Tag: Discipleship

4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism – Part 3

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Evangelism, Practical1 Comment

Stumbling Block

In my last post, I explored our idea of Christian growth and how to free up our schedule to meet non-Christians.

Today we continue exploring what keeps us from modeling Paul’s activity in Athens — reach out, build relationships with folks, and then engage them with the gospel where they are on a daily basis.

4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism and How to Remove Them

(3) Our Idea of the Evangelistic Process 

At one extreme we may believe evangelism only happens during the Sunday Service. Those who believe that often think: If I can just get my non-believing friends to church, they will hear the gospel.

Thinking that way, however, severely hinders everyday evangelism because it leads us to believe that evangelism can only happen once a week by someone we believe to be a professional. As well as it is not true.

Jesus commissioned all of us to make disciples, not just the Pastor.

Or at another extreme we might believe evangelism only happens when we lead someone through a full on gospel presentation — something like The Romans Road or Two Ways to Live. None of which are bad. I actually think they can be helpful.

While helpful, these presentations can be hindrance if we believe they are the only way to share the gospel, or feel we have not shared the gospel unless we have walked someone through the entire presentation.

When we start thinking like that, we get into what I like to refer to as “checklist evangelism” — talking to someone about the gospel becomes more about us getting through the checklist than actually having a conversation.

When we are focused on our checklist rather than the person, our conversation becomes insensitive and awkward. Talking about the gospel, however, shouldn’t be insensitive, it shouldn’t be awkward.

It should be just as natural for us to talk about the gospel or what Jesus is doing in our life as it is for us to talk about the weather or our favorite sports team.

So instead of working off a checklist, we have to find ways to include Jesus in our conversation. If you are wondering how to naturally include Jesus in your conversation, let me recommend a good book for you. It is entitled Questioning Evangelism by Michael Newman

Question for Reflection

  1. What hindrances do you see regarding the evangelistic process you have used or even been taught in the past?

Resources

Post adapted from the sermon: Spread the Gospel – Growth Through Discipleship – Week 5

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4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism – Part 2

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Evangelism, Practical6 Comments

Stumbling Block

In my last post, I explored ways we can build relationships with non-believers and then engage them with the gospel.

Today we continue exploring what keeps us from modeling Paul’s activity in Athens — reach out, build relationships with folks, and then engage them with the gospel where they are on a daily basis.

4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism and How to Remove Them

(2) Our Idea of Christian Growth 

It’s a common idea in the church community to equate growing in our knowledge of the Bible with Christian growth. Growing as a Christian, however, doesn’t just mean growing in biblical knowledge. It is that, but also much more. It involves us growing in our love for God and others. As well as it involves us growing in our ability and desire to serve others and spread the gospel.

Since we often equate Christian growth with growth in biblical knowledge, we fill our schedules with church events, Bible studies, and meetings with other Christians.

While those things are good and necessary, they can hinder everyday evangelism. You see, if we are always meeting with Christians, we aren’t going to have the relational capacity to meet non-believers, nor are we going to have the time.

Don’t Load Your Schedule with Church Activities 

So one way to make some time is not to load our schedules with church activities. I, and the other teachers and leaders at my church, put a lot of effort into the things we do every week. As much as I want all these things to be well attended, I would rather a member say no to some of them so they will have time to hang out with a non-believer and build the gospel into their lives.

So if our schedule is so full of church activities that we don’t have time to meet any non-believers, or minister to them, then we need to pull back a little bit.

Being a disciple isn’t just about attending church, being a disciple is instead about making disciples.

Making disciples is what God has called us to do. If we have the opportunity to make disciples, then we need to take the opportunity given and skip the church activity.

Now, I have to be careful here because I don’t want to give you the impression I am advocating anyone quit attending church altogether, nor for you to start skipping church events so you can sit home in your recliner. We need to be involved in our churches. We need each other. We need Christian community. We need to learn God’s Word, so we shouldn’t completely blow church off. However, we shouldn’t let church activities consume our life so much so that we don’t have time to engage non-believers, build relationships, and speak the truth of the gospel into their lives.

Question for Reflection

  1. Do you agree that too much church can hinder us from making disciples?
  2. How do you find the balance between church activities and making disciples?

Resources

Post adapted from the sermon: Spread the Gospel – Growth Through Discipleship – Week 5

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4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism – Part 1

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Evangelism, Practical9 Comments

Stumbling Block

In my last post, I talked about the need for us to model Paul’s method of evangelism in Athens — reach out, build relationships with folks, and then engage them with the gospel where they are on a daily basis.

