TouchPoint — David Watson's Blog

Church Planting Essentials – Urban Church Planting Part 2

by davidwatson on May 21, 2010

The following guest post is look at how urban social structure requires us to rethink our methods for church planting and church planting movements. David Broodryk is a South African church planting strategist and a partner in ministry. Hope you enjoy.

Blessings!

David Watson

from Beirut

re-thinking urban church planting

In a previous article, I explored the issue of urban people not living in traditional communities. I mentioned that urban people relate to one another through linear networks. In other words, they may know a lot of people, but those people do not necessarily know one another. As we explore the make-up of urban dwellers, we discover more and more contrasts between them and typical rural dwellers. This affects church planting and disciple-making in the urban context.

The primary social units of rural dwellers are the family, the extended family and the cultural or ethnic group. These give the rural person a sense of community and belonging. But as people move into cities, these communities begin to break down. The social structures in an urban environment are also very different to those in a rural environment. Urban people relate to one another through a much more complex matrix of social institutions. The social institutions that exist in a rural environment, such as family and extended family, have often been broken down or do not exist in urban environments. Families are more complex, consisting of single parent families, adopted families, child-led families, gay and lesbian families and families made up of unrelated friends living together. Extended family is often non-existent, so most related families are small, isolated units. People often do not relate to their physical neighbourhoods, but to their social networks. The matrix becomes even more complex in Western cities where cell phone and internet technology is used to build virtual networks.

This does not mean that urban dwellers do not group. But the nature of this grouping is very different to the large rural extended family or clan. Urban dwellers most often group together within the work environment and inside social or religious institutions. It is important to study the nature of these institutions, because they are the holding cells of the people we want to reach.

A social institution can be defined as “Groups of persons banded together for common purposes having rights, privileges, liabilities, goals, or objectives distinct and independent from those of individual members.”

These social institutions form community in an urban environment. In a typical city or suburban town they would include community interest groups, community service organizations, educational institutions, government and legal institutions, health care institutions, intellectual and cultural organizations, market institutions, political and non-government organizations, gangs and religious organizations. These are the “kingdoms of this world” in an urban environment. They are the fabric that holds society together. They are also the prisons that hold people captive and apart from one another. I have a feeling that they are related to the “Principalities and powers” mentioned in Ephesians 6:12. People in the West are not as independent as they like to think. They form worldviews and behavioural patterns that conform to the social institutions they belong to. Social institutions are not neutral gathering grounds. They take on personalities under the control and influence of demonic entities. These are often the entities that work to “blind the minds of unbelievers” (2 Cor. 4:4). It is not uncommon to see people’s personalities and behaviour change as they join or leave these social or religious institutions.

In order to disciple nations, we cannot afford to ignore the institutions that are the sub-groupings of a nation, city or town. Here’s the catch: the church, rather than being an instrument of social transformation, has become a social institution – another kingdom of this world. You often hear this comment from people who leave the institution and discover that their relationships with people were only intact as long as they belonged to the same church, club or business. Religious institutions have become holding cells for people, shunning anyone not part of the same institution. They keep people busy with activities designed to prop up the institution. The effect is an institutional club rather than a missional movement. Satan is happy for “church” to be captured inside an institution. It keeps our faith private and as long as it remains in that box, he can have free reign over every other sector of society. We only encounter resistance and spiritual warfare when we invade the kingdoms of this world. Society has also classified “church” as another institution that has no right to interfere with any of the other social institutions. As a result, church often has little or no influence on the society around it.

An urban strategy for a disciple-making movement has to consider the complexity of businesses, corporations, social and religious institutions in the target city. Disciple-making movements will not take place in the religious sphere. Neither will they take place in a vacuum. In order to reach urban dwellers, we must penetrate, influence and maybe even redeem the institutions that hold them captive. Disciple-making movements take place when we develop strategies to gain access into the heart of the various social institutions and begin to make disciples in the course of ordinary life. This means we need to ask a few key questions as we consider the matrix of institutions within our target city:

What would access into this social institution look like?
Who are the Gatekeepers?
Who are the People of Peace?
Who are the Connectors that will take to the heart of the institutions?
Where will resistance and opposition come from?
What access strategies can we develop into these institutions?
What are the social sub-structures inside every institution?
What would a disciple-making movement inside this institution look like?
What would it look like for this entire social institution to become or contain church?

