Moving From Milk To Meat

“You have been believers so long now that you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic things about God’s word. You are like babies who need milk and cannot eat solid food.”  Hebrews 5:12

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Based on the teachings of disciple-making leaders like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Robert Coleman, Leroy Eims, and Bill Hull using examples from the Christian Church in Europe (where less than 1% of people were attending church but some leaders were having success with discipleship). Reflecting on my own walk with Christ, 13 years of building ministries and walking with Christians and what the average American church member needs to grow in our faith. Ultimately, this all led back to Christ and the model he used with his own Disciples.

13 years ago, God called me into ministry (sort of) but I didn’t come quietly, I gave God every excuse why I’m not qualified, not the guy, and not spiritually mature enough for the calling. 10 years later I would still say that I’m not qualified, not the guy and not spiritually mature enough but God continues to shape and use me as He sees fit.

Over the past 13 years, one thing that I’ve come to realize is that I love Jesus but the more I get involved in ministry, the more frustrated I become. I love my pastors and ministry leaders but I’m often the guy in the room saying “Why are we making this so complicated?” or “That works great with people who are already saved but that would just scare away people who are unsaved.” I’ve been in a handful of meetings where a highly educated ministry leader with all the right pedigree can’t seem to lead a ministry or muster a following but a recovering drug addict with no training who can’t even pronounce exegesis can pack a room full of eager believers and lost alike.

One of the issues is that many ministry leaders are trained and educated to manage the daily functions of a church, teach and preach God’s word and offer words of encouragement but very few are trained on how to make authentic disciples of Christ. Furthermore, a leaders personal context often shapes how they are perceived and their ability to reach people. If a leader has always been a Christian or has never struggled with faith, it’s often hard for them to relate or reach those who are not Christians or those who have left their faith in frustration.  Ministry leaders also often default to associating and socializing with those we feel comfortable with rather than those we need to reach.

This may sound outrageous but please consider this – if your goal is to make authentic disciples, you always get a church but if your goal is to make a church, this does not guarantee you will make disciples. Most ministry leaders are trained and great at making churches and managing day-to-day ministry tasks, but leading people to have hearts and lives that are more Christ-like is another issue altogether.

Ask yourself this honest question: Does my life and lives of the people at my church resemble those in the New Testament? How does my walk with Christ compare to Paul or Timothy?

Sadly, our modern churches today tend to produce “Christian Consumers” – members who rely on the church and leaders to spiritually feed them each week. Members who attend a church because the music, preaching style or the type of environment is what they “like” or “prefer” rather than attending church to glorify and worship God or to be challenged to grow in their faith. Often, we treat church like a restaurant or movie, if we are not entertained or we don’t like the service – we go somewhere else.

The truth is that there is no Plan B. We are God’s plan to make disciples of all nations. However, we must remember that Christ stated that He will build his church (Matthew 16:18) but we are called to make disciples. (Matthew 28:19)

How many pastors or ministry leaders are caught up in building His church instead of making disciples?

 

In the typical American church, 10-15% of the staff and laypeople are often doing a majority of the work because leaders are often scared to empower others to be disciples or they micromanage the disciples they do have stifling people’s ability to grow and lead. Leaders are often praying and waiting for that “perfect person” to come along and champion a ministry or project rather than developing and growing the people God has given them already.

5 years ago, God called me to lead an important ministry with the focus of  making disciples in a large, thriving church. I am still amazed by the leadership, grace and faith of that senior pastor who allowed me to undertake this important role knowing that I had no formal ministry training and had never undertaken this kind of ministry before. Honestly, this probably helped me more than anything because I had no theories or templates to fall back on so I had to trust God and spend time researching what was currently working and then put these principles into practice.

God first led me to the teachings of disciple-making leaders like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Robert Coleman, Leroy Eims, and Bill Hull. He then led me to look at the Christian Church in Europe (where less than 1% of people were attending church but some leaders were having success with discipleship) and finally I reflected on my own walk with Christ and the average American church member and what would get me to grow in my faith. Ultimately, this all led back to Christ and the model he used with his own Disciples.

When I examined Jesus’ model, I observed that he used a Challenge, an Invitation but ultimately Grace with all His disciples and followers.  Sadly, many church leaders today are scared to challenge people out of fear that they may leave. They would rather use empty words of praise and encouragement than call people to greater community with Christ. Yet Jesus repeatedly challenged people directly and did not worry if they left or did not accept His challenge.

Jesus also told stories and used language that related to and often shocked His audience of both religious and non-religious listeners and He often admonished the religious leaders of His day stating that they too were focusing on things that didn’t matter. Where did Jesus send most of his time during His public ministry? With non-religious people: prostitutes, beggars, the sick, sinners and tax collectors. He didn’t expect these people to come to his sermon on Sunday; he spent time with them and brought His message to their doorsteps and places of business.

Throughout the rest of this series, I will give you eight ways to understand ourselves, one another, and our relationships with Christ through the lens of Jesus discipleship model. I will give you Jesus’ methods for focusing on multiplication and replication. I will share with you Jesus’ tactics of challenging people, inviting people but also extending grace while people grew in faith and putting them into leadership roles within a short amount of time. This was the strategy I used to build a highly successful discipleship ministry and one you can use to make disciples in your church or ministry who then become disciple-makers themselves.