But often we don’t do what Paul models for us. We don’t engage people where they are on a daily basis. Why? Why don’t we do that? Well, let me offer you:

4 Stumbling Blocks to Everyday Evangelism and How to Remove Them

(1) We Don’t Have Relationships with Non-Believers 

As Christians it is easy to focus our entire lives around the church. So much so that everyone we know either goes to our church or another church in town. When you only have relationships with Christians, however, it is hard to engage the lost on a consistent basis because you don’t know anyone who is lost. Everyone you know already believes in Jesus as their Savior.

So one stumbling block to everyday evangelism is not knowing enough lost people, which means we need to build some relationships. I would encourage you to start building relationships with non-believers because I believe:

Relationships are the key to being able to spread the gospel consistently.

You are more likely to talk with a friend about Jesus than a complete stranger. Think about it, how many of you are actually going to approach a random stranger on the street or go knock on a door. Unless someone makes you do it, most of you are probably not going to. So if we are going to do everyday evangelism, we need to look for people to build relationships with.

Plus, I believe relationship evangelism is more effective. Research tells us that 43% of people come to Christ through a friend or co-worker. I believe it. At the last Conference I attended, the host took a poll as to how people came to Christ. The largest part of the 7 or 8 thousand in attendance said they came to Christ because someone they knew told them about Jesus.

Now I am not saying street evangelism or evangelistic events aren’t effective. People get saved through those avenues everyday. The most effective way, however, seems to be through relational evangelism. So we need to focus on building relationships with folks.

You Have the Time to Build Relationships with Non-believers

You may not think you have the opportunities to do that given your schedule or life stage. But you do. You have the opportunity in the things you already are involved in each and every week. Think about about.

(1) Extracurricular Activities

Most of you have kids or grandkids who are involved in sports or some other extracurricular activity. These activities are an excellent opportunity for you to build relationship with other parents or grandparents. You already have something in common — your child plays on the same team or participates in the same activity — so the hard part is already over. Now, you just have to work on getting to know the other parents a little better.

(2) Work

Another place you have an opportunity to meet non-believers and build relationships with them is at work. This is one thing I miss about working in the secular world — the ease with which I could build relationships with my co-workers who weren’t believers and then speak into their lives.

One way I got to know my co-workers well was by going to lunch with them. Now I didn’t do that everyday. Eating out is expensive, but I did go out with them every now and again. I would encourage you to do the same.

If lunch doesn’t work for you, invite a person in the office over for dinner, to watch the game, go golfing, hunting, or whatever else it is that you do.

(3) Neighbors and Re-Connect with Old Friends

Still another way to meet and build relationships with non-believers is your neighborhood, or for you to reconnect with your non-Christian friends from school.

Cookouts are a great way to meet your neighbors or reconnect with your old high school buddies. Invite them over one Saturday afternoon and just hang out, get to know them, or find out what they have been up to, in the case of those you haven’t seen in a while.

(4) Shift the Setting You Do Things In

Often times as Christians, we like to do things in Christian settings. We play sports in a Christian league, drink coffee at a Christian coffee shop, look for books in a Christian book store, or hold Bible studies at the church instead of out in the community.

However, if you isolate yourself and live in a Christian bubble, you aren’t going to meet any non-Christians. Instead of isolating yourself, find a way to do the things you normally do out among non-believers.

For me this means spending some of my day working from the coffee shop. I could spend my day in the comfort of my study, but I don’t. Instead I spend most of my afternoons at Starbucks.

Through the years I have had the opportunity to talk to a number of people, to build relationships with them, and to speak the gospel into their lives. I am not even aggressive at getting to know others. I just go, do my work and every so often God places someone in my path that I don’t know, we become friends, and we end up talking about Jesus every now and again.

Another example is our church’s Friday Morning Men’s Bible Study. We have that at IHOP every Friday at 6:30am. The reason we do that is so we can have breakfast and coffee together, but also so we can be a witness for Jesus in our community.

So there are a number of ways to build relationships with folks, we just have to do it.

Question for Reflection

  1. How do you build relationships with non-believers?

Resources

Post adapted from the sermon: Spread the Gospel – Growth Through Discipleship – Week 5

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What Might a Church’s Discipleship Process Look Like?

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Pastoral, PracticalLeave a comment

Discipleship

Recently, I finished a year long discipleship process with the Baptist Association in my area. The purpose of the process was for each pastor involved to develop a discipleship process they would implement in their church. Here is the process I developed.

What Might a Church’s Discipleship Process Look Like?

If you visit my church’s website, on the top right you will see the tagline: Taking you from Come and Worship, to Go and Serve in Christ. That tagline reveals the church’s discipleship process.

(1) Come and Worship

What that simple means is come to the main worship service. We’ve designed our main worship service to be all about Jesus. We see it as a time where you can grow in your love for God as you learn more about who He is and what He has done for you.