I am beginning to wonder if maybe these social institutions present the minimum unit for disciple-making. This is almost certain in the case of religious institutions. We should not, for example, be targeting individuals or families, but entire Mosques. In the West, we should consider that entire churches may be the minimum unit of transformation. Beginning with individuals or smaller groups often fails to create movement. The individual or small group gets shunned and sometimes excommunicated. Once this happens, we have inoculated the rest of the people in that institution and movements are less likely to take place.

Leaving the religious sphere, let’s consider the other social institutions. How about entire Police Stations? In South Africa, we have teams working on strategies for this very thing. What about non-profits, prisons, entire gangs or businesses? What would church look like if all the employers and employees decided to become followers of Christ? What would it look like if an entire school, pub, sports club or arts society turned to Christ?

These are the questions that we need to engage in urban church planting. They are also the questions that will lead to real transformation. They are difficult and dangerous questions, but we dare not ignore them if we want to see real movements that bring lasting change.

Thank you for reading my rambling thoughts . . .

Comments are welcome.

David Broodryk

South Africa

Glossary

Community: A group of people residing in the same locality and under the same government or a group or class having common interests. (Definition Source: Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary)

Community Service Organizations: Non-profit, charitable organizations dedicated to assisting others meet basic needs, resolve personal or family problems, or improving their community. This includes soup kitchens, rotary clubs, Boys and Girls Clubs, scouts, etc.

Educational Institutions: Social organizations dedicated to teaching skills and knowledge to individuals.

Governments and Legal Institutions: The office, function, authority, or organization that sets forth and administer public policy and the affairs. A government consists of a legislative branch which writes law and policy, executive branch which executes law and policy, and judicial branch which enforces law and policy. This includes local, state, and national governments. This includes all branches of the military. (Definition Source: Monitoring Social Indicators for Ecosystem Management)

Health Care Institutions: Social institutions that specialize in monitoring public health, providing health maintenance, and treating illness and injury.

Intellectual and Cultural Organizations: Social organizations dedicated to search for new knowledge or the development and preservation of art.

Market Institutions: Social organizations dedicated to barter and trade. This includes all corporations and businesses.

Political and Non Government Organizations: Social organizations dedicated to influencing the processes of government; political parties. This includes non-governmental organizations and groups of people with common goals, interests, or ideals formally bound together by a common set of rules or by-laws that influence public policy.

Religious Organizations: Groups of people who share a common, codified belief in and reverence for a supernatural power acepted as the creator and governor of the universe. (Definition Source: Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary)

In a rural area, these social institutions are made up of

Ethnic or Cultural Groups: A social organization consisting of many extended family groups related by a distant, common ancestry.

Extended Family: A social organization consisting of several nuclear family groups related by common ancestry.

Families and Households: A fundamental social group consisting especially of a man and a woman and their offspring; a domestic establishment including the members of a family and other who live under the same roof. (Definition Source: Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary)

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Church Planting Essentials – Urban Church Planting

by davidwatson on May 15, 2010

The following guest post is a provocative discussion of the definition of church in relationship to Urban Church Planting. David Broodryk is a South African church planting strategist and a partner in ministry. Hope you enjoy.

Blessings!

David Watson

from Paris

Re-thinking urban church

Greg Eland (a fellow strategic leader) and I recently discussed something that may become a critical element for us in our urban work. The discussion revolved around the definition of church. Our modern concept of a “Local Church” is more cultural than Biblical. I am referring to a “Local Church” in the sense that it does not qualify as a church until it has the following:

A religious institution made up of clergy and laity
A paid professional (clergy) who will lead the work
Passive laity who pay the clergy to do the work
Constitutions and by-laws
A “church” building
Registered non-profit status with the government
A set of doctrines that defines it as different from other local churches

In our church planting work, we had de-constructed most of these elements. We thought we were doing well. Until we recently hit another challenge. The question that arose was, “Is church a meeting?” Does the gathering define it as a church?

When you think about it, many people place a lot of their definition of a church on the fact that there is a “church service.” If no “church service” exists, then how can there be a “church?” Now don’t misunderstand me. There is no scriptural doubt that the church should meet and should do so regularly. I have no time for “ghost churches.” But consider this: Is the meeting a church or is it the church that meets? It may seem like semantics until we begin to see the outworking of these questions on church planting (particularly the urban setting).