Creating Faith That "Sticks" With Our Kids

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One of the statistics that has always troubled me was the studies showing that somewhere between  64 and 94 percent of Christian teens leave the Church within a few years of graduating high school.  Most of these are coming out of the Catholic and Evangelical Christian sects.  What is further troubling is that most of these kids came from great homes, churches and were actively involved in their faith as teenagers.

Recently, I was asked to sit on a steering panel to interview potential youth pastors and youth programs, and to prepare for this I wanted to look at which youth programs and churches were beating these overwhelming odds.

Enter the Fuller Youth Institute (FYI) and youth experts Kara Powell and Chap Clark whose mission is “to leverage research into resources that elevate leaders, kids, and families.  Powell and Clark spearheaded the  “College Transition Project,” which is a six-year research study of over 500 graduating seniors, “To better understand the dynamics of youth group graduates’ transition to college, and to pinpoint the steps that leaders, churches, parents, and seniors themselves can take to help students stay on the Sticky Faith path”

Simply, how to create a faith in kids that lasts beyond college.  Or Sticky Faith as Powell and Clark’s book is titled.

Here are a few of the practical things Powell and Clark found in their research about Sticky Faith:

  • Kids who left the faith report having questions about faith in early adolescence that were ignored by significant adults (parents, pastor, teacher).
  • A factor causing kids to shelve their faith is the segregation of kids and adults in church. Kids who attend church-wide services are more likely to keep their faith.
  • The more kids serve and build relationships with younger children the more likely they are to hang on to their faith.
  • Short-term mission trips seem to have little impact on the lasting faith of young people (they are not more likely to give to the poor or become long-term missionaries).
  • The more students feel prepared for college the more likely their faith is to grow.

How do we accomplish this?  Read on…

1. Create an atmosphere of unconditional love and grace  – See This In Depth Post

2. Plan and Develop Social Capital – Everyone who interacts with adolescents play a critical part in shaping them into adults. Therefore we should surround ourselves and our children with other positive adults and kids.  We should also spend some time seeking other adults who are willing to invest in our children in the form of teaching, leading, and conscious care.  This can be grandparents, coaches, youth pastors or even other kids.

3.  Make God A Part of Daily Life – Faith is not just for Sunday.  Children should see faith played out in the real world everyday.  This includes praying and encouraging children to take some of their concerns and issues to God.  Also, openly give God credit when something positive happens or prayers are answered.  Children should see faith lived out in their home daily.

4.  Avoid Lecturing – It didn’t work for our parents so why do we revert to this tactic?  Lecturing at kids or talking down to them will never get our points across.  Life lessons are caught not taught, therefore we need to spend less time lecturing and more time focusing on asking questions to elicit responses which open up meaningful conversation with our children.  And once they start talking, resist the urge to interject and lecture, give them honest answers and expectations versus dictating.  Sometimes just listening and not saying anything is the best thing we can do.

5. Integration versus Segregation – Many churches have moved to segregating the children from the adults.  This is done through Sunday School, Children’s Church or separate youth services.  While these are fine for other nights of the week or early morning, Church services should be integrated between adults and youth, ideally with the youth taking an active involvement in the service.  The younger generations are much more apt to stick if they are involved in the process of Church.  Plus, they are interacting with multiple generations and seeing faith working for adults other than their parents.

6. Teaching Biblical World View – As David Kinnaman points out in UnChristian, one of the reasons we are losing a generation is that we are not teaching them how to think with a biblical world view.  Kids are having fun at youth group but are they learning the pillars of the Christian Faith and how it compares to the secular/humanist world?  Atheism and Humanism spend a good deal of time developing logical, researched arguments against faith which resonates well with college aged adults.  The church should use this same approach to solidify faith and equip kids to understand why they believe and defend what they believe.  Youth-based apologetics, Confirmation classes and Faith In College classes can work wonders and children often site that they wish they had more of this.  I’ve even seen these classes taught by college aged students which further made them fun and resonated well with teens and tweens.

7 . Service and Justice – The younger generations have a drive to be involved with service and social justice.  The Church should be leading the way to involve kids in being apart of service and justice programs. Ongoing, frequent out reach and service programs should be apart of our children’s activities.  Also noted in the research was that teens that taught and mentored younger children in the Church, had a higher sticky rate than those who did not.

8. Allow Questions and Have Answers  – Questioning faith should be encouraged and an integral part of our children’s faith journey and should lead to answers which further solidify their beliefs.  Answers can come from parents, mentoring, books and of course the Bible.  The best approach is to point the children in the right direction but let them answer their own questions through positive-based research.  Debating faith issues should be common practice and the family can work them out together.

Finally, we must realize that as parents sometimes we have to put our faith in God and simply resort to prayer.  We must seek authentic walks with Christ and model these for our children, we must teach and surround our children with faith but do not force or try to circumvent the timing and efforts of the Holy Spirit.  While there are certainly no guarantees in life or with children, creating an atmosphere that encourages sticky faith is one area that we can control.  As I move forward this year, I am going to spend a considerable amount of time trying to incorporate and enrich these sticky faith principles in our home and our children’s lives.

— Lance

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