discipling4life

A young missionary living overseas posted a political opinion on a popular social media site. One person responded in agreement. A few people responded with a different opinion, as did I. After I replied, I then began to get notifications that other people were commenting; and several of them were also “liking” the comment I made.

I sent a private message to this missionary to explain a concern. As missionaries, either abroad or at home, we are usually dependent on the financial support of others who care about our mission. Many of these supporters connect to us through social media. Like it or not, everything that we post there can be an extension of our ministry.

I explained that I am quite careful not to post controversial topics on my social media. I suggested that he might consider doing the same. It’s simply not worth upsetting prayer supporters or losing financial support just to express our latest political opinion.

His response to me was that he’d known the people who are replying for at least a decade. He was sure that they would not respond to him negatively. This might be true. The people who are responding might not be negative toward his opinion. But what about the people who read the post and do not respond? How does he know what they are thinking?

In choosing a man to disciple, an essential element is that he be teachable. If someone doesn’t stop long enough to consider what you’re trying to communicate to them, call it stubbornness if you’d like, you won’t make progress in helping him grow into a disciple of Jesus.

There’s a pretty good chance that if a man doesn’t listen to you, especially when you’re speaking out of love and concern, he may also not be willing to listen to Jesus (who speaks not only through the Bible but also through other believers). This doesn’t mean that he has to do everything you say, but he should at least hear you out.

If someone doesn’t appear to be teachable, take things slow and address this most important of topics. Try to help him or her understand that being teachable flows from an attitude of humility – a trait that the Bible often focuses on (Proverbs 6:3; 11:2; 15:33; 16:19; 18:12; 22:4; and 29:23 from just one book!).

Give him or her the opportunity to develop some teachability. But if after a few tries and a couple of months things have not improved, invest yourself in someone else. The missionary mentioned above responded this way: “I’m not going to be silenced just because someone might be offended.”

This is not just being unteachable. No where in Scripture do we get the opportunity to be offensive. This stubbornness has its roots in pride. Until someone’s character trait is transformed (Romans 12:2), trying to disciple (or mentor or coach) a man or woman like this will be fruitless.

Teachable men can be difficult to find. Men who are faithful, available, and teachable are especially hard to find. But better to look for a F.A.T. man than waste valuable portions of your life on someone who won’t heed your discipling.

In the end, it’s not how many men you’ve discipled; it’s how well you’ve invested the things that you’ve been given. That’s when we will get to hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:23).

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Photo by Zach Vessels on Unsplash

A couple days ago I came across the book entitled Zeal without Burnout, by the English pastor Christopher Ash. I remember reading about burnout in ministry years ago but couldn’t put my finger on the details. So, I thought I’d take a try at this short book. It was well worth it to be reminded of the things that can burn us out in ministry, whether personal or professional.

While Ash writes from the perspective of burnout as a full-time pastor, he also writes as someone who has experienced burnout himself. And he includes several stories of others who went through similar, but different, things. There is plenty in this book that a layman in a church setting can learn and use to evaluate how close he might be coming to burnout – and what to do to prevent burnout from taking hold of your life.

Here are a few quotes that I thought were “post worthy.” (I left the British English as it was.)

“Many zealous Christians juggle the responsibilities of pressurized work and busy family lives with a desire to serve the Lord in the church as Elders, Bible-study leaders, or ministry with children and young people. Those of us who are pastors can be guilty of underestimating the stresses they face as they seek to serve the Lord in ways that are often invisible to us.” (page 16)

“There’s always more we can do in ministry, but God is not asking, “Can you do more?” He is asking, “Do you love me?” Some of those extras are not always as vital as we think them to be.” (page 32)

“Or perhaps you are still in that successful career, but serving whole heartedly in your local church. The prestige and status given you by that career matter more than perhaps you realize. The wholehearted local-church service you squeeze into a busy life gives you very little affirmation and praise from others. It is tempting to pitch our energies into the activities that result in praise from others.” (page 86)