In our urban work, discovery groups are not forming around families as much as they are forming around interest or affinity groups. We see small groups of business men, gatherings in trains during commute, groups in schools, etc. In the urban setting, it is not as common to see new discovery groups forming around families as in rural work. Another factor we see in urban work is that the size of the discovery groups is usually small – under 10 people. Very often the discovery groups consist of 3-4 people. People do not have large communities as much as they seem to have multiple networks of relationships. In mega cities, people function in linear networked relationships more than in communities. Pick up the cell phone of an urban dweller, go through the contacts and ask how many of those contacts know one another. Then ask how many of those who do know one another, actually meet regularly as a community. You will quickly discover that they have a network of individual contacts, but not a community.

Where some resemblance of community exists, it is often very small (under 5 people). And herein lies the problem. When you consider the homogenous nature of these urban discovery groups, their small size and the fluid nature of the groups, it is very difficult to see them as becoming fully-fledged churches. I have no problem with calling 60 people in extended families in a rural setting with growing eldership “a church.” I also have no problem with calling four families or 20 people in a home a church. But I find it a difficult stretch to call three businessmen meeting as a discovery group over coffee “a church” in the sense of an autonomous “local church.” It does not include families. It seldom can develop viable leadership. It is highly unstable (these groups often open and close rather rapidly).

So what should we do? Should we stop launching discovery groups in settings where viable churches cannot develop? Or is there a need to re-examine our concept of “church?” One option (probably first prize) is to see these groups as contact groups into homes where we attempt to launch churches. Still, the problem remains that we then have to build new communities in homes where communities did not previously exist. This slows down CPM and turns our focus towards gathering rather than church planting.

Maybe we need a re-think on the concept of what defines “a church” in the urban context of disconnected, linear relationships. Maybe “a church” is wider than a single group. Maybe it could also be defined as a multiplicity of groups meeting in a variety of settings and contexts, networked through interpersonal mentoring and led by a team of elders who influence the network. In other words, each group is not “a church” but the network of groups is defined as “a church.”

The growing conclusion of our teams (we are still open for input and still learning) is that it may be a mistake (especially in urban work) to call every group of believers “a church.” It may also be a mistake to have as the goal that every discovery group transitions into “a church.” Maybe we should rather see the church as the collection of believers in a locality (or in a network), who meet in different settings. In this sense, “a church” would consist of a variety of regular meetings in a given locality (city or town) who relate to one another (network) in some way. It may create havoc with our statistics (we will have less “churches”) but it may be healthier for our disciple-making movement for a variety of reasons:

It is easier to transition some discovery groups into “believer’s gatherings” than into “churches”
It is often easier to have “believer’s gatherings” where people meet naturally (businesses, schools, parks, trains, etc), than to attempt to create a new community gathering where one did not exist
You will find more people willing to lead small gatherings that are part of a larger “church” than you will find leaders willing to run self-sustaining churches
Each small group does not have to develop a pastor/elder, but can be led by “deacon-type” leaders who relate to “city elders”
The networking of smaller “believer’s gatherings” using a discovery process is more conducive to launching new discovery groups, as the DNA of both believer’s groups and discovery groups will be the same

There is a lot of Biblical precedent for this. In Scripture, we see the singular word “church” used in three settings:

The church universal (All baptised followers of Christ worldwide)

The church in the City (All those who make up the church in a city or town – eg: the church in Corinth or the church in Ephesus)
The church that meets (The gathering of the church at a given location and time – eg: the church in the home of Priscilla and Aquilla)

Of course, this model of networked church is not something we want to impose from the outside as church planters. It is something that will happen from the inside if the setting is right. However, our mental picture and definition of church may prevent us as outside leaders from recognizing that a valid urban church is emerging. We may in some cases already have a networked church, but because of our expectations and definitions we may not recognize it as a church.

So, “what is church?” Maybe, church is not necessarily a singular gathering of believers. Maybe a definition of “church” would be closer to the following definition:

“Church is the collection of baptized believers in the Lord Jesus Christ in a given locality (city or network), who gather regularly (in one group or several) for the purposes of worship, discipleship and nurture, and who depart those gatherings with the intention of obeying all the commands of Christ, in order to transform their families, communities and cities.”

A small change in wording, but a big impact in practice.

See this as provoking towards a discussion, not as a conclusion. We are still learning, still exploring. Your comments are welcome.

Blessings

David Broodryk

South Africa

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Mentoring – Inspiring, Mobilizing, Motivating, and Equipping

by davidwatson on May 10, 2010

You have to be an example before you can inspire, mobilize, motivate, and equip effectively. It’s always great to have talented and intelligent mentees. But, you will not attract these potential high level leaders unless your life exemplifies what they dream about and want to become.