(2) Stay and Connect

Not only do we want our members and regular attenders to consistently come to the main worship service, but we also want them to stay and connect with others in our church. We primarily see them doing that through our Sunday School classes, but also through Community Groups and Bible Studies.

In these classes they will not only learn more about Jesus, but they also have an opportunity to build relationships with others. The opportunity to build relationships is important because if they are going to grow in their love for others, they need to have relationships. Relationships that allows them to know how best to love and serve each other.

(3) Go

What I mean by this is for the church to go and spread the gospel message to others in the community.

Part of being a disciple is sharing the gospel, so our church needs to help it’s members do that. Not through a church evangelization program, but rather by training and encouraging them to live as missionaries in their own community.

I am convinced that by training and encouraging them to do what missionaries do — build relationships with others with the intention of sharing the gospel — they will be an effective evangelical force in the community.

(4) Serve

Disciples are those who follow Jesus in serving the church and community, so as part of a discipleship process we need to not only encourage the church to serve but to provide opportunity for them to serve.

We have a lot of opportunities within the church to serve — Nursery, Children’s church, Work days, Women’s Missions Ministry, Media booth — as well as there are a lot of service opportunities outside of the church. To highlight these opportunities, I created a page on our website so folks can see what areas we and the community need help in.

I believe that if we take the opportunities given to us to serve the church and community, we are going to continue to grow as a disciple.

(5) Bring others along

Disciples are those who make disciples. The best way for you to do that is by bringing someone along on the journey with you. To that end, I am encouraging those in my congregation to bring people to the worship service, Sunday School, Communities Groups, to bring others along when they serve or share their faith, and to sit down with another person and discuss God’s Word with them and pray.

Disciples are those who make disciples and one of the best ways to do that is just by bringing others along on the journey with you.

Visual

Here is a visual that goes along with my process:

Discipleship Process

Question for Reflection

  1. What process do you have for making disciples at your church?

Resources

Post adapted from my sermon: Introduction – A Discipleship Process for the Church – Week 1

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What Might We Believe Discipleship is, But Isn’t? – Part 2

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Pastoral, PracticalLeave a comment

Discipleship

If you have been in church for any length of time or if you are a new believer, you have probably heard the word discipleship. Most likely you have been encouraged to participate in some sort of  Discipleship process. That is because discipleship is important. It is what helps us to grow as believers. But do we get discipleship wrong? I believe we often do. I believe this because we limit the scope of what we believe discipleship is.

What might we believe discipleship is, but isn’t?

(3) We might believe discipleship is an easy thing that doesn’t take any effort.

But if we believe that, we are wrong. While salvation is free, discipleship takes work. Jesus puts it bluntly in Luke 9:23:

“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” (Lk 9:23)

And Paul in Philippians 2:12 tells us to:

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12b)

So we can’t grow to be more like Christ without putting forth effort.

When I was in seminary, I had to take two language classes — Greek and Hebrew. The first language class I took was turbo Greek. They call it turbo Greek because they squish two semesters worth of Greek into two months. I took these two classes over the summer and they were the only classes I took.

One thing I realized quickly was that if I was going to learn this language, I had to put in the effort and that required me to do more than just show up for class. So that summer I spent hours flipping through vocabulary cards, doing practice exercises, and memorizing charts. Any chance I got I worked on Greek. I even downloaded an app to my phone so I could work on it while Jen and I were out shopping or I had a spare moment. While it was a lot of work, it paid off. I ended up doing pretty well in the class.

Just as learning a foreign language doesn’t happen just by showing up to class, becoming a fully mature disciple of Jesus doesn’t happen just by showing up to church once a week. It takes effort and time, it’s not an easy thing, so our discipleship process has to involve more than just showing up to church once a week.

(4) We might believe discipleship can be programmed.

Before I surrendered to full-time ministry, I worked in sales. My first sales job was at CBeyond. It’s a telecommunications company that sells Voice Over IP systems. I worked for them in Atlanta.

One of the things that initially drew me to this company was their training program. It was one of the better programs in the industry for new sales associates. And since this was my first sales job, I thought it would be good to go to a company that had a good training program.

When I started for the first 2 to 3 weeks all I did was classroom training. Everyday I came in we would learn something new about the company. We would practice some sales tactics, we would do mock cold calls. All kinds of stuff that was supposed to get us ready to go out into the field.

While the training was good and necessary, when I finished that training I wasn’t a mature sales associate because I hadn’t had real world experience. I knew about the company, I knew some sales tactics, I went through their training program, but I hadn’t put any of this stuff into practice yet.

