“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.”

Back in October, a well-known ministry, which I respect, published an article decrying a high school for using the “kidney machine exercise.” Basically, the exercise is a group decision-making process involving the allocation of scarce resources. In this case, there is a kidney dialysis machine, a set of candidates who are given various characteristics, and a panel (the class) to determine who should get time on the machine. The ministry called this practicing for ObamaCare Death Panels.

I intend to use this space to post observations and things I’m learning about discipleship, the church, leadership, and life! My goal is to write something once or twice a week.

Here are some thoughts from my Time with God a few days ago.

Joseph, husband of Mary, did what he was told.