Mentoring requires a transparent lifestyle. A transparent lifestyle is open to examination and welcomes people to be involved. This does not mean a lack of privacy, but does mean an attitude of hospitality, honesty, and openness regarding all aspects of life. This is not just in the work life, but also in family and leisure lives. Mentoring is a lifestyle, not a job.

We all operate in three spheres – family (which includes friends who are like family), work, and other (which includes leisure, community, and friends who are not as close as family). In the mentoring relationship, mentees should move from one sphere to the other until they are a part of the family sphere. They need to be able to see you in all three spheres of life. And conversely, you need to be able to see them in all three spheres. In Christian mentoring, it is essential that mentors and mentees have clear visibility into all aspects of each other’s lives. Mentors must be examples in all areas of life, and mentees need these examples in order to develop into mature leaders. Mentors must be able to see the current situation and the progress related to all areas of life in order to truly be a mentor.

How people define success is often the first step in developing a mentoring relationship. People are inspired by some aspect of our lives. My personal definition of success is “producing reproducing leaders”. But I have never had anyone come to me and say they would like for me to mentor them because I develop reproducing leaders. They approach me based on their definition of success, which may be about ministry success, numbers of churches started, diversity of churches started, combining business and church planting, number of countries in which I have catalyzed churches, business success, family success, marriage success, speaking ability, writing ability, perceived wisdom, and more.

Another way we inspire is by casting a vision that captures a person’s imagination, and helps him or her to redirect his or her life to help cause the vision become reality. Helping people envision something they have never considered often is a life changing event. Thinking new thoughts and dreaming new dreams are powerful inspiration for many.

We can never really know why people first approach us, but it is important that we manage these early days of potential relationship. When our lives and/or visions inspire, we then have the opportunity to mobilize. Mobilizing is the process of helping people to choose to change not only thoughts, but actions. Often, the first step to change involves becoming dissatisfied with the status quo (continuing to do the same things and getting the same results).

The change process is not easy. New ideas, new paradigms, new processes, new relationships, and more can be very unsettling. At this point in the relationship motivation will be required to keep the process moving. Listening, encouraging, vision casting, correcting, and equipping are integral parts of motivation. Of course, the biggest motivator is success. When people begin to see success they become much more excited and motivated to continue the process.

I know the mentoring relationship is going well when the mentee begins to equip other leaders. He or she becomes a mentor to as many people as his or her capacity allows. We learn more and more deeply when we engage in equipping others. When you see your mentees begin to inspire others, mobilize others, motivate others, and those they mentor begin to equip and mentor others, you know you have found success.

Invest in others and you will see a great return on your investment. You will see churches planted and Church Planting Movements (CPM) established.

Blessings!

David Watson

Irving, Texas

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Mentoring – Equals Disciple-Making

by davidwatson on April 14, 2010

We have lost the meaning of Disciple-making. In the modern church, discipleship has become an educational process by which we orient new Believers to the biblical and historical practices of our churches. Even in some extremely Bible oriented materials, the emphasis is on knowing the Word of God with some admonition to obey, but no one is responsible to be in relationship to see it happen. There seems to be a misconception that if people know what is right they will do what is right. Experience tells us that this is not true, yet we continue to function as if it were true.

Discipleship is about relationship. The root of discipleship is a relationship with Jesus that transforms our hearts, minds, and behaviors to be what Jesus teaches and demands these should be. Through the Disciples relationships with one another, especially between mature Believers and new and/or maturing Believers, there is personal and collective growth. This positively impacts all walks of life and all relationships in family, community, business, and government.

The transmittal of information in the discipleship process is imperative, but it is not the most important aspect of the disciple-making process. Disciples do not just know what the Master requires; they do what the Master requires in every situation regardless of the consequences of the action at a personal level. Not every situation is delineated in Scripture, but all the principles are there for us to apply to daily living in every place we find ourselves. Understanding the principles of Scripture, knowing the mind of God, is crucial in the Disciple-making process.

Where new Believers or pre-Believers are concerned, principles are difficult to see and apply to the many situations in which they find themselves. They need the influence of mature Disciples in their lives, and they need relationships with these mature Disciples that permit them to discuss any aspect of life, deal with any problems or sins they may have, and grow through experience as wisdom replaces knowledge. Wisdom is using what you know to do what is right. Wisdom requires knowledge, but knowledge does not imply wisdom.

Mentoring is the intentional relationship with others that causes all parties involved to grow in their discipleship, the process of converting knowledge to wisdom. New Believers need mentors in their lives to help them learn Scripture and walk the narrow path demanded by Scripture. Maturing Believers need to be mentors in order to continue to grow in their own discipleship.