“The really important stuff—changed hearts—cannot be measured. Go din his grace sometimes gives us a glimpse, an encouragement, some evidences of grace. But it can’t be measured. You pray for someone and they don’t change. Who knows but they may change years later under someone else’s ministry (I planted, but Apollos watered). Or the fruit may come after you die. I don’t know; you don’t know. But we do know that in the Lord Jesus our labour is not in vain. (page 99)

And finally, spiritual “gifts without grace save no one’s soul.” (page 106)

That quote about not seeing measurable ministry outcomes spoke significantly to me. My tendency when not seeing the outcomes I desire causes me to consider working (ministering) all the more, harder and harder to reach an objective. And that, Ash explains, is what leads so easily to burnout. He provides seven things that can help us avoid burnout; although none of them are simple steps. They require us to speak the truth to ourselves and allow others to do the same – to speak to us whenever we need it.

Words like: “Remember, there is only one Saviour of the world; and it’s not you, and it’s not me.” (page 62)

This book took only about five hours to read. I would recommend everyone read it once, and keep it somewhere that you can read it again, perhaps each year.

Look at the picture above. You’ve probably seen many like it. When I was writing in the corporate world, this might be the exact picture that I wanted in a document facing the customer or even those we wanted to recruit to work with us.

How could you not love that photo? An equal number of men and women. They’re interacting with one another. Multi-ethnic, although not fully, when you really look at it. And while that might not be a glaring problem, there is another.

This photo most likely does not represent your workplace.

As I write this article, thousands of young 20-somethings are finishing college and are excited to begin their new jobs. They’re coming from a place that looks pretty much like the photo. And they’re expecting to work at a place that looks pretty much like the photo.

I was talking with a friend that I mentor who finished his bachelor’s and masters last year at Vanderbilt University. He had spent six years learning his profession with people that were as diverse as the photo but were basically all the same as him.

Something that he said relates to what’s wrong with the photo above. “I’m the youngest guy on my Everyone else is at least 20 years older than men. Many of them have kids around my age. I simply can’t relate to them; at all.

I remember feeling the same way as a new nurse. I was paired up with Lois, who constantly reminded me that, “I was a nurse before you were born.” Most co-workers are not as spiteful as Lois was, but it’s quite difficult to relate to someone the same age as your parents. (Actually, Lois was almost old enough to be my grandmother!)

The fact of life is that in most first full-time jobs that we land, we will be the youngest person on the team. Not only are we adjusting to work-life that requires us to be to work on time, looking appropriate, and awake. We can be stumped at how to talk with co-workers that are significantly older than us.

They haven’t seen the same movies we have. (I say “we” when I’m actually not one of you!) They definitely do not listen to the same music as we do. And they don’t tend to go to the hipster bar or bistro we enjoy. In fact, most of them just want to go home after work because they need to help their spouse with the kids and housework.

It’s a dilemma for which college didn’t prepare us. (Okay, there are several things that college didn’t prepare us for.)

With all the discomfort of adjusting to living on your own, probably not even in the same city as your parents, who needs to try to relate to a bunch of old geezers? Why not just mumble, “Okay, boomer” under your breath and retreat to your space at work and home?

Why not? Because these people are a goldmine. They’ve been there and done that more times than they can count. They are a wealth of information, not only about the job but about living life.

So set your preconceived idea (that you didn’t even know that you had) about being on a happy team of people all your age and get on with your personal growth at work and home. Include older co-workers in your life, and surprisingly, many of them will include you.

Life will become more vibrant with them than life without them.

~ ~ ~

Photo by fauxels from Pexels

If this article was stimulating, you might enjoy this 15-minute TEDx video of Leah George, Ph.D., who talks about five generations all working together in this decade.

One of the guys I mentor has been going out with a pretty sweet gal. But then life got in the way. At my encouragement, he divulged to her some personal struggles that he was facing over the past year. She did not take it very well. And like many relationships, once there is one hole in the dike, more tend to appear.

She couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t just fix the problem. One way she responded was to spend more time at his apartment. He then revealed that he needed some space; he wasn’t comfortable spending every free moment sitting with her. Yes, she needed reassurance in their relationship, but he needed some time to process.

Like many relationships, this one seemed headed toward failure. In desperation, she decided to go home to her family for a couple of weeks. They agreed that while physically apart, they would each pray about where they were going together. While that sounds good, it’s actually a bad idea.

Nope, I’m not against prayer. I think that prayer is significant in many ways. The Bible says we should pray about everything at all times. Just not this way.

Whether someone is married or single, when relationships hit hard times, the idea of separating for a time of prayer and reflection sounds good. What exactly would you be asking God to do when you pray?

For the other person to change? For you to be more understanding? How exactly will either of these happen?

I encouraged my friend to set up some phone calls to begin talking about the differences between him and his girlfriend. But more importantly, to start digging down to learn why he is the way that he is, and why she is the way that she is.

Without some of these hard conversations, we will never get down to the bottom of our conflict. It’s not all his fault. It’s not all her fault. It’s two people trying to become one without losing their own personal identity.

That takes talking to each other. Hearing both sides. Seeking to not only understand but also to help the other person grow while you grow yourself.

This type of self-examination together can be very scary. What if she doesn’t like who I really am? Why do I feel so passionate about something? Does the other person need to adopt my passion? Can I love her without owning her passion? What might happen if my passion is misplaced? Is my identity tied up in a particular passion?

For a relationship to grow strong, both people need to understand themselves and the other person. And we can’t assign a value to the other person’s traits. His love of the outdoors isn’t a rejection of your desire to cuddle on the couch. It’s not wrong; it’s different.

When you begin to have difficulties in your relationship, take the time to think about why you’re reacting the way you do. Why does your partner feel or think the way they do? How do those differences actually complement you as a couple?

