Discipleshift, From Activity to Relationship

Titus 2:1–10 ESV

But as for you, teach what accords with sound doctrine. Older men are to be sober-minded, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in steadfastness. Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. Likewise, urge the younger men to be self-controlled. Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. Bondservants are to be submissive to their own masters in everything; they are to be well-pleasing, not argumentative, not pilfering, but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.

Ephesians 4:11–16 ESV

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

THE NECESSITY OF ALIGNMENT

Three plans

Mark, Rick and Ben

God is moving in the hearts of these men.

How would you answer these three?

There is only so much energy and so many resources in your church, and you must use them for the most important things.

We do not need more people, we need more focus.

The fourth shift we advocate is from activity to relationship.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 170). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 170). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Instead of busying ourselves with well-intentioned yet haphazardly focused activities, we should make an intentional shift that nurtures the type of biblical relational discipleship we have been talking about.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 171). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 171). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Within this shift, we are advocating the principle of alignment, in which every program and ministry of a church exists in harmony with the overall goal of making disciples.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 171). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Various ministries are no longer seen as isolated components of the church. They are not silos functioning as competitors for resources and leaders. If a program is to exist (and clearly some should), it must move people to venues where spiritual growth can occur. Everything the church does relates in some way to the primary mission of discipleship. By applying this principle, church leaders protect their people from spending energy on things that lead to something other than what Jesus would consider success. Success for the church isn’t feeding the poor a meal to satisfy their hunger. Success is feeding the poor in such a way that they will wonder why we are doing what we do. Our actions should lead them to hunger for the Bread of Life.

The Problem of Misalignment

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 171). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

We fail to ask why?

WVCSB

Mini-Bike Ministry

Having a lot of unconnected programs in a church not only raises the question of effectiveness; it also creates a quality problem.

The more programs you have and the more they are disconnected from a common purpose, the harder it is to lead, organize, and do things that really matter.—Jim Putnam

It’s far easier to do fewer things well than to do a lot of things haphazardly.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 173). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

It also becomes hard to sustain a large number of programs over the long haul. The original leaders get tired and drop out, so new staff or volunteers must be recruited. The people coming to the programs and participating get tired too. People get overwhelmed with the number of activities they engage in. The whole process becomes hard to reproduce season after season.

To summarize, the principle of alignment means that

every program must be evaluated to see if it is really producing what Jesus values;

every program that has the potential to make disciples, but isn’t doing so, must align itself with the overall goal of biblical relational discipleship;

we do fewer things in the church, and we do them well.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 173). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

A Little Exercise

exercise is to have your church’s leadership think through every program in your church, with an eye to discipleship.35

or instance, your church might hold an Easter egg hunt each year. Ask: What’s the purpose of the hunt? Who’s the audience you’re shooting for? What’s the next step for people to take once they come to the hunt?

Take an Easter egg hunt.

Ask: What’s the purpose of the hunt?

Who’s the audience you’re shooting for?

What’s the next step for people to take once they come to the hunt?

Ideally, with an Easter egg hunt, you want to create a fun environment to which your people can invite non-Christians so they can gain a different perspective of church. You want it to be easy for your people to invite their friends to a worship service after the hunt, because they now have a new understanding of what the people in the church look like and act like. Once your people’s friends are at a service, you want them to hear about Jesus in a compelling way so they ask the ones who brought them more about some of the perceptions they have had. You want to have the believers you teach in your church to be ready for those questions and to know how to answer them or how to get answers for them. Eventually you want to move people to small groups, and so on. Each ministry and its leaders must be aligned to the overall purpose, and whatever you do needs to move people to the next stage. Every ministry in the church must funnel people back to the relational small group, where biblical discipleship can happen. The challenge with alignment is that we as leaders are telling people to use the gifts they have been given for God’s glory and his mission to reach the world. At the same time, if this is happening well, so many people will have what they think are good ideas about how to use those gifts. They want us to champion their causes, and to be honest, we love them and don’t want to dissuade them from doing what is in part the right thing to do. However, if we don’t align people, ensuring that each and every ministry is matched and fitted to the purpose of making disciples, the real mission of the church, we will end up with a mismatched, disconnected community of people pursuing their own goals and programs that take on a life of their own. This is why every program in a church must be aligned with the goal of relational discipleship in view. We must learn to discern the difference between the good and the great, the well-meaning and the highly focused, the ineffective and the effective. Church leaders must examine every program and ask, What’s the best use of our time according to the mission God has given us?

