Spiritual Formation – Discipleship

Fall 2009

An Introduction to The Old Testament Template Rediscovering God’s principles for discipling all nations by Land Cope

Pgs 14-19 ….. a British journalist who was saying that Christians believe that many of them living in a community will affect that community for good. The greater the Christian presence, the greater the benefit to the society at large.  I agreed with the commentator; that is what we teach.

He went on to propose that we look at the most Christianized city in America to see how this influence works out practically.  He defined “Christianized” as the community with the largest percentage of believers actually attending church regularly.  This a good conservative working definition of Christianized.

By that definition, then, Dallas, Texas was the most Christianized city in America at that time.  More people per capita were in church on any given Sunday than any other community in the country.  Churches abound in Dallas and a large number boast full pews. Our journalist proposed that we look at the social demographics of Dallas to see how this “Christian blessing” worked out practically within that community.

We looked at various statistics and studies, including crime, safety on the streets, police enforcement, and the justice and penal system.  We looked at health care, hospitals, emergency care, contagious diseases, infant mortality rate, and the distribution of care-givers.  We reviewed education, equality of schools, safety, test scores and graduation statistics.  Jobs, housing, and general economics were evaluated.  Can you get a job?  Can you get housing? Does potential income match available housing?  We looked at the homelessness and programs for those unable to care for themselves.  Is there equality regardless of color, creed, or income?  And so on. Each of these categories was evaluated using racial and economic factors.

The TV host looked at the statistics and information you would be concerned about if you were going to raise your children in a community.  Will my children be safe on the streets? Can they get a respectable, safe education?  Will I be able to house, clothe and feed my family?  Will my children have blatant exposure to drugs and other destructive influences?  Can my family be relatively safe from disease? Is adequate medical attention available if they get sick?  Can I get legal help and a fair hand from the judicial system?  Are the police equally interested in our protection, and is all this true regardless of my color, nationality, or creed?

The program was, perhaps, an hour long and I watched it alone.  By the time my English host was done with the Dallas study I was devastated.  No one would want to live in a city in that condition.  The crime, the decrepit social systems, the disease, the economic discrepancies, the racial injustice all disqualified this community from having an adequate quality of life. And this was the “most Christianized” city in America.  I wanted to weep.

The program was not finished. The host took this devastating picture of a broken community to the Christian leaders and asked for their observations. He chose leaders of status and integrity.  He chose the kind of Christian leaders other Christians would respect.  One by one, each pastor viewed the same facts that I had just seen about the condition of his city.  With simplicity, the narrator asked each minister, “As a Christian leader, what is your response to the condition of your community?”  Without exception, in various ways, they all said the same thing, “This is not my concern…I’m a spiritual leader.”

…I had no argument against the case this journalist had built.  As Christians, we do say our faith, lived out, will influence society toward good.  We go beyond this.  I have heard it said, and have taught, that it only takes twenty percent of a society believing anything to influence, even lead,  the other eighty percent in a given direction.  We teach that the gospel is good for a society, that its values will bless those beyond the members of faith.  But the facts about Dallas do not support this notion.  We must look at the facts!  Dallas has considerably more than twenty percent professing Christians.  Can we say that this city is the legacy of Christian influence?

…if the Gospel does influence all of society, how could America, with more Christians per capita, possibly, than any other time in its history, be slipping from biblical values in virtually every arena?  Slipping in crime, immorality, poverty, corruption, justice, disease, drugs, homelessness, literacy and more?

Pgs 18, 19 The “Dallas questions” still sat on my mental back shelf.  How could a Christian community be in such abominable shape?  How could the gospel result in such chaos?  As I visited primarily Christianized nations, Togo, Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda, my anguish increased.  Missions statistics that I had quoted with joy burned in my mind. “Africa, eighty percent Christian south of the Sahara by the end of the century.”  “Africa, the most evangelized continent in the world.”   “Africa, the most churched continent by the end of the century.”