By all means, pray about your relationship. Yet, spend at least as much time talking to each other as you do praying. And talk about the hard things, not just the casual things that are safe. If you’re headed toward marriage, you must tackle these issues. You can do it now or later, but they won’t just go away on a wing and a prayer.

~~~

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Throughout the years, different organizations and individuals have created challenges to reach some sort of goal. One of the best-known recent challenges was the “Ice Bucket Challenge” developed by the Pete Frates and Pat Quinn in 1984. It resulted in $115,000,000 in donations to research and fight ALS. This is proof that at least some challenges work.

I have spent several days reflecting, praying, and reading certain passages in my Bible and decided to start a local challenge in San Antonio. Called 100×23, the name is looking for the goal of one hundred new disciple-makers by December 2023.

I’m not sure that I have ever heard of a challenge in the Christian realm. Sure, we have the Great Commission to make disciple of all nations (Matthew 28:19-20), and that’s definitely a source verse for my challenge. In the in recent past, many Christian organizations pulled together to each all the unknown people groups by 2020. While we missed the goal, there are still plenty of groups working to reach the unreached.

But to do either of those two examples, we need disciple-makers (sometimes referred to as disciples who make disciples). How can we ever reach the uttermost ends of the Earth, including the unreached, without a plan to make and equip disciple-makers?

In my home, I have a map of San Antonio on the wall. There are blue dots spread across the map where I know of people who are actively making disciples. There are also red dots of people who are disciples. Perhaps they are ministering to others, but they have yet to make a disciple themselves.

What would happen to San Antonio if we raised up another one hundred new disciple-makers over the next three years? What if we had one or two new disciple-makers in every local church in the city (knowing that there are more than one hundred churches in San Antonio)?

Jesus said that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few (Matthew 9:35-38). There’s simply no way that pastors in the city can equip every disciple to be a disciple-maker. The real work (labor) in the harvest will come from disciple reproducing themselves.

Over the next two weeks, I want to establish a baseline of how many active disciple-makers we have in the city. Many of them will be essential in raising up one hundred more disciple-makers. Each time I think about this challenge, which has been very frequently the past few days, I get excited about the possibilities of what God can do with one more disciple-makers in San Antonio.

Would you mark your calendar to pray for this challenge on the 23rd day of each month? Of course, you can pray on other days as well!

Photo credit: Ryan McGuire from Pixabay

This will be the first in a short series on Evangelism and Witnessing.

Recently among a group of college students (all who claim to be followers of Jesus), a discussion broke out. One of them confidently said, “We all need to be evangelists.” A few heads nodded. Then someone disagreed. Sides formed – for and against.

Is there truth to the statement that we all need to be evangelists? I’ll join that fray and express my opinion, which I believe will be grounded in Scripture. So, let’s start there.

The word evangelist appears in most New Testaments only three times. Twice, the writer is speaking of a specific person. Philip is referred to as an evangelist in Acts 21:8. And Timothy is told by Paul to “do the work of an evangelist” in 2 Timothy 4:5.

Those are quite specific references, and I think we can all agree that it would not be a good Bible study application to make these citations into broad commands to the Body of Christ. In both these cases, the work of an evangelist set these two men apart from other believers.

Isn’t it interesting that the verse in Acts is referring to Philip, who welcomed the missionaries, Paul and Luke, into his home as an evangelist? At no time was either Paul or Luke given such a title. Paul is usually referred to as an apostle, and Luke as his co-worker, but never as evangelists. Yet, there’s a probability that no one preached the gospel to more people in the first century than Paul.

That brings me to my first point. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon describes the Greek word εὐαγγελιστής (euaggelistēs) as the name, “given in the New Testament to those heralds of salvation through Christ who are not apostles.”

We find apostles and evangelists mentioned together in Ephesians 4:11 and 12. There, Paul writes, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ” (NASB).

My second point will be made as we look closely at this verse from Ephesians. Note that the verse says that “some” of the people mentioned were given by God. In the common Greek of the first century, “some” was not a separate word but part of the noun (apostle, prophets, evangelist). The King James Version, New American Standard Bible, New Century Version, New English Translation, New Revised Standard Version, and World English Bible all use the word “some.” In the English Standard Version and New International Version, the translators opted to use the word “the” instead of “some.”

But here’s my point. Whether you say “the” or “some” evangelists, it’s pretty clear that these people were not everyone in the local church. As a matter of fact, all of these apostles, evangelists, and teachers were given by God to “equip the saints.” The majority of the Body of Christ is not functioning in one of these four or five roles. The majority is being equipped by the minority.

These are the three places where the word evangelist occurs. None of these are telling the “average Joe Christian” to be an evangelist. Just like no verse tells every Christian to be a pastor or a teacher.

Based on the three uses of the word evangelist in the New Testament and my two discussion points, I would strongly contend that we are not all called to be evangelists.

