Who are you to try to disciple a younger believer? Won’t you do more harm than good?
As I have repeated in this post, discipling others is a matter of obedience.
When you pour into others for their spiritual good, you are working in accordance with God’s plan for the world.
The question you have to ask yourself is: will God abandon you to obedience alone? Does God call you to do something that He will not equip you to do? The answer is no, of course. God, through the Holy Spirit, provides you with everything you need to disciple others.
His divine power has granted to us all thingsthat pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence
2 Peter 1:3, ESV emphasis added
You might not feel qualified or equipped. But Scripture says God has given you what you need to obey Him. More than that, if you are a Christian you have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you giving you the power to obey. If you want to become a discipling Christian, you are going to have to fight feelings of inadequacy with the truth of Scripture.
Remember also the promise of Jesus in Matthew 28: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Don’t focus on yourself and the ways you feel ill-equipped to disciple others. Look instead to Jesus and who He is. Is Jesus equipped to disciple others? Does He have all knowledge and wisdom? Then remind yourself that this same Jesus is with you as you seek to pour into others. He will give you what you need.
Conclusion: There are no barriers to discipleship
These 3 common barriers to discipleship can keep you from the joy and satisfaction of living in obedience to Jesus’ plan for your life. Discipling others is not easy, it takes a lot of your time, and requires you to rely on the Lord moment by moment. But that is the point. God calls you to toil for other people’s spiritual good because it also sanctifies you.
When Jesus was teaching His disciples, they didn’t always understand. Reading the Gospels, sometimes it seems like Peter takes one step forward and then three steps back spiritually. But Jesus calls you to follow in His footsteps by patiently and lovingly laboring and teaching other people God’s truth. You aren’t doing it alone: God is empowering you and equipping you every step of the way. None of these barriers to discipleship should keep you from living out God’s will.
