Obedience

Equipping the Saints: What We Must Expect…and When

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Standing on the word...and knowing itWhen I follow trends in church programming, read other Christian blogs, engage Christian leaders, or read what Christians are saying in social media venues, I come to one inescapable conclusion: We Christians have little or no understanding of what constitutes a Christian worldview. Doctrine eludes us. Discipleship is something we do when we have time for it—and between shopping, working, and vacations, none of us supposedly has time. Far, far too many of us don’t know the foundational truths of the Faith we supposedly confess.

We don’t know what the Gospel is. We don’t know what the Bible says about important issues of life. We don’t know why Christ came, or how to know Him, or why He’s the only Way. We don’t know our eschatology or why it even matters. We don’t even know why our service matters. We simply don’t know what we’re talking about.

I’m an avid birder (birdwatcher being the antiquated term) with more than 30 years experience in that field. I can ID 85 percent of North American Birds on sight, but when it comes to my region of the country, that number approaches 100 percent. Any birder can be fooled, yes, but I know my region’s avians.

If I meet a guy who introduces himself as a fellow Ohio birder with similar multi-decade experience, a certain expectation exists. If this guy tells me he was just down at the lake the other day and saw an albatross, I’m going to think, Mr. Experienced Birder’s skills are about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. If he adds that he saw a Carolina Parakeet, too, then I know his credibility is bupkis. It doesn’t matter what he may say his credentials are, he’s doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

In truth, I can pretty much tell you how long people have been birding just by watching their ID methodology, their ability to talk out difficult IDs, and their willingness to admit they may not have gotten a good enough look at that last bird for a positive ID.

What’s scary to me is that it’s far harder to tell how long people gave been Christians by watching their behavior or asking them simple questions about the faith. It should be obvious, but it’s not. There should never be a reason—ever—for us to encounter a “seasoned” Christian and come away thinking that disciple is about as sharp as a sack of wet mice. And yet we have those people in abundance in our pews on Sunday.

What does that say about the way we American Christians disciple converts to maturity?

Honestly, what should be expected of a convert to Christianity at one, three, five, ten, and twenty years after that conversion?

I don’t know why Christian leaders are not asking this eternal-life-and-death question. It may be THE most important question to ask!

How would I answer that question? Well, below I give  a “tip of the iceberg” list of five essentials per milestone year.

At one year, every convert to Christ should:

Have read through the entire New Testament once

Have completed a very basic theology class taught by pastoral staff that teaches core doctrines of Christianity

Know why Jesus is the sole source of salvation and be able to articulate that belief with supporting Scriptures

Be in a Bible study led by a mature Christian who knows the Scriptures and can communicate them effectively

Be participating in a church-sponsored service, teaching,  or outreach program

At three years, every convert to Christ should:

Have read through the entire Bible at least once

Have completed an intermediate theology class taught by pastoral staff that covers a wider range of important doctrines, including any denominational distinctives

Be able to articulate what the Gospel is, with supporting Scriptures

Be participating in a church-sponsored class that gives an overview of the Bible and covers the major themes in each of the 66 books

Be serving as an understudy to a leader in a church-sponsored service, teaching,  or outreach program

At five years, every convert to Christ should:

Be able to provide an overview of the major themes of each book of the Bible and exhibit a Christian worldview that understands the arc of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration

Have completed an advanced theology class that emphasizes apologetics and the finer nuances of Christian doctrine, including those that may be different from the church’s denominational distinctives

Understand the core teachings of at least one non-Christian religion or cult and how to rebut them

Be participating in a church-sponsored leadership class

Be serving as a co-leader in a church-sponsored service, teaching, or outreach program

At ten years, every convert to Christ should:

Be capable of teaching/leading one of the previously mentioned theology/Bible classes or a small group

Be commissioned as a church representative, capable of representing the church in ecumenical and interchurch events

Have helped to lead at least a half dozen people to Christ

Be discipling new converts

Be leading a church-sponsored service, teaching, or outreach program and be encouraged to start new ones to fill gaps in the church’s programs

At twenty years, every convert to Christ should:

Hold a church office or leadership position

Be able to identify spiritual gifts in others and mentor those people in those gifts

Be mentoring younger leaders

Be actively designing service, teaching, or outreach programs for the church

Be capable of planting a new church or serving on the mission field

I look at that list and wonder how any part of it can be deemed unreasonable. And if it’s not unreasonable, why are our churches not doing it?

It took me fifteen minutes to conceive the list above. One person, fifteen minutes.

If we want to know why the Church in America is making no inroads into reaching lost and broken people, we don’t have to go any further than the list above. If we want to know why our people are dull, listless, and incapable of articulating the Faith, look again at the list and see how our church educational programs compare.

What’s truly distressing is that anyone with a hobby he enjoys knows the path to becoming an expert in that hobby. She knows what is required to be the best she can be at her hobby. And he and she  pursue that excellence too.