In each nation, the story was the same: poverty, disease, violence, corruption, injustice and chaos met me at every turn.  I found myself asking: “Is this Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven?”  Is this what the blessing of the gospel brought into a community looks like?  Is this what a nation looks like when it is “reached”?  In this southern part of Africa we have nearly reached every “creature”.  Churches are planted and full. African evangelists abound and continue the work.  Is this what it looks like when our work as Christians is finished in a nation? God forbid!  My anguish increased.

… “Lord, what has gone wrong?”  Nearly two hundred years of concentrated missions effort on this continent – how could it result in this?  With a dawning revelation that would change my understanding of missions and my life calling, God spoke simply, fundamentally, and permanently.  “The devastation you see is the fruit of preaching salvation alone, without the rest of the biblical message.”

Pg 21 The beginning has become the goal: salvation! We want to “get people saved.”…The message that reformed Western cultures and built nations on solidly Christian values was not the gospel of salvation, but the gospel of the Kingdom –including salvation.

…They all believed true revival culminated in significant reformation of communities through a revived church’s influence on society at large.

Fall 2010

“All that is needed from us to change things—whether in the church or in the world—is sustained apprenticeship of individuals to Jesus, the Savior of the world so loved by God. Our directions “as we go” are clear: to be disciples—apprentices—of Jesus in Kingdom living and by our life and words as his apprentices to wit-ness, to bring others to know and long for the life that is in us through confidence in him. It’s all true. It works. It is accessible to anyone. And there is nothing in the world to compare.”–Dallas Williard–   Spiritual Formation/Discipleship must be our priority and be planned for with our partner churches! We must love the Church and be engaged in seeing her grow to maturity-”until Christ be formed in you”(Galatians 4:19)–a holy, pure, spotless and blameless bride (Eph 4:26,27). In The Great Omission Dallas Williard suggests a “golden triangle” of spiritual formation that includes training toward 1) faithful acceptance of everyday problems, 2) interaction with God’s Spirit in and around us, (as Paul points out, living in the Spirit allows us to “walk in” the Spirit (Galatians 5:25) using gifts and displaying the fruits of the Spirit), and 3) spiritual disciplines. Williard states, “I know of no current denomination or local congregation that has a concrete plan and practice for teaching people to do “all things whatsoever I have commanded you” So….“Who can show them the way if the people identified with the cause of Christ in this world (me-us-AIM) are not prepared to teach and exemplify a process of spiritual formation that will result in an outflow of Christ from their deepest heart and character, from their very identity, from who they are?

And from the viewpoint of those responsible to lead in Christ’s program of making students from all ethnic groupings, immersing them in the reality of the triune name and teaching them to do all things he has commanded us (Matthew 28:19-20), Christian spiritual formation is simply indispensable. The lack of understanding and implementation of it is why there is in general so little real difference between professing Christians and non-Christians today. Where can one find today any group of Christians with an actual plan to teach the people of their group to do everything Jesus said? Indeed, who is sure of the possibility of such a plan? It makes a huge difference whether spiritual formation in Christ-likeness is available to the church and to the world.

Now we must find ways that, in our current context, can succeed in honestly and thoroughly renovating the inner person so that it bears the identical vision, feelings, and character of Jesus Christ, “Go ye therefore…

Our Maestro never told us to convert the world or reform any religious organizations. He did tell us that, when filled with him, we would bear witness of him “to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Witnesses are those who cause others to know. They wit-ness. They are not manipulators—no need of that—though what they do is radically transformative.

Instead, the Master said to his disciples, “Make disciples.” We have no other God-appointed business but this, and we must allow all else to fall away if it will.

Booth-Tucker challenged C.T. Studd with this: “Remember that mere soul-saving is comparatively easy work, and is not nearly so important as that of manufacturing the saved ones into Saints, Soldiers, and Saviours.” To make them into Saints, Soldiers, and Saviours is to love the Church as Christ does! This is to make disciples of Jesus and is God-appointed business for ourselves and with our partner churches.