A church without discipleship is doomed. Pre-Believers and new Believers have no examples to follow and no mature Believers assisting them in their discipleship. Mature Believers do not have people to pour their lives into, and as a result, stop growing or fail to grow.

The Disciple-making/mentoring relationship is a win-win situation for all involved. Pre-Believers and new Believers have examples of maturity in their lives to invest in them and hold them accountable. Mature Believers have people in their lives that ask the hard questions and challenge the status quo, thus driving us to learn and perfect our lives.

The moment these relationship do not exist in our churches, we find ourselves in a lose-lose situation. Pre-Believers and new Believers have no examples to follow, no one to provide wise counsel, and no accountability. Mature Believers have no one to spur them on to new levels of knowledge and new levels of wisdom as knowledge turns to actions in thought and deed. Mature Believers have no observers to challenge them to better lives, or to hold them accountable by being present, making observations and asking questions.

All Believers should be in mentoring/disciple-making relationships. We should be mentoring others and we should be mentored by others at the same time. As we mature we discover that our mentoring relationships become peer relationships that allow us to learn from one another and spur one another to new heights of obedience and success.

In the mentoring/disciple-making relationship, no area of life is off limits, including relationships to God, family, community and church, call and work, and even to ourselves as we develop mentally, spiritual, emotionally and physically. We need to be intentionally engaged in a question/answer process that reveals our thoughts and actions. There should be enough personal contact to verify the life of a Disciple and the life of the Disciple-maker. Words are good, but seeing words put into action are foundational for the mentoring/Disciple-making process. If a Disciple-maker is never in the new Disciple’s home, or never sees the new Disciple outside of the knowledge acquisition environment, then there is no mentoring/disciple-making relationship. If the new Disciple is never in the Disciple-maker’s home, or never sees the Disciple-maker outside the knowledge acquisition environment, then there is no mentoring/disciple-making relationship. There is only a teacher/student relationship which facilitates knowledge flow, but does not facilitate disciple-making.

Mentoring and Disciple-making are one and the same. They require relationship and accountability on top of knowledge building. They cause knowledge to become wisdom; the doing of right because of what you know.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does. (James 1:22-25 NIV)

I am not writing this to shame you, but to warn you, as my dear children. Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. Therefore I urge you to imitate me. For this reason I am sending to you Timothy, my son whom I love, who is faithful in the Lord. He will remind you of my way of life in Christ Jesus, which agrees with what I teach everywhere in every church. (1 Corinthians 4:14-17 NIV)

For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. (1 Thessalonians 1:4-10 NIV)

Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:7-8 NIV)

Blessings!

David Watson

From San Jose, California

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Opinion – Contextualization, Personal Evangelism and Disciple Making

by davidwatson on April 10, 2010

One of the most polarizing issues in the missions world is contextualization. I addressed this issue in a previous post, Church Planting Essentials – Exploring Contextualization and Deculturalization. This is an extremely complex issue, but I think there are some basic elements that give rise to the problems faced by Believers in anti-Christian environments, and the solutions that have been adopted, including contextualization.

The root of this problem is the personal evangelism/conversion model of how people come to Christ and join the Church. In this model a person makes a profession of faith, often after little or no contact with the Gospel or with Christians, and is immediately considered a Christian and expected to behave like a Christian as defined by Global Christian Culture, which is predominately Western in appearance. This model requires a strong public confession of faith through oral confession, baptism, and church attendance that can cause severe reactions from family and community in many contexts.

To relieve the pressure on new Believers, the contextual model was developed. This model allows Believers in anti-Christian environments to be Christians without adopting the Global Christian Culture, and without behaving in a fashion that would reveal themselves to a hostile-to-Christianity home culture. Often, these Believers continue to live their lives as if they were still a part of their previous belief system, and then meet secretly with other Believers for Christian fellowship, discipleship and worship. In “ideal” situations, they can meet more or less openly because the form of worship meetings fit within the norm of their home culture, and therefore they do not cause suspicion. Regardless, this kind of contextualization requires people to live double lives, full of conflict, tension, and potential disaster.

The critics of contextualization charge that this is, in fact, denial of Christ. I find it interesting that many of these critics, if not most, no longer live in their home cultures, or were never a part of an anti-Christian society to begin with, or live in countries where Christianity has a historical presence that allows them to take refuge in a historical church setting. It’s easy to criticize when one’s life is not on the line, even when one’s decisions have led to alienation from family and friends.