God called us all to be His people, but as His people, we have different roles, in the same way that we have different gifts. Paul made it clear that everyone does not have the same gift (1 Corinthians 12:27-30).

Let’s stop trying to make other people experts in the gift that God may have given us. Let’s enjoy our diversity as given to us by God and help one another function well in the gift that the Holy Spirit decided each of us to individually have.

In my next post, I will discuss whether my conclusion that we are not all called to be evangelists relieves us from telling others about our faith in Jesus.

Another Book on Purpose and Identity that Misses the Mark

Three quotes from the Introduction of Divine Intentions provide a hint of the author’s bend: a man-centered gospel. “Yet God is obsessed with us.” “God desires to make His every plan and every purpose be your true-life story.” “God is relentlessly committed and lovingly devoted to you.” I wish, instead, that it read, “You are relentlessly committed and lovingly devoted to God.”

Reed writes, “One of my goals for this book is to increase your curiosity and decrease your caution.” By caution, he means “playing it safe” in life. But the reader needs to take caution about the conclusions that Reed applies here. Especially when he uses a loosely translated Bible (the Living Bible Translation) to support his assumptions. Each supporting verse should be reviewed in a more literal translation to ensure that it supports the claims being made.

Reed writes, “we have been lovingly designed by God for a specific purpose. We can fill our life with lesser things, but He lovingly designed us to hold the treasure of destiny. He created us with the capacity to fulfill all He has planned for us.” Unfortunately, I can’t find where Reed tells us what that purpose is. The word purpose occurs 63 times in this book, a majority of those pointing to God’s purpose, yet without describing what the purpose is.

The old catechisms tell us that the chief purpose of man is to glorify God. Divine Intentions seems to reverse this to make God’s purpose is to make people feel good about themselves. Does God desire to make use whole and restored as Reed claims – yes! But we must ask the question “to want end?” The end result of my being whole and restored is that I will glorify God. That major end is missing from this book.

I was provided with a pdf copy of this book and asked to give an honest review. I will first admit that the book was so tedious to read that I started skimming to see if it got any better. It did not.

This book was published as a second edition in 2014 by “Minister Raymond D. Sopp.” There is no indication of Sopp’s qualification as a “Minister,” nor of how he claims to have been called by God to be a “Watchman.”

This book was published by Redemption Press (a subsidy/vanity publisher), whose website claims to “multi-layered editing services,” including content coaching, line editing, content editing, and proofreading. It seems that either Sopp opted out of those services, or the services are terribly inadequate. This is evidenced by a huge number of punctuation errors through the book; commas where they didn’t belong and missing where they should have been; various Bible passages strung together into paragraph filling an entire page.

There are a number of things that are different than you would expect in this book. It begins with an Acknowledgments page that only contains the sentence, “To God be the Glory!” Don’t acknowledgements usually include people. The “About the Author” page tells you very little about the author, other than he’s been a “born-again Christian for more than thirty-eight years.” Nothing about where he’s from, any training/education. But he did include his purpose for writing the book, which should actually be in the Preface several pages later. But before the Preface is a couple pages on his being called “as a watchman to God’s Church.” Even these pages are often difficult to follow.

The Preface also warns that we “might be spiritually blind,” but God has “supernaturally placed [him] in a position to have eyes to see the enemy or trouble coming from afar.” I’m sorry to say that when I read this the first thing I thought of were a number of cult leaders who told their followers that they had some special gift from God.

Sopp’s solution to the deception of the world, seen mostly through an emphasis of miracles in the modern church, is provided in “thirty-one commentaries-warning-admonishments.” He uses alternate words in his writing. He calls Jesus “the Deliverer (Savior)” of “the world (Egypt).” I never found a place where he said what Jesus was delivering us from or why he equates Egypt to the world.

Sopp quotes a lot of Scripture in his book. Unfortunately, it seems that he tends to pull verses out of context, applying them to his ideas. For example, Sopp states that we shouldn’t try to build the Church using the world’s techniques, and he then quotes Exodus 20:25 as his proof text, which was God’s instructions on building an altar. How he goes from not using tools to build an altar to not using worldly techniques in build the church is left unsaid.

As I continue to skim through this book, I assumed that I would eventually read some specifics that provided a “portrait of a Christian.” Alas, there was none. The book title doesn’t even seem to give you an idea of the book’s content, but then neither does the book cover. I’m sorry that the author has had trouble finding God’s love in the Church and it’s most unfortunate that he doesn’t see things getting any better in the future (page 307). Perhaps the author might approach the Church, which he claims to love so much, differently than his book implies. Maybe then he will experience the love that Jesus commanded we have for one another (John 13:34, 35).

What seems to be most amazing is that this book has nine reviews on Amazon of four or five stars. I’m not sure the reviewers actually read the book, although one does write that she “sometimes had a very hard time following him.” I would say that following him is difficult through the majority of the book. Because of all that I’ve mentioned above, and more left unmentioned, I can only give this book two stars and suggest that you invest your time and money in some other book.