Wednesday, July 4, 2018

Intentional Discipleship Plan

I have written a white paper on how to prepare an Intentional Discipleship Plan. I invite you to read it and use it if you find it valuable in your discipleship journey. 

Intentional Path to Discipleship
How do we get there from here?
By Reverend Don Jamison,
Chair of the Virginia Annual Conference Board of Discipleship



Within the Virginia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, we have a mandate to develop an Intentional Discipleship Plan by 2020. The truth is that we as churches across all denominations should have within our focus a clear path to discipleship. In my work with corporations and now churches, the success of an organization results from an understanding of who we are, why we are here and what is the process that we need to accomplish our goal. Apple Computers answers the “why” question by saying that “we are here to create new technology to make the world a better place.” Notice they did not say, “We are here to create computers or computer devices” and yet that is what they do and they do it well. When we understand the “why” question then we can begin the process of creating the how to solution. I remember working with a company who made taillights and they are the best in the world at making taillights. They understood that their “why” is answered, as “we want to promote safety with the best vehicle light.” They wanted to get into the stop light business. They knew nothing about stoplights. After sinking hundreds of thousands of dollars in stoplights, they wanted to know why they could not succeed. Lights are lights right? They discovered that they had ventured away from their reason for being. They knew nothing about Department of Transportation rules and regulations nor were they versed in the market for street lighting. When we know our why, we can be successful at the how. When we deviate away from our purpose, we waste resources and fail.

We also know that there are numerous ideas about discipleship and how to bring that into reality within the local church. We also the clearly understand that discipleship, like the ministry of the local church, is contextual to the geography and demographic of the community that surrounds it. My hope is to provide a process that others can follow as they develop their own level of intentional discipleship process for their church. There is no one-way to achieve success in making disciples, except to say all discipleship making begins with relationships. I believe that there are some clear steps that can be followed that would assist a local church in developing individual and corporate discipleship in their church. Much of my work centers on the work done by Phil Maynard of EMC3Coaching and Junius Dotson, General Secretary of Discipleship Ministries. I will also interject some experience that I have had in over 16 years in the ministry plus over 30 + years working with corporations, businesses and churches at revitalization.

WHY

So how do we begin? We begin with the “why.” Why do we need a discipleship path or discipleship process? Why do we even care about discipleship at all? Many years ago if we opened our doors to the church, people came. Many came because their mothers made them come and they got used to the routine. Some came because there was not anything else to do on Sunday morning and all the cool people were at the church. Nevertheless, today, life is very different. Jim Griffith of Griffith Coaching uses the example of the breakfast cereal aisle. In 1950, it amounted to three or four basic choices. However, today it requires a whole aisle as we have differentiated our tastes and desires. Churches today are full of empty seats and salt and pepper hairstyles. Not all of them, but many. Why are congregations shrinking and aging? Because we forgot the why question. Why are we here? Let me share the reason. It comes from scripture.
NRS Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age."[i]
The why question is answered for us by Jesus and the Scriptures. We are to go and make disciples. Some of you are probably saying why did He not spell out for us how to do that. Didn’t He?
NRS Matthew 22:36-40 "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" 37 He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."[ii]

So how do we get started? “So the beginning is to define your purpose. Without definition, people are uncertain about how the church is making disciples. Without definition, people are clueless about how the church is designed to bring people toward spiritual maturity.”[iii] What is our why? Well I have attempted to declare it with scripture but let me carry it a step further. I believe that Jesus gave us our mission statement in Matthew 28: 18-20. We do not need a rewrite for our local church mission statement. However saying that, the Methodist Church has done a great job of defining the mission statement for us.
¶ 120. The Mission—The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.[iv]
So in clear terms we have our “why” question answered. Notice that neither Jesus nor the Book of Discipline put limits on this mission statement: it is meant to apply universally for all size churches in all locations and for all demographics.