As I said in the beginning, I think this whole situation is a result of a personal evangelism model of “getting people saved” or making converts to Western style Christianity, instead of making Disciples as was commanded and modeled by Jesus. Somewhere along the way, Christianity became obsessed with making sure a person would go to heaven, and it would be obvious to anyone that this was the case. This was particularly true for the children of Christians, and became a driving force in the modern revival and mission movements. This led to a formula system, that when followed by an individual, would assure that they would go to heaven. The formula requires a prayer of confession and acceptance of Christ as Savior, often called the Sinner’s Prayer, baptism into a local church, and discipleship classes to make sure new Believers know what other Christians know and act the way other Christians act. Because this system is about an instantaneous conversion process from being lost to not being lost or being saved, discipleship is post conversion, but new converts are expected to adopt Christian ways and culture immediately. This significantly raises the bar for becoming a Christian, from a cultural perspective; and this puts new Believers into direct conflict with family, friends, and birth culture.

This whole instant conversion process is substantially both more and less than what Jesus demanded of His Disciples. By more, I mean that Jesus did not demand that His disciples make a profession of faith when they first were selected to follow Him. That profession came much later, but they eventually and ultimately were asked, “Who do you say I am?” (See Matthew 16:13-20, Luke 9:18-27) But this did not happen before the disciple-making process began.

By less, I mean that Jesus demanded obedience from His Disciples, and a commitment that would lead to death, even death on a cross. (See Matthew 28:16-20; Luke 9; John 14) As they grew, more was required of them. The minimum standard is a commitment to Christ and an obedience that changes us continually as we grow in Christ and grow up in our cultures. Words of confession do not necessarily make one a Christian. It requires a changed mind and heart that results in a changed life demonstrated in a love for God and man that produces obedience to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit in every situation regardless of personal consequences.

Much of the contextualization argument goes away when we make Disciples instead of converts. In disciple-making it is understood that there is a process from not knowing Jesus to falling in love with Jesus to confessing Jesus as Lord and Savior to becoming an obedient Follower of Jesus who makes more disciples. We see this process with Jewish believers in the Bible. In the beginning Peter was focused on Jews within a Jewish context. Later, we see him in Rome in a non-Jewish context. The shift is even more dramatic with Paul who started out as a devout Jew who would kill for his belief system, but later describes himself as an Apostle to the Gentiles who vigorously argues against forcing gentiles to act like Jews in order to become Christians.

I know many priests in various religions who are Jesus believing and full of faith. Some stay in their religious context. Some decide to come out of their religious context. My stance is that this is a decision for the people to make on their own as they are obedient to the Word and listen to the Holy Spirit. We should not be telling people what to do or how to do it, but we should be exhorting them to know and obey the Word of God and listen to the Holy Spirit. My experience is that those who stay in their religious context do so as evangelists. They see it as their responsibility to remain in their situations in order to reach others for Christ. These religious leaders are much like the Jews who remained in the synagogue in order to reach Jews. Other Jews felt compelled to leave the synagogue when they become Christians. There was a lot of conflict over this issue in the first century. I think there still is conflict over this as some feel compelled to leave their religions, while others feel compelled to stay in their religions for the sake of evangelism. (See 1 Corinthians 7:17-24, 1 Corinthians 9:19-23)

When we present the Gospel without modern Christian-culture baggage; and when, as we are making disciples, we model and teach obedience out of love and respect for Christ; and when we recognize the work of the Holy Spirit and do not usurp that role; and when we have the relationship patience to let this process work – we will see people move from syncretistic worship forms and belief systems to locally flavored worship forms and biblical belief systems. But this will only happen if we make disciples who love the Lord and obey Him in all matters; and if we give these new disciples the equipping, modeling, and encouragement to be all that Christ and His Spirit have called them to be.

Becoming a Disciple is not easy! There is no formula that can make it happen. Discipleship is not found in words only, but in actions that demonstrate a transformed mind, heart and life filled with the Holy Spirit. When we make becoming a Disciple of Jesus Christ into a formula, we are guilty of syncretistic practices that are animistic in origin – say an incantation or use a charm to get the unseen spirits to do what we want them to do.

We cannot and do not control God. We must be conformed to Him. (See Romans 12:1-2) To think that any words or prayers or any forms of baptism or worship will force God or convince Him to let us into his presence is to question His sovereignty and His Word.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7:21-23 NIV)

“Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.” (Luke 6:46-49 NIV)

Blessings!

David Watson

Irving, Texas

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