Session Six: Fishing for Humans

So we’ve got all this great content to pass on to a new follower of Jesus. Now what? Well, we have to actually go meet someone and cultivate that relationship in such a way that we can move from an acquaintance to a mentoring relationship. Sounds daunting, but it has to happen for any sort of disciple making to get done.

When Jesus himself gave the disciples a formal invitation to join his ministry he told them if they followed him that he would make them “fishers of men” (see Matthew 4:19). Anyone who has taken on the life of the disciple has been invited to do so by another disciple. For me, it was when I was a college student.

I had been attending a weekly worship/Bible study gathering for a few weeks and had been leading a few songs for the singing time. I had been a Christian all of six months. Tom Westbrook, who was a college pastor at one of the local churches near campus, spotted me right away.

Seeing that I was young and dumb but hungry, he went fishing. We had chatted a few times before and he knew that I liked him and respected him at some level. He walked up to me after one of the meetings and asked me to meet him at his office on the following Tuesday to talk about going deeper in the Bible and learning more how to grow in Christ. I said I would and then asked a friend of mine from my dorm (Kevin) to come with me.

We walked into Tom’s office the following Tuesday and he handed us Bibles and he started teaching us from the Gospel of John. Then he gave us homework for the following week and when we returned he stepped up the pace considerably. He asked us what we had gotten from our study and we looked at him with blank faces and mumbled a few unintelligible phrases that amounted to “The Bible” “Jesus” “Be a better person”. He went on a mini rant, sort of like a football coach, about how weak our study habits were and our need to step it up.

It was a perfect approach for me (son of a football coach) and Kevin (former high school hero on the basketball and tennis courts). We went home the following week and dug into the Bible like never before. Staying up late nights talking about the truths that we were finding as we studied. Then we would show up again on Tuesday and get shot down (in love of course) for not really getting the full picture of what we were studying.

It was more than Tuesday afternoons. We also found ourselves in Tom’s house, spending time with his wife Jill and their two boys. We helped him with some landscaping in his yard and ate meals at their dinner table. We were around when they would discipline their children and even during a few marital squabbles.

We were then asked to teach Bible studies of our own and help lead out in a student worship service. I would travel with Tom when he would speak at youth retreats and be his sidekick, helping with video and audio or doing some music or leading a small part of the retreat. Both through formal instruction and just living life together, Tom made me a disciple.

There isn’t anything that I do today as a Christian man, husband, father, pastor that doesn’t have this guy’s fingerprints on it in some way. He is still a person that I often call when I am up against the wall and unable to sort out my life alone. I would not be doing what I am doing and growing in Christ as I have been these last 20 years if Tom had not fished me out of that crowd that night. Everyone needs to be fished for, invested in, and sent out to do the same thing. So how do you do it?

Reflection Question: What older/more mature Christians took initiative in your life? How did they go about it? What was the result?

There's a story in the first chapter of the book of John (John 1:35-42) that seems so insignificant. You may even wonder why it's there. It's (soon to be disciples of Jesus) John and Andrew. They've been hanging out with John the Baptist which incidentally had to be a weird ride. John tips them off that the whole reason he has been in ministry has just walked by in a robe and sandals.

John and Andrew abruptly start stalking Jesus until He gets the hibbee jibbees and turns around to inquire why they are intruding on His personal space. They are understandably nervous, having never met a Messiah before and they say to Jesus that they only want to see where He lives. His answer to them is to "Come and See."

Jesus is no idiot (a gross understatement I know). He knows what these guys are up to and could have gone into a red letter discourse that would have made your head spin, but He doesn't. He simply lets them come up close and personal. The scripture says they then spent the day with Him. Can you imagine? Spending the day with the Godman. We're hard pressed to find a regular old human who would be willing to spend the day with us much less want to. By the end of the day, Andrew is so stoked over his hang out time that he can't wait to go fishing for his brother Simon (soon to be Peter). Jesus has successfully begun to fish for men and did it through the ministry of hanging out.

When we came here to plant a church in 1999, we had been trained to market our vision for the start-up of a new church. The idea was to do a publicity blitz with slick post cards and news ads. It would cost thousands but was supposed to bring in a sizable crowd for our launch service. Before we could really get launched with this strategy, most of our start-up money was cut for one reason or another. Because of this, our "strategy" had to shift to the ministry of hanging out.

