As a pastor, how do you measure SUCCESS?

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Make Disciples

The word discipleship has HUGE baggage with it. For some it brings memories of a boring class, or workbook. For others it brings memories of a set of legalistic rules you had to follow for 8 weeks and at the end of that time you were handed a piece of paper that said you were officially a disciple. I remember when I was a teenager and I was signed up for the Tuesday night discipleship program in my youth group. At the end of the night after finishing 1/8 of our discipleship process my girlfriend and I would sneak out behind the church and do things that were not very “disciple like”  These programs and people were not wrong in their motive, and at some time or another all of us have tried to use a systematic program to make disciples, but at the end of that road we have dealt with the frustration of our people being smarter but not transformed.

Discipleship is not information download or attendance!

So what is it? How do we make disciples? Well….for me to give a systematic answer would not do you any good since those don’t work. All I can do is speak from my experiences and reading of the gospels. Read the rest of this entry »

We all know the Great Commission,

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in^[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Jesus said this to his disciples just before he left as he was preparing them to become the future leaders of the Church. This is still the basic instruction for the Church today. There seems to be a pretty easy distinction between churches that are doing it and churches that aren’t. From a distance, we can look and identify churches that are fulfilling the instruction that God has given us, but it’s probably not some of the barometers that we normally use. Read the rest of this entry »

The title sounds silly to us Christians. However, as a protestant, I have been more than a little confused at what I am supposed to do when I attend a Catholic wedding mass, or similar service. And, have you ever been to a religious service at another religion (Muslim, etc)? Well, it may be that some of the people in our communities are just as confused about how THEY should act in one of our services!

Rick Rusaw has written an article, “Escaping the Church ‘Donkey Syndrome‘” published on the SermonCentral website. The theme of the article is the Externally Focused Church. He defines “Four Characteristics of Externally Focused Churches.”

• First, externally focused churches are convinced that good deeds and good news can’t and shouldn’t be separated.
• Second, they see themselves as vital to the health and well-being of their communities.
• Third, externally focused churches believe that ministering and serving are the normal expressions of Christian living.
• Fourth, externally focused churches are evangelistically effective.

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The way most people approach Easter, one would think that the Easter Bunny was the reason for the holiday!

Each time Easter (or Christmas, or some other Christian holiday) comes around, I am forced to question whether the commercialization of such holidays is good or bad. On the good side, commercialization equates to advertising for the holiday and the associated event which precipitated the holiday. After all, it is a HOLY-day (the true word).

But the problem now has become that it is almost against the law to celebrate the CHRISTIAN part. The “politically correct” nature of our society has attempted to eliminate any reference to Christianity from the very holiday that has evolved from it.

We are swamped with advertisements for Easter Bunny toys & candy. Easter Eggs & colorings are commonplace. However, if you want to get something that even MENTIONS the resurrection of Jesus, you had better go to the Christian Book & Gift Store. No one else has any such an article! The same thing is true about Christmas. Many school systems have told the children that they cannot speak about the birth of Jesus. And many businesses now have “Holiday Greetings” and “Holiday Sales” rather than CHRISTMAS Greetings or sales. And have you ever seen a “Resurrection Sale” at a store?

Read the rest of this entry »