Each church should then begin to understand in their own context how to live into that mission. We call this our vision. Bishop Bob Farr in his writings states it in an easy way to understand it. 
“The vision of your church is how your church uniquely carries out the mission in your community.”[v]
Bob Farr further goes on to say,
 “We have never seen a church grow by simply hanging a mission and vision statement on the wall…On the other hand, we have never seen a growing congregation that didn’t deeply understand their mission and vision.”[vi]           

How

The next steps are what this work is about. Once you have established a vision for your church, then the process begins at the end. When we know, what we desire to do then our focus can be on how to do it. We have established that our end result is to make disciples. What we need to next is think about what that means and what does a disciple look like in the end. Junius Dotson in his work, Developing an Intentional Discipleship System lists the following characteristics:
           “A disciple worships
           Is part of a community
Commits to spiritual practices
Is generous and serves
Is seeking to be Christ-Like”[vii]

Phil Maynard says it a different way. “The maturing phase represents people who are ‘sold out to Jesus.’ They have discovered that there is nothing more life-giving than being in the presence of Christ.”[viii] In other words, as a member of your church leadership, you need to define what a mature disciple looks like in your congregation, how they act, what they need to grow and what they can do to mentor others along the way.

Once we have described what a mature, full disciple looks like, we now need to understand that everyone is on a journey of discipleship, even those who do not personally know God in this moment. Phil Maynard’s work suggests that there are five points on the discipleship journey that a person finds himself or herself. They are: Searching, Exploring, Beginning, Growing and Maturing. For more information, I recommend that you spend time with his work, Shift and Membership to Discipleship. Our goal as a church then is to assist everyone to move toward Maturing Discipleship and part of the process requires us as a church to understand where everyone is on the journey. Maynard’s Discipleship Survey tool is a great way of determining the answer to that question. My suggestion then is for every person in your congregation to fill out the survey. It can be obtained at EMC3Coaching.com or if you are in the Virginia Annual Conference, it is free. You might need to obtain the password from your District Office or your Board of Discipleship Regional Director.

Maynard also makes a connection with our United Methodist membership vows. It is not enough to say that we walk through the five points listed above, but within those points, we are also potentially in different places in our journey as compared to each vow.
United Methodist Vow                Maynard Dimensions
United Methodist Hymnal           Membership to Discipleship Page 31

Prayers                                         Opening to Jesus
                                                     Obeying Jesus

Presence                                      A Life of Worship

Gifts                                              A Life of Generosity

Service                                         A Life of Service

Witness                                         A Life of Hospitality

I highly recommend that you spend time with Phil Maynard’s and Junius Dotson’s work in defining what you mean by discipleship before moving further in developing an Intentional Discipleship Plan. In Virginia, the Board of Discipleship is willing to assist you in this process.
  
Let us get to work
So let us get to work. You have prayerfully accepted Jesus challenge for the mission of your local church. You have established a vision for your church within the context of you location and demographics. But wait! What? Demographics? It might be important here to talk about demographics and why they may help you paint the picture of vision for your church. If you do not know your neighbor, how in the world are you going to connect with them? In Virginia, we use a great tool called MissionInsite.com, which gives a tremendous amount of information about who your neighbor is and is based on work done by Experian. I once worked with a small church who told me that what they needed was young people, children and young adults. They were sharing that they had created all these children activities and programs and were having no success. When we examined the demographic, we discovered they lived in a retirement prone area where there was an almost total absence of children. I suggested after sharing the demographics with them that they needed to focus on inviting more mature adults to be part of their congregation. Since that time, they have modestly grown after a long period of decline. Defining who your neighbor truly is allows you to determine who your actual harvest field is for discipleship.

If we understand what a disciple is and why we need to make disciples and how our potential disciples in our neighborhood are, then the next step is how. In simpler words maybe, how do we assist individuals to develop their own discipleship journey and how do we develop the activities, programs and structure of the church to facilitate that individual growth. Meanwhile we must keep in mind,
To attract the nonchurched, we need to have at least three things going on Sunday morning and do them very well. They are children’s ministries, passionate worship, and radical hospitality.”[ix]

We need to create a clear and concise path to discipleship that is easy to understand. From there we need to focus on two very important aspects of discipleship, individual and corporate. Junius Dotson defines it this way:
“Personal Discipleship (the individual): Equipping and empowering disciples for their own growth.”[x]
“Corporate Discipleship (the church): Doing everything that we can as a church to provide opportunities for disciples to grow and mature in faith.”[xi]

At Sydenstricker United Methodist Church in Springfield, Virginia we have defined that path as Connect>Develop> Serve.




