The Process: Members Meeting July 2019

Mission/Vision

What I’d like to today is to lay out the next foundational piece of our church to work towards the Mission and Vision the Lord has given us to accomplish.

If you’ll remember back in January, we laid out the two foundational pieces for any organization, its Mission and its Vision.

Word of God

At Metro, that starts with the Word of God.

Honoring and listening to God’s Word drives absolutely everything that we do here.

Mission

And our understanding of God’s Word leads us to understand out Mission as a church.

The Church’s Mission is foundational to its identity because it tells us the purpose the Church exists for in the first place.

Jesus gave us the Mission of the Church in the Great Commission where he called us to go and make disciples of all nations.

Therefore, every biblical church exists for this biblical mission.

For us that means: We exist to equip people to live lives changed by Jesus.

We believe that be a disciple of Jesus Christ should change every part of our lives.

It should change our wants and desires as we put the desires of the flesh to death.

It should change our marriages, parenting, friendships, work habits, use of money, everything!

In short, our church exists to equip us to love Jesus more and follow him with our whole life.

Vision

Then, as God works in our church to change our lives and the lives of those we have the opportunity to share the gospel with, the hope is that our church grows to have an impact for God’s Kingdom beyond these walls.

Our Vision is how we as a body of believers can live together to advance God’s Kingdom not only here, but across Northwest Arkansas and the World.

And based on our understanding of the Scriptures, we believe that the best way to join Christ’s work to save sinners in the Great Commission is through building biblical and healthy churches

This is why our vision is: To see lives changed through building healthy churches.

The Process

Now all of this sounds great, but Mission and Vision statements are just words unless you actually make a plan to carry them out.

And churches often spin their wheels, holding up their vision statements and mission statements, seldom making any real progress towards their God given goals.

So how do we avoid falling into this same trap?

If our vision to see lives changed through building healthy churches will only be accomplished as we ourselves grow into a healthy church as we equip people to live lives changed by Jesus, this begs the question, how do we do that?

How do we grow as disciples of Jesus Christ in this church?

This is where The Process comes in.

Simple Church Philosophy

As many of you know, Metro runs on a simple church philosophy

It is one of the reasons why many of you were drawn to this church to begin with.

For those of you that don’t know, the philosophy of a simple church is that we are most effective in the mission the Lord has given us to do when we don’t eat up our free time with program driven ministry.

After all, if you spent every other night of the week at a church event, we are taking you out of the very mission field the Lord has placed you in.

If the church exists to equip the saints for the work of ministry, than it seems counter productive for us to program you to death effectively out of that work.

How can you live on mission and make disciples if you are never in the field because all your time is consumed with good, but unnecessary programs?

Problem of Simple Church Philosophy

But here’s the problem with operating based on a simple church philosophy.

If we don’t have an intentional plan that is easily communicated for how we make disciples in this church, then it looks like we aren’t doing any ministry at all.

In light of this, I want to share with you something that we call the Process which is the clear plan for how we equip people to live lives changed by Jesus and make disciples in this church.

I believe that this is the next step that has been missing for our church to grow more effective in the mission that God has given us to faithfully accomplish.

The goal is for every member of our church to know and be engaged in their discipleship at Metro so when guests or people you are sharing the gospel with ask, “What is Metro all about?”

Then you can answer “equipping people to live lives changed by Jesus.”

And if they as how do we do that, you can tell them about our Process.

At Metro, we believe the distinguishing mark of discipleship is commitment.

Especially in a culture where nominal, or uncommitted, Christianity reigns supreme, we want to be a church that encourages others to give their whole life to the Lord and the work of his Kingdom.

The first step of our process to make disciples is to...

1. Commit to God

First and foremost, the disciple’s life is built upon committing to God in every area of their life.

This is where we answer the question: How am I loving God?

Now of course this question can be answered a myriad of ways for every believer.

We love God in our study of God’s Word,

In our Prayer and other Spiritual disciplines

We love God as we put sin to death in our life to live for him.

But in terms of our church’s process for making disciples, it all begins with the Sunday worship gathering.

The first step in engaging a life of discipleship at our church is by coming to Sunday services in order to hear God’s Word preached and respond with worship and repentance.

When we commit to worshiping God with other believers on Sunday, we are reminded of God’s glory and see him as worthy of all our worship.

This is why Sunday worship has a direct impact on your personal holiness.

As we see Christ and what he has done for us, we treasure him more and more, and in treasuring him, we see our paltry sins for what they are.

To give an example that breaks down if you think about it too long, we lose our hunger for bland oatmeal as we are offered the glory of a delicious steak.

The next step in our process is to...

2. Commit to the Body

Our relationship with Christ is a personal relationship, but Jesus never intended for it to be private.

At some point, without engaging in discipleship with other believers, your spiritual growth will be stunted.

This is where we answer the question: How am I loving others.

We need one another to help encourage, teach, and correct one another so that all of us can grow in Christ together.

In committing to the body, we answer the question: How am I loving others?

You’ll notice that our process really follows Jesus’ teaching on the greatest commandment that we are to love God and love others.

How this step happens is by intentionally engaging in biblical community.

True biblical community happens when we are committed to one another and each other’s growth in Christ.

Where we love and encourage one another with God’s promises in the Scriptures to continue to die to ourselves an live for Jesus.

Again, this can look a little different for every believer.

You can invite people to your homes for dinner to encourage them in the Lord,

Or ask other members to coffee for a weekly Bible Study.

But how our church helps facilitate our members to commit to the body is through our Small Groups Ministries.

That is Community Group, Women’s Ministry, and MSM.

These are all opportunities for you to intentionally meet with other believers for mutual encouragement and discipleship.

