A friend of mine who pastors a small church in a rural area came up with a great format for Sunday morning: one which will build a feeling of family, be comfortable and attractive to visitors, and encourage retention and real-life application of the morning’s teaching. He proposed that they meet at 9a, sit at round tables in groups of 8 – 10 and have breakfast together. They would remain at the tables for the morning. After a few songs, led simply by one person with a guitar, he would present one story of Jesus from the gospels, maybe 15 minutes. Then folks would process the story at tables for another 15 minutes. Then they would pray for each other.

When I read it, I thought it was a great idea on so many levels, not the least of which is that the average sermon, which the pastor may have labored 10 – 30 hours on, is gone from most people’s minds before they even get outside the building. Also, it’s difficult for a small church to have a competent “worship band”—something which takes talent and time to put together well. And of course, not much real fellowship takes place in a typical Sunday service environment. Having people sit and eat together is a no-brainer.

But the first reaction by members of my friend’s leadership team was, “That’s not church.”

Really? What makes it not church?

We like to hold up Acts 2.42 as a model: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” Which of those four elements would not be in my friend’s Sunday morning?

We like to encourage people to “attend church” by quoting Hebrews 10.24, 25: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” I have not found the average Sunday service conducive to “stirring up one another” or “encouraging one another.” We’re expected to file into a room, sing when told to, and listen to a lecture. On the other hand, my friend’s proposal would allow time precisely for implementing the “one anothers” of Hebrews 10.

So what makes such a gathering “not church”? Or is our understanding of church very faulty? Basing our Sunday gatherings on a centuries-old form doesn’t make it either right or optimal. David Platt, former pastor of Brook Hills Church in Birmingham, AL, has decried the fact that church is “A Performance at a Place with Programs run by Professionals.” Yet that is exactly what most people expect from church to the point that when presented with an alternative, one that might be more conducive to what gatherings of God’s people should look like, they can only respond, “That’s not church.”

My Navigator teammate John Purvis has developed a picture of disciples and the process of making disciples using the anatomy of a tree. I don’t remember all the fine points, but I do remember that the core of a tree is called the “heartwood”–it’s the most beautiful part for woodworkers, he told us. Being the oldest and densest part of the trunk, it provides the tree’s stability…unless it’s not there.

My brother-in-law posted this story and picture on Facebook:

Saturday, at 2:30 in the morning, wind driven rain followed by a loud explosion and a tremendous thud that shook the entire house, then dead silence and utter darkness, no lights, no hum of air conditioners, no nothing. Turns out that a neighbor’s massive oak fell across the road and took down the power lines, snapped off the pole they were attached to, causing the transformer to blow, and damaged a house on the other side of the street. As the photo shows, the tree was diseased and the core was gone.

I’m sure the tree looked great from the outside right until the time it fell.

This could be a picture of someone’s life…or a church. If we don’t attend to the basics (Paul wrote, “Train yourself for godliness,” in 1 Timothy 4.7), we can rot from the inside. And, to change the metaphor, it will be like the house with no foundation in Jesus’ story of the wise and foolish builder in Matthew 7.24 – 27: “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

The difference? “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them…” We have churches filled with people who come, and even if they listen to the sermon, if they don’t put it into practice, they are like the house with no foundation, the tree with no core.

“Take heart!” or “Take cover!” This is my takeaway from two excellent sermons I heard recently.

Jim DeJarnette, music minister at First Presbyterian Church, Colorado Springs, preached on David and Goliath and noted a key verse:

1 Samuel 17.32
David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.”

He compared this to John 16.33:
“…in this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.”

What’s our message to the world? How are we encouraging those around us? Do we bring the “Take heart” message? Or are we constantly wringing our hands over the economy, the government, or the culture?

Ed Rowell, lead pastor at The Ascent Church, Monument, CO, preaching on 1 Peter 2.9-12 challenged, “Should we change our tactics with respect to the culture wars? Nothing in history has ever worked the way we do it today. Why don’t we take Peter’s words seriously? We want to ‘stand up and fight.’ I believe that response won’t work.” Peter’s counsel was to “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you…abstain from passions of the flesh…and live honorably.”

He went on to say, “Living honorably is not easy. We live in a world that’s increasingly confusing. We can respond to the culture’s moving away from God’s values with anger. Social media and cable news are not doing us any favors. Nothing has been gained by walling ourselves off and throwing rocks at the world.”

He continued, citing Rodney Stark’s excellent book The Rise of Christianity, that Christians changed the world between AD 33 and AD 300 by caring for the sick, the poor, and the marginalized, by honoring women, in general, by serving. And at the same time bringing a message of hope.

My thought during Jim’s message and later confirmed by Ed was that instead of a hopeful “take heart” message, more often than not, Christians today are yelling, “Take cover!”