We set-up a table at Umass and met a few folks. Invited them to a start-up meeting and from there engaged in the ministry of hanging out. Some of those folks became Christians. Some, who were already Christians, grew immensely. All of them started doing the same in their own circles of influence. The result has been a church that has been planted in a place where most church plants have failed. While we've definitely spent money, it's been mostly on staff who spend lots of time cultivating relationships and encouraging others to do the same. Our biggest challenge is passing that vision on to each generation of MERCYhousers.

This hanging out ministry is so simple and yet so hard. It's simple because all you need is a living/growing/transforming relationship with Christ. You need not worry about having a huge storehouse of pat answers to spring on your unsuspecting victims at a moment’s notice. You only need Christ like love for the people you are hanging out with and your own story about walking with Christ.

It's hard because it takes a huge investment of time and energy and sometimes other resources as well. People are, well, messy, and there is no getting around it. It is so tempting (and yes it is a temptation to sin) to close the door on new relationships and hang out with only those who are safe and encouraging. Thank God Jesus didn't do that. He chose to risk and to be inconvenienced and give his whole day to a bunch of punks from Galilee. Come to think of it, gave His whole life to a bunch of punks from planet earth. It’s your turn to follow in His steps and do the same.

So start off by just engaging in relationships and loving people. Meet people on Sunday mornings and invite them to come to lunch with you and your friends. Ask someone from your midweek small group to meet up for coffee. As you are relating, ask the Lord to reveal to you who you could invest in to help them find Christ and/or grow in following Him. As Jesus tells his own disciples (see John 4) “the fields are ripe for harvest”. There is no shortage of people needing shepherding, only a shortage of shepherds willing to walk alongside people for the purpose of spurring them on in their spiritual growth.

Reflection question: Are you better at listening or talking?

The basics of initiating

You may be reading this and thinking, “I’m just not very good initiating conversations with people”. A lot of us aren’t, but we can’t let that get in the way. The basics of initiating with people include asking good questions and listening.
Here are a few basics:

1. Ask an open-ended question instead of something that could be answered by a yes or no or one word response?

Here are four suggestions for more productive questions from www.earthlingcommunication.com

a) Ask questions that elicit detail. These are often "What?" questions.

b) For example, "What did you finally decide about relocating?" or "What did you do on your trip to Mexico?" will usually stimulate detailed responses. Questions that don't require detail, such as "How are your plans coming along?" and "How was your trip?" can be answered with a mere "Good, thanks."

c) Ask open questions that require more than a Yes or No. These are the "Wh" and "H" questions beginning with What, Why, Where, and How. These work better than "closed questions" that limit the response, such as "Did you like the movie?" Instead, "What did you like about the movie?" draws out a more interesting and detailed response.

d) Ask some questions that are a little bit surprising or "edgy." These are not meant to put the person on the hot seat, or to make them uncomfortable, but to stimulate and get a lively response instead of a routine response. "What's the most exciting/challenging thing that's happening with you at this time?" is such an edgy question. Predictable questions usually evoke predictable responses, such as "What did you learn in school today?" "Oh, not much."

e) Use some "If?" questions such as "If you had the means to pursue your dream occupation, what would it be?" Or "If you could have dinner with a famous person, whom would you choose?" Such questions break out of the routine and add some fresh energy to the conversation. By the way, don't ask others any question you yourself would not want to be asked. Also, be prepared to answer the very "If?" questions you ask. The other converser may say, "Let me think about that for a minute. Meanwhile, you go first."

2. Ask people about their interests. Once you find out what a person’s job or major or hobby is, get them talking about those things that interest them. They will feel most comfortable talking about something that they know a lot about.

3. Don’t just ask the questions, contribute some of your own thoughts but make sure the focus of the conversation is the person you are engaging unless they start asking you back and show some interest in getting to know you.

4. Encourage. The Bible is full of exhortations for our conversation to be something that builds others up (see Ephesians 4:29 for starters). Recognize, with specificity, positive things that people do and positive character traits that people possess.

5. Be aware of nonverbal cues: reasonable eye contact, leaning in to listen, nodding your head, asking clarifying questions. These kinds of things let people know that you are listening and that you care about them.

6. The most important thing to remember is to just jump in. You will never hone your relating skills more than when you are, well, relating. Anybody can do these basics and once we jump in the Holy Spirit is there to empower and guide us through it all.