By Greg Yee, Superintendent, PacNWC
This Tuesday ten pastors and I are engaging Francis Chan’s latest book Letters to the Church during our Clergy Conversations time. I read it in January and felt convicted by the prophetic word it is to the American/Western church. Conference staff read it and struggled through Chan’s challenges which led to creating this space for our pastors to discuss the book. Though Chan differs at certain points of theology with Covenanters, his passion pierces. It’s not a perfect book, but it was difficult to put down. “God intends to change the world through the local church.” I ask myself, do I really believe that? Do you? If we do, is it clear what the church is to be? Chan states, “It is imperative that we differentiate between what we want and what God commands.”
Jesus lays it out, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Jesus is not lacking clarity here, but I think we’ve set up a type of discipleship that does not call people to full surrender or sacrifice. We’ve allowed the discipleship bar to be low, easy, and comfortable. To make things worse, we don’t have clear pathways of evangelism, discipleship, and leadership development in our churches. This is the family business, isn’t it? This should be our expertise. If there’s anything any of us should be great at, it’s making disciples who can make disciples.
When we start to be about something different than what our family business is about, we begin to go through mission drift and become something that we call church, but isn’t the church. Mike Breen writes in Building a Discipling Culture, “If you make disciples, you always get the Church. But if you make a church you rarely get disciples.” What are we investing our time, attention, and resources toward? We get into a rut of being busy doing a lot of Christian stuff, but not actually making disciples. That’s like being Best Buy but all we sell is overhead projectors. How’s the family business where you are?
We seem to overfeed minds and neglect emotions and passion. We over-study and under-serve and under-respond. Or we push in areas of justice and mercy, but we seldomly call people to holiness and a deeper life in Christ. Either way, Jesus’ words stand clear. If we want to follow Jesus, we must give up our own way, be ready for sacrifice and suffering, and follow him. In an instant-gratification culture and a world that frames truth as indefinite and personal, this is a difficult way. God wants our money. He wants our time. He wants our sexuality. God wants our pursuits. He is a jealous God, and wants all of us – heart, soul, mind and strength.
A.W. Tozer concludes, ”Only a disciple can make a disciple.” PacNWC Family, go and make disciples, as you follow Jesus yourself!