One of the folks who sends forwarded emails, often about President Obama, and many false, seems to have taken me off his list after I challenged him with what I wrote on May 30, 2014. Christians seem to be in the forefront of forwarding rumors and declaring calamity.

Where is our “take heart” message? Do we not hear the words of Jesus to us? “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Can we share Jesus’ words with others?

I want to be more “take heart” than “take cover.” Will you join me?

A recent on-line issue of Clemson World told about a garden on the Clemson campus that provided an opportunity for handicapped kids and adults to practice gardening skills. The man in charge of it said, “The garden is less about me having an impact and more about giving the campers a place where they can have an impact.”

This is a nearly perfect description of disciple-making. It’s not about me making an impact as much as it is about helping the one I’m discipling have an impact. Isn’t this what Jesus did? “And he selected twelve that they might be with him, and that he might send them out to preach.” (Mark 3.12, 13)

And Jesus served in such a way that his followers were prepared to follow in his footsteps.

From time to time I hear pastors preach from, say, John 15, the vine and the branches, about the importance of continuous communion with Jesus, and contrast that with the practice of daily time with God. They will say something like, “Don’t just carve out 15 minutes to have a ‘quiet time,’ check it off, and then go about your day.” Or, “Don’t settle for a ‘quiet time’ when you can have moment-by-moment communion with God.” Sometimes this feels like the pastor is saying that we have a choice: a specific time designated for prayer and devotional scripture reading versus walking with God all day long.

I believe they go together. The people who walk with God are the people who also practice specific, private, spiritual disciplines like time with God, scripture memory, and bible study.

We know, for example, that playing scales is not the objective of piano practice. The objective is beautiful music, artfully executed. But one can’t do that without the training that comes, in part, from playing the scales. To change the metaphor, no one cares how much weight a football player can lift in the weight room, but without time in the weight room, the big plays on the field won’t happen. Legendary football coach Bear Bryant used to say, “You can’t live soft all week and play tough on Saturday.”

It happened again today. I received an email with photo documentation purporting to show some well-known government official doing something (you choose) stupid/unAmerican. Of course the photo had been doctored as I discovered with less than a minute’s work using www.truthorfiction.com, and the story was false.

I wrote in “Participation” on February 17, 2014, that God’s work is not intended to be done by paid professionals. The wall in Nehemiah’s day wasn’t built by gifted wall-builders but by ordinary people from many other walks of life. Therefore, what is the mission of the church?

One answer is that since the church is composed of its people, then the church’s mission is the people’s mission: “make disciples.” Note, however, that when Jesus gave the “Great Commission,” he didn’t give it to an organized church. And when he told them in Matthew 28, “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you…” the disciples’ understanding of how to do that wasn’t an organized church model. Jesus had chosen 12 that they might be “with him and that he might send them out…” (Mark 3.13).

I propose that the mission of the church is in Ephesians 4.11, 12: “And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,…” To say that the church’s mission is to make disciples is like saying that the mission of a trade school is to build houses. Instead, the mission of the trade school is to train, equip and empower plumbers, electricians, carpenters, roofers, etc. so that they can build houses.

When pastors misunderstand their mission, they try to do all the work themselves or mistakenly feel that they are the only ones who can do the work. When the people in the congregation misunderstand, thinking it’s the “church’s” job to make disciples in some magical way, they don’t actively participate other than to invite people to meetings. The result is that Jesus must still be saying, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.“

One of the great success stories in the Bible is Nehemiah building the wall around Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. There are many lessons, but a primary one is Participation.

Nehemiah succeeded in building the wall because he managed to get nearly full participation. Read Nehemiah chapter 3 and note the number and kinds of people that were busy working on the wall: priests (verse 1), goldsmiths and perfume-makers (verse 8), government officials and women (verse 9). Note that these were not necessarily “gifted” wall-builders. But they were all on the wall!

In the same way, the job of making disciples will not get done unless everyone is engaged in the spiritual multiplication process. Paul articulated the plan to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2:

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others.

The coach’s job (Timothy) is to train teachers (“reliable men”) who will learn to teach others, thus multiplying their efforts. I can’t think of a job at any level where people who do the job aren’t expected to teach others.

I was at a car wash a few years ago, and I noticed a young man slowly wiping down my wheels. I thought to myself, he looks like a trainee. Sure enough, as I watched another man came around to watch. “Get that spot over there! Treat it like it was your car!” The trainer told me, “This is his first day. He’ll get better. It will take him 20 minutes to finish this car. I could do it in 5. It took me 20 minutes when I first started, too.” Here was a man who took pride in his work and pride in teaching the new guy how to take pride in his work. This was a car wash! He expected growth and competence from the new guy.

It should not be different in the church. Nehemiah’s wall was not built by a few paid professionals. Disciples won’t be made in large numbers by paid professionals either. It is their job to train everyone else to “Get on the wall.”