Leadership Training - Session One part 2 - Worship

Reflection question: What should be the central motivation for a disciple of Christ?

So I know that the gospel should be central in leading others to Jesus, but what about after a person has become a Christian? How do we get a new Christian to take on the life of discipline that is presented in the Bible as the norm for the Christian? Jesus was clear that his expectations for disciples were very rigorous. Take this verse for example:

Luke 9:23

Then he said to them all: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

What could motivate a new disciple to give their lives with this kind of absolute surrender? Here are a few counterfeit motivators that often creep into the disciplemaking process:

1. Fear – Many who do religious things do so because they fear that if they don’t God will punish them. As long as they continue to meet God’s expectations, God will leave them alone.
2. Guilt – Some never accept the fact that they are forgiven so they are constantly striving to pay for their sins of the distant past or recent past by doing what they think God will be pleased with to pay for their failures.
3. Blessing – The flip side of the above two motivators is the motivation of blessing. If we believe that we’ve done what God expects then we usually think he should hold up His end of the bargain by blessing us.
4. Desire for power and influence – We are social creatures and the church is a relational place. Just like every other social environment, Christians find themselves wanting to gain power and influence in the church by doing what is expected in order to appear a loyal member of the group.
5. Desire to please others – Similar to the above motivator, this person may not want power but simply wants to be liked and accepted by the group and meets stated and unstated expectations to gain entrance and acceptance in the church.

While it is perfectly “natural” to be motivated by these and others, it is imperative that the disciplemaker continually lead those they seek to influence to the central motivator for Christian living. The Apostle Paul states it well in Romans 12 verse 1:

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of god’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship.”

Paul is talking to Christians here. “Urging” them to adopt a particular mindset regarding Christian discipleship. To let the mercy of God (that’s the Gospel) motivate them to offer their bodies as living sacrifices. The Bible makes it clear that the motivational core for the Christian disciple is the Gospel.

Worship makes up the first of what we call (at MERCYhouse) the five devotions. These devotions were practiced by the early church and can be found in Acts 1:8 and Acts 2:42. The five devotions are Worship, The Word, Prayer, The Church, and Our Mission in the World. Worship is the central devotion that gives life to all the others.

Reflection Question: What is Worship?

So what is worship? Again, let’s look at Romans chapter 12 verse 1:

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship."

He starts with the object of worship, that is, God. The Bible throughout Old and New Testament depicts human beings as worshipers. The first two commandments deal with having no other gods before God and prohibit worshiping idols. While this makes sense in an ancient world where everyone was worshiping multiple gods, does this really apply today?

I'd say it does. Worship doesn't have to revolve around something religious, it can be anything that we choose to put at the center of our lives. As human beings, we crave something that we can commit to, think on, work for, sacrifice for, celebrate, tell others about. We are never not worshiping something.

I was reminded of this, when a news story broke a few months back when a tweener, who really wanted to see Hannah Montana, wrote a phony letter into a radio station to try and win some free tickets and back stage passes. She put in the letter how her dad died in Iraq, which wasn't true, in order to better her chances of winning. The letter worked and she ended up getting the tickets.

Then the media started asking her and her mother about their fallen father/husband and they both kept up the lying until someone confirmed that it was a hoax. Most who saw this story shrugged and wondered when they'd be on the next Jerry Springer, but something more was happening here - worship.

The desire to see, be with, experience, celebrate Hannah Montana had become the center of this family's life and they were willing to sacrifice anything to make that happen. Something about that chip off the akey breaky heart, had taken over their mind, will, and emotions to the point that anything that tried to unseat this priority (common sense, fear of embarrassment, morality) was quickly pushed out of the way.

I can certainly remember days as a young tweener church goer when I'd never have dreamed of making that kind of sacrifice for Jesus. For example, I would say just about anything to fit in with friends and have a good time. Even if that included taking God's name in vain or making fun of a kid that wasn't part of our group. Even though I knew a lot about Jesus, believed he existed and that He died for my sin, I wasn't worshiping Him.

Everyone who experiences Christian conversion, becomes a worshiper of Jesus. They have gotten a view of His mercy (aka the gospel) and it has set in motion a surrender of their mind, will, and emotions to such a degree that that they now become a "living sacrifice." The Apostle Paul is most likely speaking of the "whole burnt offering" of the Old Testament that was not mandated by the law. It was instead a free will offering that was completely consumed as a way to communicate to God absolute surrender.

This is what our hearts are all longing for. Something that takes such a high priority in our lives that nothing, not even embarrassment or common sense, can unseat it from our center. It's what makes everything else (the Bible, prayer, church, our mission out in the world) come to life and maintain a level of power and perseverance that will maintain the living of the Christian life.

