successful commercial businesses put sustained effort into creating and nurturing advocates for their brand. Advocates both inside and outside the organization practically and verbally support the organization by buying, using and recommending the product to others. In commercial terms external advocates are a very cost effective way of sustaining the business. They become emotionally attached to the organization.
The church also needs advocates.
In the church context, advocates are disciples. Discipleship may not sound new or revolutionary, but if taken seriously, it will change everything for you and your church and your community.
There is not a leadership problem in the Church in the West. There is not a missional problem. There is a discipleship problem. If we make disciples, like Jesus made disciples, the way we’re supposed to, we get more leaders than we can handle and more vision and action for mission than we will have ever seen. The same can be seen in every successful commercial business.
That’s the way Jesus did it.
That’s the way his disciples did it.
That’s the way the early church did it.
That’s the way every missional movement in history has done it.
And yet there is a full-fledged discipleship crisis which has led to a full-fledged crisis in the Western Church. What we have failed to understand is that the church is the effect of discipleship rather than the cause. In other words, if you make disciples, you will always get the church. But if you’re seeking to build the church, you rarely get disciples.
If you wish to make disciples there are two managerial questions that need to be answered.
1 What is your plan for making disciples?
2 Does the plan work?
Most of us are in communities that plan for making disciples, but sadly, these plans haven’t really worked for quite some time. The absence of an effective discipleship plan is often a product of church-based focus.
The discipleship plan at St Thomas Sheffield works and is based on that vision which has ultimately spawned a global discipling and missional movement. We started something we call Huddle, which is a group of four to ten people who are being intentionally discipled by the Huddle leader which, while similar in size to a small group, is actually quite different. The Huddle meets at the very least, every two weeks.
The leaders invest in the disciples and the disciples give the leaders access to their life outside the Huddle space. At the end of every Huddle gathering, each person in the group will be able to answer two questions:
1 What is God saying to me right now?
2 In the next two weeks, what am I going to do about it?
The next time the Huddle gathers the leader will ask, ‘Did you do what you said you were going to do?’
The purpose here is to inject accountability into the process. We cannot make disciples without intentionality and accountability. Jesus didn’t.
It goes beyond this. Every person entering a Huddle knows that within 12 to 18 months they will start a Huddle of their own. Why? Because every disciple disciples.
That’s not radical. That’s not revolutionary, that’s just the Great Commission.
For reflection and discussion
1 Do you have a discipleship plan?
2 Is the model outlined above practical in your church?
3 Do members of your congregation always act as advocates for the church?
4 What strategies do you have for countering a negative view of your church?
Great Idea 15: Believe that You too can Change the Church
MALCOLM GRUNDY
Here I am, send me
Isaiah 6.8
Top Tip: With the blessing of God’s Spirit you too can be an instrument for change.
Business Perspective: Successful organizations understand that if their staff are emotionally attached to the organization they are more creative and productive.
Local churches are not what they used to be. They have learned to adapt and change with great skill. One reason for this is that God will not let them stand still. Churchgoing as a social convention has died. Most people go to church nowadays because they want to. Many congregations are made up of people who have come from a number of other denominations. This can bring riches of faith and ideas; it can also bring tensions about the ways change can be brought in.
There are many people who do wonder why they should still keep going to church. They leave worship more frustrated than inspired and equipped to face another week. Church life and worship can be stuck in the past. For many people faith is too precious to be trapped in this way. People of faith have more hope than despair.
The Holy Spirit brings new life and resurrection wherever there is openness to change. Churches are renewed by Spirit-filled and Spirit-disturbed people! God is also at work bringing change and new life outside the church all over the world. Many ideas from the rest of life can be put to good use inside the church. This is because the best ideas do not belong to any one race or nation: they are about love and forgiveness, reconciliation and justice.
Jesus was very disturbed by what he saw in the religion of his day. He challenged those in authority and overturned the tables of the moneychangers; a story told in each of the four gospels. He wanted God’s houses to be places of prayer. Today Jesus wants people with vision to change the church and renew everyday life. People full of prayerful ideas are God’s chosen people.
It is both comforting and distressing that we do not know what the church of the future will look like. It has changed, in every part of the world, more than we could ever have imagined over the past 50 years. Some changes have been on a large scale like the use of modern language in the liturgy and the renewal of church music. Many other changes have been begun by one person or one group having a good idea and wanting to try it out. Then the idea caught on and began something which snowballed into a big change.
With the blessing of God’s Spirit you too can be an instrument for change. If you are inspired or just cannot let go of an idea that has come to you, it is possible that you are being prompted from somewhere to become an agent for change and to make a difference wherever God has called you to be.
For reflection and discussion
1 In managerial terms, what do you understand by the term ‘change’?
2 What do you do to generate commitment to change in your church?
3 How do you see change as a principle of God’s interaction with the world?
4 What is the level of your own commitment to change in your church?
Great Idea 16: Be the Centre of Community not a Satellite
DAVID BLUNKETT
Faith
