Holy Habits Session 8 - Making More Disciples

Holy Habits Session 8: Making More Disciples

Share with your neighbour:

What you had for your Sunday dinner yesterday.

A conversation you had in church yesterday.

A news item that you react to at the moment.

Something you watched on television today or yesterday. 

We find it easy to talk about food, and news items and Eastenders, we even find it easy to talk about church, what we are doing. We find it less easy to talk about the reason we do it, commending the Saviour, sharing our faith.

Read again Acts 2: 47. A summary sentence which highlights the core theme of the book of Acts, namely the spread of the word of God and the growth in the number of followers of Jesus.  A deep and committed Christian community which lives out the Holy Habits is a powerful witness to the reality of the saving love of God. 

Peter writing his first epistle to the scattered and growing early Christian Churches: ‘... in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…’ 1 Peter 3: 15

In groups for 15 minutes consider three questions:

1.        What does it mean to make more disciples to you? Where do we start?

2.        How are you doing evangelism?

3.        What is stopping you from evangelism?

Plenary

Evangel-ism = presentation of good news. See Isaiah 40: 9f for example. Jesus embodies good news and talks about it. Apart from telling Mary off in the Temple at 12 in Luke’s Gospel, what are the first words of Jesus in the Gospel: The time is fulfilled, the Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the Gospel.” The Good News is the long awaited reign of God. NT – heart of the good news is not an event but a person. In Jesus God’s reign on earth has begun. A new life for people. And it is to be passed on.

Almost every reference to the Good News is linked with words like “preach”, “proclaim”, “tell” “bring” etc.

Andrew Kirk: “Evangelism is a process of spreading the good news that new life is present with Jesus, and calling upon people to renounce all alternatives and enter into its enjoyment.”

Read Evangelism through the local church page 9

What stops us? Pages 12 and 15.  

What is the difference between making disciples and making church members?

Jesus didn’t tell us to go and make churchgoers, or converts, he told us to go and make disciples.

Read Matthew 28: 16 – 20

Take this passage to bits and see what Jesus is saying to his disciples here:

Go

Make disciples

Baptise

Teach

The command is to be disciples and to make disciples. Not a question, not an invitation, but an imperative: Go.

I suppose if we were to think of a modern equivalent of discipling someone, we might use terms like teaching, leading, counselling, coaching or mentoring. Mentoring is an increasingly popular area of expertise within the workplace – advertisements for mentors and lifestyle coaches abound in certain professions – and many people pay large sums of money to spend time being led, encouraged and enabled by a person of greater experience and wisdom. There’s a huge market too in fitness coaching, paying someone to literally walk, run and exercise alongside you to encourage you out of your couch-potato inclinations.  Christians have been there, done that and got the T-shirt, because the supreme leader, encourager and enabler of people is Jesus, as we see so often in the gospel stories. The problem is that many Christians lack the confidence to rely on our master to lead, encourage us and enable us. We worship rather than follow – because it’s easier.

Being a disciple can take us where we don’t really want to go, because Jesus went to the difficult places of suffering, ridicule, betrayal and death. Who in their right mind would want to follow anyone on this path? Who would want to be a disciple of a man who ended up being executed as a criminal? It is not an easy path. But then life isn’t easy either, is it? We don’t have a choice about the walk through life, but we do have a choice about whether we allow Jesus to walk through it with us. He has been there before us, though all the pain and suffering, the misery and disappointment of life, and he chooses to walk our path with us if we will be his disciples and learn from him the way of life. The question is: will you?

Do you think of yourself as a disciple of Jesus? In what way is that made clear in your life?

How does your church make disciples of people within the regular congregation, and those outside or on the fringes?

How would your church look if you allowed Jesus to lead you more fully?

Interesting that in Matthew 16: 18 we find Jesus saying to Peter “I will build my church. “ It is Jesus job to build the church and ours to make disciples!  

What’s the best way to share faith with someone?

Have you ever helped someone along their Christian journey? Tell the story.

Tell the story of how you were helped along your Christian journey by someone.

The abbot of the monastery called the novice into his office and instructed him to give the homily at the next morning's chapel. Well, the novice was struck with fear.

This young novice had apparently voted many times in the surveys, because there was no way that he was going to do it; but the abbot insisted.

So the next morning, chapel came. He stood in the pulpit. The brothers were there. His hands were trembling. His knees were knocking. His voice was quivering. There was a long pause before he first spoke, and he asked a question.

"Do you know what I'm going to say?" They had no idea, so all of their heads went back and forth almost in unison, as if it were choreographed. He said, "Neither do I. Let's stand for the benediction."

The abbot did not appreciate this. So he called the young novice into his office and said, "You must do this. It's for your own good. Tomorrow is your day again. Be prepared, and this time do it right."

The next day was almost an exact repeat of the day before. All the brothers sat there before him. His hands shook. His knees knocked. His voice trembled. Long pause. "Do you know what I'm going to say?" he asked.

Well, after the previous day's experience, they had a pretty good idea. All of their heads went, Yes, we know what you're going to say.

"Then there's no need for me to tell you. Let's stand for the benediction."

The abbot was angry beyond description. He brought the young man into his office and said, "If you do that again, you are going to be in solitary confinement, bread and water for thirty days and any other punishment that I can think of. Tomorrow morning give the homily; do it right."

The third day, chapel attendance hit an high. They were all there to see what he would say, and it was, again, almost an exact repeat.

He stood, trembled, voice quivered; and after the long silence, he asked, "Do you know what I'm going to say?"

After three days of this, about half of them had a pretty good idea and they nodded their heads up and down. Yes, we know.

But the other half noticed the switch from day to day, and they really weren't sure what was going to happen; and so they shook their heads back and forth. No, we don't.

The novice observed this, then said, "Let those who know tell those who don't. Let us stand for the benediction."

The simple definition of evangelism: Those who know telling those who don't.

What do we know?

How do we share it?

How often can we over complicate the idea of sharing faith. We make it into this big deal that needs to be tied up in doing a course or having some big awkward conversation, when actually the thing it mostly revolves around is simply making talking about faith normal. Discussing it with friends and chatting to people about it. It's a part of our lives so why don't we just make it normal rather than weird.  

Play a game.

TEN FACTS ABOUT FAITH ON THE FLOOR. TEN VOLUNTEERS.  THE REST OF US CAN ASK QUESTIONS, SAY WE DON’T UNDERSTAND ETC. Keep it simple!

1.     How do I know God loves me?

2.     How do I know Jesus is my friend?

3.     What do you mean Jesus died for me?

4.     What is this Holy Spirit you speak of?

5.     Tell a favourite bible story.

6.     How do I know God forgives me?

7.     What do you mean Jesus is my saviour?

8.     What do you believe about heaven?

9.     Why is there so much suffering in the world?

.            Why bother joining your church?   

How do we equip ourselves to share faith naturally?

Two interesting things from the book to end this course with. The Holy Habits are all about reminding today’s church of the marks of the infant one to                       re-invigorate it for mission. Today is about for many blessing, then belonging and then believing (previously it was believe then belong) –read article in book. Is this true of our work together?

Do we as we do our work as a church believe we might grow anymore? Luke presents the rapid growth of the Jesus movement enjoying the good will of all  the people. Should we be surprised? Not if we believe that the same Jesus who said “I will build my church”, you “go and make disciples” and you will be “clothed with power from on high” knew what he was on about.