Shepherding toward worship

As shepherds, we are to be reminding those who we influence again and again of the central motivator of our faith - a response of gratitude for the gospel. If this motivator is not in place, the other four devotions will dry up and die or turn into something that actually detracts from the glory of God.

Think about the devotion to the word without worship. It becomes a means for knowing more than others and gaining power and prestige in the church. The moral standards that are encountered in the Bible become a system of legalism that puffs up and condemns the person and destroys relationships with those around them.

The devotion to prayer without worship becomes a ritual or some sort of magical incantation.

The devotion to the fellowship without worship causes relationships within the church to become merely social and eventually disunified and destructive.

The devotion to the mission of the church without worship causes the church to turn into a philanthropic organization and eventually burn out for lack of real fuel for the mission.

While it’s easy to understand with our minds that worship is to be central, it’s a little more difficult for us to get this at a heart level. John Calvin writes that our hearts are “idol factories”. It is the default mode of the human heart to replace Jesus on the throne of our heart with something or someone else.

This includes religion. In fact, religion is more likely to become an idol than anything else because it is seen as something good, and to some degree it is good. There is nothing wrong with praying and reading our Bibles and spending time with fellow Christians, but when these good things become a means to something else besides knowing and serving God, they become destructive.

Reflection Question: How do you cultivate a heart of worship and help others to do the same?

So how do you help a new Christian with whom you are walking or members of your house church continue to live from a heart of worship? There are a few things that are built into the regular life of the church to help with this.

1. Worship on Sunday. Every week the Sunday morning songs and the sermon bring us back to the main thing – the grace of Jesus. We role play our conversion of receiving the grace filled truth of the scriptures and then offer our lives yet again in absolute surrender. Encourage your folks to attend our worship service regularly.

2. Take communion on Sunday. In addition to songs and preaching, we participate in communion every other week. Christ instituted this ritual for the purpose of bringing us back to the main thing – his death, burial, and resurrection. Again, we role play our helpless need for the gospel every time we go up front to receive the free bread and juice that represent Christ’s body and blood. Help your folks to understand the purpose for participating in this important ritual.

3. Weekly worship in a house church or small group. House church leaders have as one of their goals to point people upward as part of the house church evening. To remember the grace of God and respond to that with singing, reading, meditation, etc. In addition to worship, there is also Bible study and spending time with others who are striving for the same kind of life in Christ. This midweek experience is really helpful for the Christian who desires to maintain a heart that is set on worshipping Jesus.

4. Daily Devotional Time. While Sundays and Midweek meetings are helpful, nothing is as helpful as spending time alone with God every day. Help your person make a plan for how they will spend daily time with God. This may include a plan for the when, where, and what of the time.

5. Keeping the Gospel and our response to it central to your conversations about everything. As a shepherd, it is very easy to slip into fix it mode. Help the person with whom you are walking to see that sexual purity is a response to God’s covenant relationship with us. That generous giving is a response to God’s generosity to us through the cross. That prayer is a means to know the one that paid infinite cost to be in relationship with us. At every turn, you want to bring it back to the gospel to weed out the heart’s desire to put self or something else in the throne of our hearts.

Leadership Training - Session One - The Gospel

Session One: The Gospel

So where do we start as shepherds? What should be the foundation of everything we do in evangelism and discipleship ?

Take a look at Romans 1:16

16I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.

The answer? The Gospel. It’s translated from a greek word (Euaggelion) that means “good news”. It was used by Roman emperors that would announce the coming of their reign which in their estimation was a tremendous gift to humanity. Ruler after ruler came through Rome proclaiming their rulership as good news yet each would come and go and leave things more or less like they found them or worse.

The Christian Gospel is the proclamation of the reign of a ruler that is unlike anything the world has ever seen. It is a message that is profound and life changing, and it is not only for Romans and Jews but for all the nations of the world. It is an invitation to join a country that is above and beyond any political regime. A country that is even above and beyond this world and the existence that we experience here.

Reflection question: How would you characterize Paul’s attitude toward the gospel as is expressed in Romans 1:16?

Notice the kind of confidence that the Apostle Paul (writer of the letter to the Romans) has in this gospel. It is the “power of God”. How can gospel = power of God. Doesn’t this seem a little strange? Shouldn’t the power of God simply be the power of God. How can this good news be the power?

The reason for this is that the Gospel message (we’ll define it in a moment) is what God has chosen to be the means for his power to be released in the world. It certainly has no power apart from God but God has so exclusively limited himself to working through the gospel that it almost seems that the gospel itself is the power. We cannot forget this as shepherds. No gospel = no power. That is true both in evangelism and discipleship. If we do proclaim the gospel in our disciplemaking efforts, it will set the stage for a powerful intervention by God in the lives of those we seek to influence.