Connecting with our Neighbor

We begin with understanding how to connect with our neighbor. This process is all about creating and building relationships with people in your community. Statistically we know that many of them do not have a personal relationship with God.
1.     In order to Connect, we have to learn who our neighbor is. Some form of assessment or demographic tool is necessary to do so. I highly recommend Missioninsite.com.  Whatever tool you use, you want to know ages, projections by age, households (whether they are married, single, single parent, etc.) and future projections. Mosaics provided by Missioninsite give significant data about who your neighbors are their spiritual habits, etc.
2.     Pay attention to neighborhood activities. When and where do people congregate and for what purpose. Mothers with small children may congregate in the park but might like to have a nice place when it’s too hot or cold to do so. Hmmmm, like your church maybe?
3.     Begin a practice of prayer walking. Prayer walking does not require knocking on doors or even engaging people though either of those practices can be helpful. Let people know that we are from XYZ Church and we are in the neighborhood praying, Can we pray with you? While we are prayer walking we can be paying attention to the neighborhood. Is there evidence of young child toys in the yard, is the house struggling to be maintained (might be an elderly couple who needs assistance), or the absence of toys indicates the absence of children, etc.
4.     Begin to form small groups, what we call Affinity groups. These groups share a common interest. One church I served had a Beer Making group. Granted it was a little out there, but there was true relationship and eventually true discipleship occurred. Another group formed at the local pub on Monday nights in the fall (can we say Football). Folks in the pub who would never be seen in a church began being curious about what the group was doing, relationships were developed and they eventually came and professed their faith there.
5.     Take those small groups to public places. I once served a church where the entire town could be seen at the local restaurant. Small groups that met there were often engaged by the town folk. The folks you engage in relationship just by being present might pleasantly surprise you.
6.     Plan activities that invites neighbors to participate. These activities can be anything of interest (remember the significance of the Mosaics) that would be engaging to folks. They do not need to be at the church and at this point some may actually be counterproductive to be in the church. Nonchurched people may be uncomfortable at first being in the church building but not in your home or the park or the local Fire Station fellowship hall.

Notice that at this point we have not discussed worship. It is because we are about creating and building lasting relationships that lead to the desire to seek more from the people we are establishing relationships. To use Phil Maynard’s terminology, Membership to Discipleship, many of these folks are the ones in the journey who are still searching and exploring about God and Christ.

Once we have built relationships with nonchurched folks outside the context of the church itself, the next point in the process is folks moving through the doors of the church. Bishop Schnase in his Five Practices for Fruitful Congregations said that there are five things great churches do well, Radical Hospitality, Passionate Worship, Risk Taking Mission, Intentional Faith Development and Extravagant Generosity. Two of them, radical hospitality and passionate worship directly relate to this point in the connection phase of the journey. I might note here that folks coming to your church at this point may well be anywhere in the discipleship journey. We will discuss how to discern that later. The two things we must do well are radical hospitality and passionate worship.

Radical hospitality means that meet people where they are with the best we have to offer. As we connect with people at the doors of our church, we need to be there with friendly welcoming faces and behavior. Greeters who meet folks in the parking lot with umbrellas when it is raining is a great example of radical hospitality. Once the folks are in the pews, being greeted by their close proximity neighbors, having a neighbor open the hymnal to the first hymn or responsive reading or pointing where it will be projected is radical hospitality. Exploring and assessing how we do this is essential to assure visitors return.

Passionate worship means that on any given worship experience, the people sitting in the pews, experience God. Nothing less is acceptable. The music, the liturgy, the sermon and the welcome all play into this experience. I have served small churches and now a mid-size church and the way to do this does not change. It takes planning and preparation so that everything flows, follows the theme of the scripture / sermon, and the sermon is meaningful, relevant and biblically based. If you want to engage the visitor (and your member), you need to do all these things well.

