I’m not ready for that.

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A friend of mine was leading some men through Ways of the Alongsider, a bible-study from The Navigators that teaches folks how to come alongside others in their spiritual journeys. At some point, one of the men said, “I get it! You’re asking us to share the gospel with people and when they believe, help them grow in the faith so that they can repeat the process.” My friend said, “Yes. Of course.” Then the man said, “I’m not ready for that yet.” 

I can think of a number of comeback responses:
  • If you’re not ready now, what are you doing to get ready? Luke 12:47, 48 is clear:
And that servant who knew his master’s will but did not get ready or act according to his will, will receive a severe beating. But the one who did not know, and did what deserved a beating, will receive a light beating. Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.
  • Are you less ready than Matthew when he was called in Luke 5, who immediately threw a dinner party for his unsaved friends?
  • Are you less ready than the Woman at the Well in John 4 who immediately went and invited her village, filled with people who probably didn’t even like her, to meet Jesus?
  • Are you less ready than the demon-possessed guy in Mark 5 who asked Jesus for more training, but whom Jesus sent to his home town to tell his story?

It is chilling that our allegedly bible-believing churches are filled with people who are willing to admit they’re “not ready” to do what Jesus has clearly asked us to do, aren’t doing anything to get ready, and are allowed to be members in good standing without even being challenged.

I find that most people in most churches will be “ready” after they’ve had “one more course.” But it’s always one more course. No wonder the harvest is still plentiful and the laborers are still few.

The Church’s Mission

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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.“

Participation

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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.”

Death Panels and the Kidney Machine Exercise

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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.



Without making any judgment on the Affordable Health Care Act (ObamaCare) and without knowing exactly how or why the high school teacher conducted the exercise, I wrote to the ministry with an alternate view…

You should know that the kidney machine group exercise has been around for at least 40 years. I used it in an Air Force leadership school in the late 70s. It’s a good “rainy-day” activity that involves leadership, group dynamics, interpersonal skills, etc. How are the decisions made? Who dominates the discussion? Can the participants reason with each other with respect or are there one or more bullies? With respect to not wanting to put a value on people based on arbitrary criteria, the option to choose randomly is always there. I observed one group making the decision that way. “I’m not comfortable with this discussion. Can we choose the people randomly?” Everyone agreed.

If you don’t like kidney machine and its association with ObamaCare’s “death panels,” you can do the same exercise and call it the lifeboat problem. There are 10 people in the water, and the lifeboat holds only 5. This was a real-world problem during the sinking of the Titanic, and the honorable men chose to let the women and children go ahead of them. By contrast, 150 Haitians were killed when the boat they were in capsized. The boat had a capacity of 25, and my experience with Haitians leads me to believe they have no concept of “capacity” nor a mechanism for choosing.

People make decisions on criteria of their choosing all the time. For example, I was recently criticized by a fellow believer for going to Starbucks. My friend chooses to boycott Starbucks because of their support of the homosexual rights movement. There are at least two values at work there. One is the value that one should boycott businesses you don’t agree with. This is not a value I share. The second value is that a business’s stance on homosexuality trumps everything else. Also not a value I share. What if I value Starbucks’ commitment to helping poor farmers in developing countries more than I devalue their position on homosexuality in this country?

The real point of the kidney machine (or lifeboat) exercise is for people to have criteria for making decisions (even if one criterion is choose randomly) and be able to articulate their position in a compelling way. Those are skills everyone needs.

And a larger lesson may be, Do we have to continue to provide fuel for those who think that Christians are against everything? Can we try a little harder to exercise 1 Corinthians 13 love? “Love is patient and kind…it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way.”

Joseph Did as He Was Told

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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.

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “ Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20-21)
 
When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus. (Matthew 1:24-25)
 
It’s easy to take Joseph for granted, but his obedience was critical to the salvation story. We’ll have two more instances in Matthew 2. Note here that the angel asked Joseph to do two things: don’t fear to take Mary as your wife and call his name Jesus. And in verses 24 and 25 he did precisely that. “He did as the angel of The Lord commanded him.” He took his wife and he called the son’s name Jesus.
 
Doing what God wants. James 1.22, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” That should be the theme of my life. As an example, since I journal my Times with God (TWG) using Evernote, I can see how many there are. I’ve just noticed that I’ve recorded 190 TWGs since April 15. But there are about 260 days between then and now. Or about 37 weeks. Is 5 days per week of TWG good? Or would daily be better? My wife, June, and I just committed to exercise every day in 2014. Can we also commit to TWG every day in 2014? Also, to put what we read into practice?
 
Joseph did what he was told. And it’s only a sentence in the Bible, but his obedience would have been difficult, yet it was a critical part of Jesus’ life.

thoughts about life, leadership, and discipleship