Reflection question: What is the Gospel?

So if this Gospel is so powerful and essential, then what is it? One of my favorite places to go to answer this question is 1 Corinthians 15. Paul writes:

3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.

Paul grew up in Jewish culture where passing on tradition was of utmost importance. One of the reasons we know our Old Testament has been accurately translated is how the Jews painstakingly copied their biblical manuscripts. For example, they counted the number of letters from the first one to the middle of the Torah (first five books of the Bible). If their count was off by one, they would burn the manuscript and start over. Paul is using Jewish technical language (what I received I passed . . .) to describe the passing on that Christians are to do. They are to be diligently passing on the Gospel. Then he defines what that is in a nutshell.

“Christ died for sins”

It is essential that we understand that central to the gospel message is that our king (Jesus) died a sacrificial death in our place for sins that we committed. We can see right from the start that this is not your ordinary king. Before He is our Lord, He is first our Savior. Jesus himself proclaimed this in Matthew 20:28 – that he came to serve humanity by dying as a “ransom for many.” We, who had been kidnapped by sin and Satan were rescued, ransomed, by our Savior through His death on the cross.

“that he was buried”

He wasn’t faking his death. He really suffered and died. His heart, which was fully human, really stopped. His lungs, which were just like yours and mine, really ceased to take in air and he was laid in a cold dark tomb. As far as Jesus’ followers knew this was the end of their leader.

“and on the third day . . . he appeared”

Wait a minute? This is odd. Many a great leader has died for their cause. From William Wallace to MLK, leaders have died brutal deaths that spurred their followers on to participate in their movement with even greater zeal than before. This leader is different. This leader died, was buried, and rose again as a victor.

As might be expected, most people are skeptical of this claim. Perhaps this is metaphor? Perhaps Christ resurrected spiritually in the hearts of followers? A dead man rising? Come on. Paul is prepared for this and lets us know that the events that make up the Gospel happened in history in front of eyewitnesses. In fact that more than 500 people were eyewitnesses to the risen Christ.

A few of these eyewitnesses (and one who had access to eyewitnesses – Luke) wrote about their experiences with Jesus. We call these written records “the Gospels”. They are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and make up the first 4 books of the New Testament. They have often been described as very long introductions leading up to the body of their works which is the story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

This is the core of the Christian message. In the only two religious rituals instituted by Christ, the church role plays this story. Through communion and baptism we again and again point to the center of our faith - the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. In the words of Christ we do these “in remembrance of him” (see Luke 22:19). And what are we remembering while we are chewing on symbols of flesh and blood? It’s not that we should be nice to everybody and never tell lies. It is the Gospel, the foundation of our faith.

“According to the scriptures”

You may have noticed the phrase “according to the scriptures” being repeated twice in Paul’s telling of the gospel story. Why would he see the need for repeating himself like that in such a short verse? Paul is letting us know that the Gospel is part of a much larger story. It’s not something that dropped out of thin air in the 1st century in Palestine. This Gospel is the pinnacle of God’s work among humans that has been going on since the beginning of time. The church throughout history has often summarized that larger story into the following three acts: Created, Fallen, and Redeemed.

Created (Genesis 1,2)

In order to be a Christian, one must believe that there is a God and that this God has created us. Back in Genesis 1 and 2 we find God creating the world culminating in the creation of human beings. Those human beings are created to be in relationship with God, themselves, each other, and the earth.

If you take a look at Genesis chapter 2 you will find those relationships represented. Adam’s relationship with God is one of being the child with a father. God is providing for him, protecting him, instructing him. Then God tells Adam that “it is not good for man to be alone”. This is God’s way of introducing the need of every human to be in relationship with other humans. God solves this problem by creating Eve and giving her to Adam to be a companion and helper to him. Adam responds by professing his thanksgiving to God and admiration of Eve.

Then we find out that they are also in perfect relationship with themselves. They are said to be “naked and unashamed”. They are not self-conscious in any way wondering what the other might be thinking of them. And finally they are in perfect relationship with the earth. Adam and Eve are cultivating the garden that God planted for them and it is responding by producing good fruit for food.

Fallen (Genesis 3)

In Genesis chapter 2 (verses 16 and 17), we also see that there is a ground rule in the garden. God inserts an opportunity for Adam and Eve to choose to continue in relationship with Him or choose to separate themselves from Him. The ground rule is to never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The consequence for disobeying this rule (i.e. forsaking their relationship with God) is death.

It doesn’t take long before we see that there is another voice in the garden. A serpent (we know to be Satan) adds to the laboratory of choice in the garden. He offers an alternative view of Adam and Eve’s existence. He proposes that God isn’t as good and trustworthy as they first thought. That eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil will actually not bring about death but instead bring about an illumination and an empowerment that God is trying to hold back from them. Adam and Eve choose to believe this other explanation of their existence and the result is horrific.

