Sermon Tone Analysis

Church Planting or Disciplemaking

Planting a church is fine.

-It does some good things

-connection

-Bible Teaching

Shared Purpose

But in 3 years ....what do you have?

a community of people

with more knowledge of the Bible

very little transformation

You may not know this -> but...

-Jesus never told us to plant churches

-you know that part where he told us....go therefore and start little non-profit organizations with big meetings, nice singing and a Ted talk about Jesus.

Make Disciples:

-what does that mean?

-It’s not as complicated as we imagine

-What did Jesus do?

-this is where we need to start

We’ll get to that in a second.

but let’s start with some personal homework.

Stop the video, grab your journal and spend some time writing.

->who influenced you?

->How did they teach you the way of Jesus, what were their particular methods?

You all have different stories:

-Church -> youth group -> Bible Studies -> Ministry Job

-Parachurch min -> Intership -> Ministry Job

-A few key people stepped in at the right time

But the problem with most of our stories is that we try to start making disciples and realize that the way we were taught is not something I can easily replicated today in my life.

It is not reproducible, or sustainable....or I wasn’t trained enough to remember how to do it.

We were taught a little bit how to follow Jesus, but not how to become a rabbi like him.

We weren’t taught how to make disciples…but rather be disciples…but the problem is that disciples become disciple-makers…so maybe we weren’t really discipled at all.

This is important because it is tied to the mission of God and the redemptive story unfolding throughout history.

God did not save people so that they would worship him forever.

That is a thin, boring, unbiblical story that should be forever left in protestant history.

This is a story about the Kingdom of God and His project to re-make and re-new all things into the ultimate eternal reign and rule of Christ.

tell story:

Our response:

-Join the kingdom through work of Christ and fidelity to Him

-Proclaim the kingdom.

-Invite them to join

-teach them to live in the way of the kingdom

the renewing and remaking of all things will happen by the world be transformed into the likeness of Christ so that people live in harmony with God and creation.

If we want to see GOd’s kingdom it comes through helping people learn the way of Jesus…and the real question in how.

We want to be like Jesus but we don’t want to do the things that allowed Jesus to be like Jesus…or teach people the way that Jesus taught.

So, Why are we talking about discipleship at a church planting conference?

Because (and maybe you’ve heard others say this) X if you plant churches, you may get disciples.

Make disciples, and you WILL plant churches.

How you conceive of your fundamental identity/Job matters.

If you are a “church planter”- that means one set of priorities.

If you are a discipler, another.

And the question is which one Jesus wants us to put as cart, and which as horse- which should come first for us.

And I’m going to suggest that our real imperative is disciplemaking, and church planting is simply the result...

The command Jesus left us looks more like:

X as you are going: taking initiative with people- the model Jesus left us was one of selecting disciples.

You didn’t choose me, I chose you, He told them, not speaking theologically, but just reminding them of what actually happened.

We are way too hesitant to pursue people in discipleship because we don’t want to be rejected.

Jesus’ model though demands it

X make disciples in this way:

X baptizing: this isn’t just the process of dunking someone- that’s where it maybe starts, or gets a very public marker.

But it IS the process of conforming someone’s life to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Having a cruciform, Jesus-shaped life

X Teaching them to obey: we’re going to spend the rest of our time talking about this- but obey what? is a good question-

“All that I’ve commanded.”

What did He command?

It’s a pretty short list- and, I think one that needs to be personalized.

And that’s the essence of discipleship.

Formation: Character and Competency Matrix

2nd Homework Section:

Take a look at all of the people you have influenced spiritually over the years.

People you have trained, preached to or worked alongside.

I want you to ask Dallas Willard’s famous 2 diagnostic questions for church leaders:

-what’s your plan for making disciples?

-Does it work?

Take a few minutes to journal and think about this question.

Two things I want you to get out of this training.

-understand that discipleship is your primary calling

-know that disciple-making means building a culture, not doing an activity

-promise to learn how to make disciples and do it for a lifetime.

My story: When I was 35 etc

if you haven’t made disciples who have made disciples who have made disciples…you haven’t figured it out yet.

Master Plan of Evangelism - God’s plan is people, not organization

Selection: Invitation

Association: (Access)

Consecration: Repent and Believe and follow

Impartation: Information, imitation, innovation (Friend, Follower, family)

Demonstration: Leaders Go First

Delegation: Leadership Square

Supervision: Challenge, training etc

Reproduction: Prepare them to do the same by giving a reproducible process

Here is the reality.

If you haven’t seen this done, you aren’t going to be able to invent discipleship on your own.

Maybe 1 out of 1000 can do it and create a reproducible experience.

That’s probably not you.

So what you need is someone to show you how to do it.

A coach, a guide to walk through it with you.

and your work in this cohort is to develop the plan to do that.

I am happy to help anyone going through the Genesis training to built a plan and coach you.

There are cohorts with 3dm, disciple-shift and disciples-made that do a great job.

Make sure to look at what they’re doing…and at the very least, buy Master Plan of Evangelism by Robert Coleman and Building a Disciple-Making Culture by Mike Breen and start memorizing those books so you have the tools you need.

So we don’t just want Church planting: too thin....just an organization