In the book they give this example;

Discuss the alignment concept. Why must everything in a church lead to discipleship? If your church has a baseball team, for instance, the purpose of that baseball team is not just to play ball; it’s to disciple people. In order to take people where you want to lead them, you have to start where they are. So baseball becomes a point of contact. A baseball team is a wonderful way of developing a relationship of trust that then brings the opportunity to present the gospel to people who will believe. It could be a thousand other things besides baseball. A point of contact is developed wherever the people are and are interested. If you can identify that point of contact, then you have a place to begin. You have to teach from where the person is, to lead them where you want them to go. If you start at the point where you want them to go, often you lose them, because they’re not ready to understand it yet. Sometimes a person is prepared even before we realize it. You can proclaim that Jesus is Lord to people who might not recognize what that means. Still, in their hearts there is already a yearning to know that Someone is over all and sovereign.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 174). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Each ministry should funnel people back into the small groups where discipleship can occur.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 175). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 173). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

PERMISSION TO SAY NO

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 175). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

A Church and/or Leader must have permission to say “NO”

Your church cannot be aligned in a way that allows one spiritually immature person to derail discipleship.

Alignment is one of the hardest things churches grapple with.

feeding the poor

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 177). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

For a ministry to be aligned with other ministries around the common mission of making disciples, it must include the following five key components, or it should be a stepping-stone that leads people to another ministry in the church where these components are present.

1. A clear goal of discipleship.

A ministry should exist to help people follow Jesus, be transformed by him, and join him on his mission. Before you allow someone to start or join a ministry, he should understand this basic goal and define it as you do. He also needs to be willing to live it out, or you will have real issues before long.

2. An intentional leader who makes disciples.

A ministry should have an intentional disciple-making leader. The leader should be committed to the disciple-making process and intentional about leading people involved in the ministry to greater spiritual maturity.

3. A biblically relational environment.

As we’ve said before, the key factors that cause spiritual growth are the Word of God, the Spirit of God, and the people of God. So each ministry of your church should incorporate each of these key factors. Good teachers will facilitate discussion in which people are free to express themselves. They use the Word but involve everyone in a variety of ways. Good teaching doesn’t just inform the head; it also seeks to affect a person’s heart and hands. Spiritual maturity and transformation is the goal. Ministries shouldn’t just be focused on filling heads with biblical facts. They should show how biblical truth relates to the real needs in people’s lives.

4. A reproducible process.

Those who are involved in the ministry should be growing spiritually in such a way that they are producing more disciples. It might be helpful to walk people through the four-stage process that Jesus modeled for his disciples (SCMD). You may want to teach people the five stages of spiritual growth so they can help those they work with grow to spiritual parenthood.

5. A supporting organization.

The church as a whole must undergird and communicate the vision that God has given it. This support and communication must happen over and over again. There must be a system that includes job descriptions, and there must be accountability that ensures that what is valued is achieved. Ministry leaders need to constantly be encouraged and coached. The leaders of a church are the ones who protect the church from competing views and ensure that each of their ministries is focused on making disciples. Victories are celebrated in front of the whole church

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (pp. 177-178). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 177). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

When you have all five of these key components in place, that ministry is aligned with the disciple-making process.

Changing an entire church into a disciple-making church is hard work.

The more entrenched in tradition a church is, the more difficult it is to align the various ministries together around a common purpose. It’s hard to teach old dogs new tricks. And it’s also true that some people will have become accustomed to being spiritual children and will not want to see things change. Unfortunately, in some churches the leaders are immature and will not be interested in making these shifts. If this is true in your case, you may need to focus more on planting new churches or doing some of this through less disruptive, unofficial channels. The truth is that no one can stop you from making disciples, but they can stop you from making it the official mission of the church. If this is true in your setting, you will need to humbly rely on the Holy Spirit to give you direction, and to seek wise counsel from others who have made the transition to be disciple-making churches in other places.

BECOMING A MASTER OF ALIGNMENT

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 179). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 177). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Practice, Practice, Practice!

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 179). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

KEY POINTS

•  Good people want to do a whole bunch of good things, and if a church isn’t careful, it’s easy to start up a smorgasbord of ministries and go a hundred different directions all at once. There is only so much energy in the church, and we must direct our people to things that make the biggest difference.

•  Instead of busying themselves with well-intentioned yet haphazardly focused activities, churches should make an intentional shift to focus on biblical relational discipleship. Making disciples is the main reason why a church exists, so everything in a corporate body needs to funnel people toward the relational small group, where discipleship can best happen.

•  When someone asks you if he can start a ministry at your church, or if your church wants to partner with another ministry in town, if those ministries don’t align with your overall goal of making biblical disciples in relational environments, then it’s okay to say no to the requests.

•  For any ministry to take place in a church, it must have five key components, or it must lead people to another ministry in the church where these components are present. The five components are: (1) a clear goal, (2) an intentional leader, (3) a biblically relational environment, (4) a reproducible process, and (5) a supporting organization.

Putman, Jim. DiscipleShift (Exponential Series) (p. 182). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

Why do you think Alignment would be important?

Why do you think it would be difficult?