Does the Church Make Disciples or Disciples Make the Church
There seems to be two responses to the church today in the West in terms of challenging it to be more than what it is. One is a church planting movement--let’s start new churches to do what the established church can’t do and reach more people because, no doubt about it, new churches reach more lost people than anyone. Then there are modern reformers, or should I say post-modern reformers, that are experimenting with what a new emerging church out of the old church looks like. Been thinking about this a whole lot lately. Is there really such a thing as a church planting movement or is it a Jesus movement? Can emergent replace existing where the church already exist (emergent in China and Asia is very different from emergent in the West).
So here’s the big question. How do we see change happen? What if, and I’m thinking out loud here, it wasn’t to do with “church” at all. We start with church forms, be they central or decentralized, church models, be they house or building, but, is there a movement in history that did that and was successful? I can’t think of any. They may be there. I just don’t know them.
Meno Simons, Count Zinzindorf, and Tolstoy all started movements, but they came as a result of a passion for Jesus. The church in Asia is exploding because of their passion for Christ--church is an outgrowth. Church is present, church is real, but it doesn’t start with church, it starts with Jesus and church evolves. Evolve is the right word because movements each have a unique expression of church. No Chinese pastor woke up one day and said, “I’m going to start a church planting movement!” They did wake up, in love with Jesus and change their community and ultimately other communities as the Gospel spread and people congregationalized.
We start with the church, and all her functions, regardless of model or philosophy, and try to engineer things to produce what we are after. Here’s the question, does the church make disciples, or disciples make the church?
For disciples to make the church, you have to believe the Gospel is powerful enough to change. You have to believe the Word of God is alive and can bring the character of Jesus within us. You have to believe the Spirit is active on a regular basis in the life of the believer. This is discipleship as a petri dish--the DNA placed within it and emergent life--as opposed to discipleship as a classroom.
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Jan 12, 2007 at 05:36 PM
That's so right - it's not primarily a movement of a church structure as much as a movement of the gospel. In one of the largest and fastest growing "church planting movements" in India all of the churches look very different. Some have a few people, some don't. Some have buildings, some don't. But what's crazy is what they all have in common - radical love, obedience, and multiplication as the marks of success. Wow! Imagine if we in the West evaluated success through the grid of obedience and transformation! Freakin' revival, maybe?!
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Jan 12, 2007 at 08:29 PM
Making disciples with church planting movements in mind makes sure that three vital components are embedded into their DNA - obedience to the Word, life in community with other believers and reproduction. While these are only three elements of a church planting movement, without them you cannot have movement at all. Yet, in a Western context, we often have an individualistic approach to discipleship which minimalizes community and is not very reproducible - especially cross culturally. So while you have to make disciples in order to have a church plant and a church planting movement, the vision, the question "What does it take to reach entire nations for Christ?" and the expectation makes sure that the necessary DNA permeates every aspect of our church planting process, our churches themselves, and our strategy to see Kingdom transformation in every domain of society. As Christians, we have heaven firmly planted in our hearts and minds, yet it is the vision of heaven and hope of eternity with Christ that makes Hebrews 11 possible. Perhaps the power of discipleship for church planting and church planting movements is found in the cohesive vision CPM places in the minds of those who dedicate everything they have - and more - to see the Lost join the Family.
Jan 13, 2007 at 11:06 AM
The question you asked is "How do we see change happen?"
Then, "Does the church make disciples, or disciples the church?"
I'm in a massive learning phase about this right now and wrestle with this constantly. I'm in a western church, but work overseas in church planting and see what happens in those contexts.
I think in both, disciples make disciples. Then the disciples make the church. The difficuly I see in the "West" is moving people from disciple being a class at 5 p.m. to it being a one-on-one relationship where a person with stronger faith pours his or her life into one with weaker faith. E.g., Jesus = Peter, James & John; Barnabas to Saul, Paul to Timothy and so forth.
I also think this is really hard, particularly in the west. The commitment level is intense and you have to count the cost before you try it.
I don't know hardly any pastors who model it, nor many layman for that matter.
IF, we who make up the church made this, potentially, enormous time and energy commitment, we'd see change happen, regardless (mostly) of church structure, methodology, and/or history.
So what about me? God has brought me recently to Nehemiah. I need to build my gate and portion of the wall.
convicting.
Jan 13, 2007 at 08:31 PM
As a boy growing up we lived in a houses small and large, rural, urban and suburban, none of those houses made us a family, but after my father met Jesus there was a transformation that has infected generations. I hope I never think of marrage the way some churches think of discipleship. Love is at the core and other-focused relationships are the result.
Jan 14, 2007 at 09:52 PM
Bob, you are so right here. Jesus makes disciples, and disciples make a church. But then, with the church you got people. And with people you got politics and inevitably, trouble. I remember someone once saying that where two or three gather in His name, there you have.......trouble! And here we are onto the nature of the church as a social system.
The issue that we must all grapple with is, how do we maintain the disciple-making ethos of the authenitc ecclesia? How do we stop from settling down?
Jan 15, 2007 at 06:11 AM
Yep - you're right Alan - but if it's DNA, and that DNA is present - do you have to engineer it - or how much do you engineer it - and have you seen success with engineering the church - I may just be being too negative - I've lived through 4 movements of hope -all promising "new and improved" and it all wound up the same - just questioning
Jan 15, 2007 at 08:38 AM
Love the thoughts. Meno Simons & Count Zinzindorf---yes great models. Tolstoy--to quote Borat..."not so much." I wouldn't lean on him much at all for a model since he refused to see Jesus as anything but an noble ethicist. It is important that when we speak of "Christian" that despite some peoples inklings, there is an actual Christology involving orthodox statements.
Interestingly enough, Tolstoy would skirt around the problems that Hirsch pointed out that arise when we gather people and the corresponding politicalness of the Church. For Tolstoy, Jesus was no ‘son of God’, nor did he
perform any supernatural miracles. Tolstoy was convinced that these superstitious stories in the Bible had been added by the church in order to keep ‘Christians’
hypnotised enough to ensure that they did not question the unjustifiable compromise that the church had reached with the state. He was convinced that an honest and full application of Christianity could only lead to a stateless and churchless society, and that all those who argued the contrary were devious hypocrites.
THUS, HE HAD NO NEED OF A CHURCH in his mind.
Once again showing how your Christology effects everything else. Comments?
Jan 15, 2007 at 11:47 AM
Yes Tolstoy has always been an interesting figure....
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