Finally, gathering visitor information assists you in follow-up (if you do not have a visitor follow-up process, GET ONE) and also allows you to know where live and how they got to you. At Sydenstricker UMC and other churches I am familiar with, Welcome Centers are established where people gather. We even attempt to change the language of Narthex (church speak) to lobby. At the welcome center, visitors are invited to fill out a card, receive a gift and are introduced to others in the church.

Connecting with people at this point is about where they are and where they desire to go. By that I mean, where someone is on the discipleship journey may lead them to ask where certain classes, small groups, etc.  meet so be prepared to be able to answer those questions. Churches who take this seriously have brochures available for most if not all of their ministries so that these questions can be easily answered. Churches that know the discipleship of small groups are more able to engage new comers in existing small groups. You would not want to take a beginning Disciple and drop them in a very mature accountability group. We need to know then not only where people are on the journey, beginner, growing, etc. but what the church needs to do to assist them in that growth. More on that later.

From this point, the next logical step in the process would be what I call a new member class. I have to admit that membership in the church is not as important to me as where you are on the discipleship journey but at the current church I serve, it seems to be the logical step to determine the answer to that question. A new member class should have candidates take the Discipleship Survey if that is your tool for measuring discipleship. At my last two appointments, I also had candidates take the Gallup Strength-finders survey and that survey was used by nominations to fill vacancies and engage new members. Clear expectations about what is expected of new members should be a fundamental part of the class. They should know what it means to take a vow that says we will participate with our prayers, our presence, our gifts; our service and our witness (see United Methodist Hymnal). Presence means something different today than it did, once a month may indicate actively attending members in today’s world so understand what the person sees as actively attending.


Making Disciples

We have connected with our neighbors, we have built relationships and now they are interested in being part of our family. It is here that the hard work of discipleship begins. “Disciples are lifelong learners who influence others to serve.” (Bishop Sharma Lewis vision for the Virginia Annual Conference 2017) Earlier I said that folks are on the journey, in various places on the journey and arrive at your door with unclear expectations of how you are going to help them grow. Understanding the disciple making process for your church is paramount to being successful here. Remember early on that we defined what a mature disciple looked and acted like. We also have discussed understanding the journey.

I utilize Phil Maynard’s terminology of Searching, Exploring, Beginning, Growing and Maturing. Phil in his work describes the Jesus model of discipleship where you spend your youth in memorization of the Torah, learning the concepts or being a Jew. Then some are called out to go further and they engage in their life with a teacher, a rabbi, who takes them under his wing and trains them up to be rabbi’s themselves. In Wesleyan theology, we understand that God is desiring of us to be in relationship and is engaging us throughout our lives. We call this Prevenient Grace where God’s primary desire is to draw the searcher and transform them into an explorer and then ultimately into a believer. At this stage in our faith journey, we seek more in the relationship and come to the altar to profess our faith publicly. More importantly, we ask Jesus to begin a process of transformation. In Wesleyan theology, we call this moment Justifying Grace. From that point on, we move towards maturity or perfection. In Wesleyan terms, we call this Sanctifying Grace. Maynard suggests that at the point of justification we become a beginning disciple, not sure yet of all this “Jesus stuff” or how to live our lives in accordance with God quite yet. The church has a fundamental responsibility to assist folks along this road. How do we do that?

One way is through the use of Sunday school or even small study groups. There we would engage people to grow in their discipleship by teaching more about the Bible, about Jesus, His life, death and resurrection and the story woven in the fabric of the Epistles. Knowing where a small group is in their collective discipleship would be significant. As I said earlier, you would not want to drop a beginning disciple into a group of very mature disciples. They would be lost and disoriented. Using tools like the discipleship survey to determine the collective position of each of your small groups of Sunday school classes on the discipleship journey is helpful.

Another way is the growth of small groups within the congregation. Building small group leaders who are tuned into mentoring folks along the way is essential. Small groups who share common interests can lead people into meaningful relationships and those relationships can be an effective way to assist growth in discipleship. One way to start a small group is take the scripture and sermon for the week and expound upon the message with time to share joys and concerns. This goes to the heart of the original Methodist movement with classes and small groups of people focused on growing deeper in their relationship with God.