Similarly, we can’t become fully mature disciple of Jesus just by going through a 6 week class, reading a book, or attending a Bible study once a week. It doesn’t work that way because discipleship can’t be programmed. It requires us to get some real world experience.

Real world experience is required because discipleship involves your whole life and it takes a lifetime.

I was reading a magazine recently put out by The Navigators — They are a missions organization. In that magazine, I came across a story about the community of Bukhalu, which is in Uganda.

The community in Bukhalu had been formed by former criminals who were run out of town, which meant Bukhalu was not your ideal place to live. It was primarily made up of witches, murderers, and other criminal types. But the mission’s team highlighted in the magazine felt God calling them to go work with this community.

After working with them for two years — explaining the gospel to them and urging them to repent and believe in Jesus — these folks started seeing some remarkable transformations in the community.

One guy in particular who came to faith was Stephen. Stephen is a local government leader, who when asked about the Bible and the transformation it brought to the community said,

“The Bible has told us about our sin and how we can receive Christ… We’ve learned that drunkenness wastes time and money and if we stop we find better lives. We’re also learning how to love our wives.”

That last piece was very important to this community. Stephen told them that domestic disputes were common. As a government official he would have to step in and help settle these disputes often. Something he used to have to do several times a week before this team brought the gospel to their city. Now, he said, he only had to help settle disputes maybe once or twice a month.

On top of these moral changes the community also saw numerous day-to-day lifestyle changes. Instead of leaving their compound dirty and getting water from the river, they started cleaning up and getting fresh water from a bore hole which helped to improve the health of their children.

All these things happened because of the gospel.

Conclusion

So you can see that being a disciple is more than just gaining information. It is more than just a six week study or a program we go through. It’s more than just you and Jesus getting alone somewhere. Discipleship involves others, it involves our whole life. It changes our whole way of thinking and how we do things. And these changes don’t just occur in a couple of weeks. They occur over a lifetime of effort.

Question for Reflection

  1. What would you add to this list?

Resource

Post adapted from the sermon: A Discipleship Process for the Church

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What Might We Believe Discipleship is, But Isn’t? – Part 1

On By Dr. Casey LewisIn Discipleship, Pastoral, Practical6 Comments

Discipleship

If you have been in church for any length of time or if you are a new believer, you have probably heard the word discipleship. Most likely you have been encouraged to participate in some sort of  Discipleship process. That is because discipleship is important. It is what helps us to grow as believers. But do we get discipleship wrong? I believe we often do. I believe this because we limit the scope of what we believe discipleship is.

What might we believe discipleship is, but isn’t?

(1) We might believe discipleship is just gaining religious knowledge.

Because we believe this, discipleship becomes “Read this. Study this. Memorize this.” Don’t get me wrong, we need to read — I am a big advocate of reading. We need to study. We need to memorize Scripture. We need to grow in our knowledge of God’s Word. But discipleship involves more than these things.

Discipleship involves Christ-like transformation. Our goal, as Paul says in Romans 8:29 is:

”to be conformed to the image of His Son,” (Rom. 8:29).

That is not going to happen just by gaining religious knowledge, so we need a process that involves more than just classroom activities. We need something that focuses on our whole life so that our whole man is transformed.

(2) We might believe discipleship is a solitary endeavor.

It is just Jesus and me getting together. While discipleship is all about Jesus, it’s not a solitary endeavor. Discipleship is relational. It requires us spending time with other believers, so we can’t just get alone with Jesus somewhere and expect to become a fully mature disciple.

We need others to help us grow, which is exactly what Paul is getting at in Ephesians 4:11-13 when he tells us that Jesus:

“…gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,…

And why did he give them?

…to equip the saints for the work of ministry,

So the saints can do what?

…for building up the body of Christ,…

What is the result of this building up?

…[it is 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,” (Eph 4:11–13)

So we need each other to become fully mature disciples of Jesus.

When I was in high school and college, I used to work out all the time. I went to the gym four times a week and I would work out for a couple of hours each time I went. And to help with my workouts, I read books and magazines. I took supplements. I charted my workouts — writing down how much weight I was lifting and how many reps I was able to do.

While all those things helped, I don’t think I would have seen any of the gains I saw had it not been for my workout partners. Had it not been for Mike and Randall, encouraging me to go to the gym and pushing me while I was there, I don’t believe I would have seen any of the gains I realized during that time.

Just like we need workout partners to help us grow physically, we need workout partners in the church to help us grow spiritually.

So if we want to grow as disciples and become mature believers, we have to have a community of believers around us challenging, encouraging, teaching, and building us up. We can’t just get alone with Jesus somewhere, we have to have others in our lives.

Question for Reflection

  1. What would you add to this list?

Resource

Post adapted from the sermon: A Discipleship Process for the Church

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