Dec 05, 2011
Making Disciples or “Getting people to come to church”
Posted by Pastor Todd Murphy in | Comments (0)
I am often approached quizzically by Christians about a non-Christian friend whom they really care about and want to see them discover the hope of Jesus. The question I am probably most often asked is this: “how do I get my friend to come to church?” This is a good question and it is much better than typical confrontational sales pitch that most today have been taught under the banner of “personal evangelism.” To go ahead throw some controversy into this post, I really do not think there is a theology of “personal evangelism” in the NT because genuine discipleship only happens in the context of community. This brings us right back to the question, “how do I get my friend to come to church?” Here is my simple answer: If you are asking that question, it is because you are mostly thinking about it the wrong way.
Now don’t beat yourself up. If you are asking it that way it is because that is what you have been taught. Maybe you even discovered your faith journey by someone else inviting you to “visit” their church. We all can only expect to practice the religion we have been taught. And unless we learn otherwise, we will usually continue in that pattern until there is enough challenge for us to abandon it. That is what I want to do here, challenge us a bit, my thinking included.
First if you are asking the question “how do I get my friend to come to Church” it demonstrates our own faulty thinking about the church. This is to think of Church as an “event” rather than a community that transcends time and location. There is no doubt that gathering on the Lord’s Day (Sunday) to celebrate the proclamation of the word and the sacraments was watershed to the earliest church. It was so important not because Sunday itself was so important, but because it was the day of the Resurrection and that is when the body of Christ gathered for public worship.
Second, trying to get the “unchurched” to “church” is to miss the point. Jesus did not tell us to go into all the world and make “church-goers.” He said go make disciples. Gathering for worship, discipleship and instruction on Sunday or any day for that matter is not the thing in and of itself, but the means to an end. Does that sound pragmatic? Maybe from a certain standpoint, but I used “means” on purpose. The word and the sacraments are the “means of grace” by which God builds the church and equips them for the work of the ministry. This only happens in community. However when our goal is to just get people to church, especially people who have little to no interest in those things, what we are basically doing is asking them to be more outwardly religious. There are always people out there who want “just a little religion” because it is the one thing that seems to be missing in a long list of false pillars that prop up their ideal life. “Going to Church” is an instant form of potential self-justification for all of us. Our goal should never be confused. The great commission was not to make more “church-goers” but disciples. What are disciples? They are people who understand the Gospel and follow it as posture of life through an ongoing death to self (repentance). When we get people “to come to church” it easily becomes what they think the goal is, to be “churchy” and religious. However when we invite people into our lives, engage them in conversations around the Gospel, begin to share our lives with them and disciple them outside of a Sunday Morning service, something else happens. They begin to naturally see what it means to be a disciple with all of life oriented toward God. When you ask people to “go to church” you get “church goers;” When you make disciples, you get a community called the Church who gather to worship because that is what real disciples do.
My point is that just trying to get our nominally religiously interested friends to come to church often sets them up for spiritual failure through false expectations. They end up thinking that what Jesus wants is for them to “come to church” when in fact the call of discipleship is so much more. Also inviting people to come to church who hate the church or are just totally disinterested in spiritual matters will never reach these people. They need to be shown the Gospel through life contact.
Third, we are confusing a cultural divide. There is a large amount of discussion today about making the Gospel relevant. In so doing, there is a constant attempt to make the Gospel more “intelligible” (and maybe a sad attempt to try and make it sound “intelligent”). I am on board with communicating the Gospel effectively. But here is the problem, most of the time that translates into creative ways to do church different so that is is more attractive. In so doing, the black and white call to discipleship gets blurred. We talk about culture as if neutral and as if the Gospel itself is also culturally neutral. I do not think anything could be further from the truth. I think our call is to create a Gospel-discipleship culture that is absolutely challenging to the world culture. This is to say that biblical discipleship it inherently “counter-cultural.” It challenges the world, its systems, and it values. Yes of course it challenges the Stalins and Hitlers, but it also challenges white suburban American soccer mom too. I think the attempt of the church to mimic a spiritually lazy and decadent culture in order to get them to come back to church is an act of infidelity. We are trying by one extreme way or another to get people into church while the early Church did the exact opposite. They did not try to change their language to be more understandable; they did not dumb down their gatherings to be more understandable; they did preach “how to” sermon series’ to make people “connect.” Quite the contrary, they were so counter cultural that they seldom even allowed the non-Christian to even see the gathering around the Lord’s Supper. And yet in spite of all their counter cultural behavior they grew by about 40% per decade. So while the “missional mavens” are telling us how to be more “relevant” and the Church is shrinking, the early Church overcame imperial Rome within less than three centuries.
So what is my main point? Bring community to the “unchurched” not the other way around. Community around the Gospel is how the Gospel spreads. But that is by going to them, spending time with them etc. Enter into quality ongoing servant relationships to them. I also do not mean do it by yourself. As I said above, making disciples is not an individual task. It is a community task where many people with different gifts all bring them to bare on each other and the new people that you are in contact with. Open your home, go into theirs, and do things as groups. This is how we enter into conversation and conversation is where gospelizing takes place. In the beginning God spoke. In these last days he has also spoken to us by his Son whom he has appointed heir of all things. And so he calls us to speak too. But for that to happen, you must develop relationship through conversation fist. True mission is in the image of the incarnation.
For many of us, we are often wondering about how to bring up the subject of Jesus with our friends. Trust me, when several people of the local Church community become relationally bonded with a non-Christian, you faith suddenly becomes the elephant in the room. They can’t not bring it up. In fact the more demure you are about it, they more they want to know about it. I think making disciples is 95% caring enough to have a person in your life and the rest almost happens like magic. So here are a few pointers.
1. Genuinely make relationships with people, not because they need Jesus. That goes for all of us. Do it because they are made in the image of God and because you care.
2. Don’t do it alone. People don’t generally change their belief system until there is a significant group of people in their life that share the new view that makes it reputable to them. Discipleship always happens in community
3. Pray for wisdom and discernment. Sometimes we spend time trying to convince people who are pursuing a lifestyle they are not ready to give up. You will need God’s guidance.
4. If you have a friend who is genuinely asking spiritual questions and wants to come to church, great. But don’t expect them to totally understand it. In fact if it is a half-way biblical church, it should be challenging for them. This is why the early Church practiced catechesis to prepare the new disciple for assimilation into the Gospel-discipleship culture.
5. Don’t complicate it. You do not have to have all the answers; you don’t have to be an apologist, or have read a bunch of books. Serve your non-Christian friends the way Jesus would without expecting anything in return, including a profession of faith.
In summary. Our call is not to get people to “come to church” be that a place or an event. Our call is to go make disciples. And therefore when the cross bearing life of the disciple is honestly presented and fully disclosed, we should not be surprised that most people say “no thanks.” Making disciples is about asking people to abandon everything they hold dear to them for the rewards of the kingdom. That takes time and quality relationship. So in closing I will let the Apostle Paul summarize the life of a disciple in a very seldom quoted text of his: (Rom 2:6-8) “He [God] will reward each one according to his works: 7 eternal life to those who by perseverance in good works seek glory and honor and immortality, 8 but wrath and anger to those who live in selfish ambition and do not obey the truth but follow unrighteousness.” Nuff said.
Posted by Pastor Todd Murphy in | Comments (0)
Before you post that comment, give it a ponder.