Just as God had promised, the consequence of their choice was death. While this death certainly included physical death, it also encompassed much more. This “death” spoken of by God included a separation within all those relationships that were mentioned earlier.

The first one that becomes obvious is the death in their relationship with themselves. They immediately try their hand at sewing so that they can cover up their naked bodies because now they are feeling shame and self-consciousness for the first time.

We then see a death in their relationship with God. He shows up for his daily afternoon walk with his son and daughter and instead of jumping into his arms, they are hiding in the bushes. This is the first time humans have known separation from God. God in his mercy, pursues Adam and asks him if he has eaten of the fruit. Adam reveals the death of his relationship with God and Eve by letting God know that it was “the woman” that “God gave him” that caused him to eat the fruit.

We don’t find out about the death in their relationship with the earth until we read the section in Genesis chapter 3 called “the curse”. It’s a listing off of the consequences that resulted from Adam and Eve’s decision to choose against God. In Adam’s section we find out that work will now be “toil” and that the earth will produce “thorns and thistles” instead of responding with fruitfulness to human cultivation.

It is a sad moment for humans. Like opening the exit door of a plane at 30,000 feet, a deathly chaos has replaced what was once a paradise. Paul describes this in Romans chapter 5 verse 12:

“Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--”

But even in Genesis chapter 3, all hope is not lost. We see 2 glimmers of hope. The first glimmer is that God doesn’t seem to be done with humans. He sees the pathetically sewn fig leaves that they are wearing and responds by killing a few animals and giving their skins to Adam and Eve as clothing. It seems tragic that God would kill his own creation to take care of these two rebellious children but it is a foreshadowing of things to come in this larger story. Many animals will die for the good of humans before this story ends all pointing to the death of something much more precious than animals that will have to die to benefit humanity.

The other glimmer of hope is contained in Satan’s curse. In this curse, it is explained that Satan and human beings will be at war with one another for a good part of this larger story. The way this is stated is that God will put “enmity” between humans and Satan. Not only is the war predicted but so is the outcome. It is stated that Satan (a serpent at that moment) will strike the heal of the offspring of Eve but that this same offspring will crush Satan’s head.

While heal striking does not sound fun, it isn’t nearly as devastating as head striking. The hope in this is that somehow a human being will one day reverse the mess. The Apostle Paul follows up the problem of death in Romans 5 verse 17 with the solution:

“For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. “


Jesus eventually comes through the travail of many a birthing mother for the purpose of dying a death that would take on the consequences that were experienced by all humanity starting in the garden. The Apostle Paul writes it this way in Romans chapter 6 verse 23:
23For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The wages for sin had to be paid by us or by someone else. That someone else is Jesus Christ. This then allows for the great exchange whereby through faith we receive the free gift of eternal life because Jesus was willing to receive an underserved death for sin.

Leadership Training - Introduction and Syllabus

I'm doing 10 weeks of training with leaders this summer. I'm going to try to post the content each week. Here's the game plan:


Introduction:

The goal of this training is to raise up an army of shepherds who will intentionally seek to initiate in the lives of others for the purpose of helping them grow in the worship of God. All of Christian evangelism (helping nonchristians become Christians) and discipleship (helping Christians become spiritually mature) is aimed at the single purpose of the worship of God.

Here is the outline of what we will be covering for the next ten weeks:


House Church Leader Training – Summer ‘09

1. (June 3) The Gospel (How every topic on this page and more all stem from the gospel - the gift of grace given to us in the Christ event) This is the first of 5 devotions - worship

2. (June 10) The Five Devotions, (Five domains of the Christian life: Worship, Prayer, The Word, The Church, The World )

3. (June 17) The Five Devotions continued

4. (June 24) Time Management (the grid: roles, goals, time sheet, evaluation and tweaking)

5. (July 1) Fishing For Humans (taking initiative in the lives of others in your life or in a fishing pool event)

6. (July 8) The Small Group Experience: Hospitality; Community Building; Corporate Worship; Bible Study Discussion; Prayer

7. (July 15) Fishing For Humans (taking initiative in the lives of your small group members)

8. (July 22) Shepherding: Listening and Questions (the art of conversation)

9. (July 29) Shepherding: Biblical Guidance (common issues in the lives of disciples)

10. (August 5) Shepherding: Biblical Guidance

11. (August 12) Building your leadership team: Spiritual Gifts (Romans 12, Ephesians 4, 1 Corinthians 12)

12. (August 19) Training your leadership team: 3 stages of raising leaders (Jesus did it / they watched; they did it Jesus watched; they did it)