And for our church biblical community culminates in biblical church membership that actually means something.

When we commit to the body in membership we covenant with each other to say, through thick and thin, we are in this together so that the name of Jesus may be glorified in our church.

Recap

So the first step in our process is to Commit to God and this happens as we gather for Sunday worship.

The second step is to Commit to the Body where we intentionally engage in biblical community through our small group ministries and biblical church membership.

The last step in the process is to...

3. Commit to the Mission

Not only are we called to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves, but we are also invited to join God in his work to save sinners.

In this step we are trying to answer: How am I living for something bigger than myself?

In other words, how am I leveraging my life for the Kingdom so that more people might know Jesus?

Again, individually the answer to this question can look a number of different ways.

Some of us can be intentional in inviting our neighbors over for dinner to share the gospel with them.

We might start a Bible study at work for people that don’t know Jesus.

How our church is organized for us to engage in the mission of God and join him in his work is through three things.

Serving

Giving

and Personal Evangelism.

First we use our Time and Talent to serve in the different ministries of our church.

Every Serve Team opportunity we have directly impacts our public proclamation of the Word every Sunday.

That means if you are serving in Little Metro, you are helping children hear the gospel and also allowing their parents to grow in the Lord as they respond to his Word.

If you serve on Safety and Security you are helping us keep safe so that we can focus on God’s Word in peace.

If you serve on FIT you help others feel at home and give them a picture of the same kind of love we hope they will see Jesus has for them.

If you serve on the Sound Booth or Worship team, you help others to respond to God’s Word in worship and praise.

If you serve as a CG Leader then you have a direct impact on driving the Word of God into the lives of people in your CG so they can respond to God’s Word by actually living it out.

I could go on and on about how all the opportunities we have to serve are ways where all of us contribute to the proclamation of the gospel week in and week out.

Second, we use the Treasure that God has entrusted to us to give to his mission.

When we give our finances to the church we are saying two things:

God thank you for entrusting me with the money you have

Let my gift be used to further the work of your Kingdom here in this church and beyond.

Finally, as we grow in our discipleship we Commit to the Mission by bearing witness to our faith in the mission field God has placed us in.

After all, this is the purpose we operate with a simple church philosophy.

So that you can have the time to meaningfully engage those around you in your families, at your work, and in our city with the gospel so that they too may be saved and grow in Christ.

Some of us can be intentional in inviting our neighbors over for dinner to share the gospel with them.

We might start a Bible study at work for people that don’t know Jesus.

And all of us must be intentional in our homes with our spouses and children to raise our families in the Lord.

The Process As A Circle

This is our process for making disciples at Metro Church.

We want to Commit to God, Commit to the Body, and Commit to the Mission.

And you might say, “Isn’t this the same things we are already doing? There’s nothing changing.

And that’s the point. The object of the process is not to change the DNA of our church. Instead it is to help us clearly communicate it and engage our lives in it.

And still others might wonder, “Is that really it? Is it really that simple? Is that how I grow in Christ?”

Well this isn’t everything you can or should do to grow in Christ. You’ll notice personal Bible reading, prayer, and reading theology aren’t on this list.

These are just the foundational pieces for how our church makes disciples, And it is our hope that as you build on these foundations you will grow in Christ more and more.

You’ll notice that the process is circular, not linear.

This is intentional because in our process its not as if you graduate from one step and leave it behind to move on to the next.

Instead, the steps in the process all build on one another.

As you grow in your commitment to God, you will love others more and Commit to the body.

As you Commit to the Body, you will experience the blessings of salvation and want more people to be here and you will Commit to the Mission.

Then as you Commit to the Mission, you will see God working in and through you to save sinner and see his redemption first hand which will lead you to Commit to God more in your own life and on and on it goes.

Benefits of The Process

There are really three benefits for you knowing and engaging in the Process.

First, it allows you to know where you are at in your discipleship so that you can continue to grow in Christ.

Our hope is that it gives you a framework to ask, “Where is the Lord asking me to grow right now?”

Or to help another brother or sister know where they can take their next step to grow themselves.

Second, it allows us to have a tangible way to evaluate how effective we are at making disciples in our church.

We will be able to see areas we as pastors need to pray for and emphasize in order to help our church grow into mature followers of Christ.

Finally, it allows for leadership development and upward growth.

As I said earlier, these are the foundational pieces for our discipleship. As you engage and grow in the process there will be opportunities to grow in your leadership.

As you participate in CG, maybe God grows you to lead your own.

As you serve in an area in our church, you are able to grow to help that area work more effectively and maybe even lead it one day.

Most importantly, as people grow in the process and take every opportunity to commit more and more to their faith, it will show us men who might be called to be elders and deacons to help shepherd the church toward more faithfulness in our mission.

Where Are You In The Process?

So in closing, the most important question I can ask you is Where are you in The Process?

Where is God asking you to grow in your discipleship?

We might start a Bible study at work for people that don’t know Jesus.

Is he asking you to grow in your Commitment to God by making Sunday Worship more of a priority or maybe by putting some sin to death?

Is he asking you to grow in your Commitment to the Body by getting plugged into a small group or maybe to repent of your selfishness and look for opportunities to bless and encourage other brothers or sisters in our body?

Or is he asking you to grow in your Commitment to the Mission?

Do you serve our church as our membership covenant says?

Is he asking you to trust him and grow in your generosity in your tithes and offerings?

Or maybe he is asking you to share your faith with that person you have been avoiding having a conversation with.

No matter where it is, we all have an opportunity to grow in Christ and this process will help our church be intentional in making disciples to equip people to live lives changed by Jesus...

...so that by God’s grace we will be able to see lives changed through building healthy churches.