From the pulpit, biblically based sermons on what a disciple is and does becomes important to the progress of those in your flock. Along with this, the development of materials that identify (such as brochures, handouts, etc.) where small groups are so that engagement of a new person becomes as easy as matching the individuals point in their journey with a group that fits. We as a church as tasked with developing opportunities for folks to grow in their discipleship. Knowing where people are allows you to develop the best opportunities.




I have included some suggestions:

Searching                                     Develop relationships with Christians
                                                                Participate in small affinity groups
                                                                Ask questions
                                                     Listen and look at how this
church engages the community

Exploring                                      Attend worship as often as possible
                                                                Ask questions
                                                                 Participate in serving at the church in
some way through volunteering
                                                                Take a Christianity 101 class

Beginning                                     Make a commitment to Christ through
profession of faith and baptism
                                                                Participate in an Alpha or Disciple class
                                                                Attend Worship regularly
                                                                Begin to explore daily devotional time
                                                                Begin to read the Bible daily
                                                                Serve the church in some form, volunteer in
some church aspect or mission service

Growing                                        Attend church regularly (2-4 times a month)
                                                                Join a small group
                                                                Participate in a small study group
                                                                Attend discipleship training
                                                                Regularly engage in devotion and daily Bible
Reading
                                                                Engage in daily prayer practices.
Work towards a Tithe
Serve the church as a volunteer in ministry and
serve the church in mission

Maturing                                       Learn and explore deeper spiritual practices
                                                                Be a mentor for a younger Christian
                                                                Be a small group leader
                                                                Engage in mission
                                                                Witness to those not in a relationship with God
                                                                Tithe




Serving

NRS James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? 15 If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? 17 So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. 18 But someone will say, "You have faith and I have works." Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith. 19 You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe-- and shudder. 20 Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren? 21 Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was brought to completion by the works. 23 Thus the scripture was fulfilled that says, "Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness," and he was called the friend of God. 24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. 25 Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? 26 For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.

I believe James sums it up nicely. Disciples have works that demonstrate their faith. Without those works, we are no different from the world around us. Jesus said that we must love God with all our hearts, our minds and our souls. We must love our neighbor in the same way. So how do we do that? We begin by serving. Most local churches have great mission opportunities and ministries in their local communities. Maybe you have a local food bank or clothing pantry or school programs that mentor to children. All of these are great ways to serve God. Service as a disciple is two-fold. One is to the world around us. We serve one another, especially where there is poverty, hunger, homelessness and oppression. If abuse is prevalent in your community, engage ways to save those being abused and classes to stop the cycle. If there is poverty in your area, find ways to break the cycle and feed the hungry. There are so many opportunities that they cannot be named. If you are a local church and not engaged in mission then you are not focused on intentional discipleship. 

There are opportunities within the church to serve. I know of churches in Korea where fresh flowers and the cleaning of the church is done by church members. There are opportunities with administration, with buildings and grounds work, with finance if that is your thing and many more. Maybe you can serve on the funeral reception committee. The church should be inviting people into service within the church and disciples should be looking for opportunities to serve the church.








Endnotes



[i] New Revised Standard, World Publishing, Nashville, TN, 1997
[ii] Ibid
[iii] Rainer, Thom S & Eric Geiger, Simple Church, 2011, B&H Publishing, Nashville, TN, page 113
[iv] Book of Discipline, 2016, The United Methodist Publishing House, Nashville, TN
[v] Farr, Bob, 2011, Renovate or Die, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN, page 11
[vi] Farr, Bob & Kay Kotan, 2015, 10 Prescriptions for a Healthy Church, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN page 1
[vii] Dotson, Junius, 2017, Developing an Intentional Discipleship System, Discipleship Ministries, page 26
[viii] Maynard, Phil, 2015, Membership to Discipleship, Dr. Phil Maynard, page 53
[ix] Farr, Renovate or Die, page 33
[x] Dotson, page 8
[xi] Ibid, page 9



Additional Resources:
Phil Maynard – See EMC3Coaching.com for a variety of resources about engaging people in discipleship. Some of the books I have used, Shift, Membership to Discipleship, Connect and the new one Discipler is a great individual resource.

Discipleship Ministries – again a variety or resources available and many if not all are free to the local church

Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute



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