Knowing Jesus and serving Him is far, far above being a hobby. Yet we treat it like one. In fact, because so few people are experts at it, we may be treating Christianity as less than a hobby. A dabbling perhaps. Something we do between syndicated episodes of Scrubs or when it doesn’t interfere with shopping or a round on the links.

No reason exists why we can’t institute attainable educational standards for converts that assist them to maturity. None.

We have no excuses.

The One Who Left the Gate Ajar

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I’m a bit late to the commentary on iMonk’s post “Another One Gets Off the Evangelical Bus: Thoughts on A De-Conversion,” which is a response to a post by the blogger known as theBEattitude, “Losing my religion. Why I recently walked away from Christianity.” But I have to comment because this issue of people walking away from the faith is something we Christians must address—even more as the days grow darker.

In reading iMonk’s commentary and theBEattitude’s post and its follow-up comments, the one thing that strikes me more than any other is the travesty that is the loss of even one sheep from the fold.

Jesus says this:

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray. So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
—Matthew 18:12-14

I believe one of the most hollow vows American Evangelicals take occurs during infant baptisms and dedications. In nearly every church I have been a part of, the congregation pledges to join the parents in the spiritual development of the child. God takes such vows seriously, yet I would guess that fewer than ten adults in any given church will have any meaningful spiritual impact on that child’s life, even through adulthood. (And I believe that number to be generous.) When you consider the size of some churches, that’s an abysmal number.

The fact is, the average person in the pew has very little spiritual impact on the lives of fellow believers. The compartmentalized island that we call My Life™ here in America doesn’t make a whole lot of room for other people, and one of the areas we make the least amount of time for is discipling the less mature in the faith.

When I read the pile-on that functions as comments to theBEattitude’s post, it’s a stunning indictment of the spiritual wasteland that passes for modern Evangelicalism. I read through at least a hundred comments and most consisted of individuals stating (a) it sure is freeing to cast off the chains of religion, or (b) now you’re going to burn in hell, and it’s your own damned fault.

Apart from atheists rejoicing in their folly (Psalm 14:1), what got me more than anything was that the Christians who responded placed all the responsibility on theBEattitude for wandering out of the fold. To that I ask one hard question, “Oh, yeah?Well, which one of us left the sheep pen gate ajar?”

In a Christian culture that has de-evolved into the same “every man for himself” mentality that afflicts the worldly, placing the entirety of the blame on theBEattitude for apostasizing should come as no surprise. gate_sheep.jpgWhile it is true that each of us must give an account before God, it is just as true that too many of us who claim to be Christians don’t give a hoot about our culpability when the  gate goes unlocked.

When I read theBEattitude’s tale of apostasizing after 33 years of being in the faith and the junior-high-school-level questions posted that form the backbone of his wandering through the open gate, I have to wonder, What mature Christians invested in theBEattitude’s discipleship? How blind were they to his building on sand?

Yet on reading the comments to his post, I did not see any that said, “We fellow Christians failed you.” Instead, we want to blame theBEattitude for his failure. Rather than wonder how his end might have been different if all those adults at his baptism had actually followed through on their pledge to raise him up firm in the faith, we want to blame him exclusively for wandering out the open gate when there never should have been an open gate to begin with.

How easy it is to point the finger of blame at the person who was wronged.

And theBEattitude was wronged. I wronged him and so did you. We didn’t keep up our end of the discipleship bargain. No, we hoped that someone else would. And all that hope led to nothing but apostasy.

In every church around this country, there are people like theBEattitude. He is representative of an enormous problem facing the Church in America, a massive failure that increases each year with little effort on our part to lay aside our own little kingdoms and do something to stop the flight from the unsecured sheep pen.

It is a failure of individuals to take time for others in genuine community.

It is a failure to see the necessity of solid, biblical teaching.

It is a failure to build a comprehensive Christian worldview in impressionable people.

It is a failure to address the issues of the day from an intellectually rigorous viewp0int.

It is a failure to understand the eternal life-and-death nature of raising up the next generation of believers.

It is a failure to take seriously the vows we make concerning our young people.

It is a failure to read the times and prepare for the future.

It is a failure to understand what is most important in life.

It is a failure on our parts to humbly accept part of the blame when those in our care wander away from the faith.

It is a failure to love our brothers and sisters and, most of all, to love Jesus.

What tears me up every day is that this most precious charge doesn’t have to end in failure. That it does is mostly a reflection of our smothering love for our own lives. The first casualty is people like theBEattitude. We are the second casualty (Mark 8:35).

Jesus says:

Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more. “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled!
—Luke 12:48b-49

We have been entrusted with so much here in America. Yet how is it that we care so little for that trust that we so easily blame the weak for their own destruction!

The following is a well-known verse most often used in a completely different context, but it applies most fully here:

Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?
—Proverbs 24:11-12

Instead, how easy it is to blame those who are wandering off to destruction and absolve ourselves of any responsibility for them. The sheep have left the pen. Oh well, guess they’ll get eaten by the wolves. That’ll teach ’em!

But our God neither sleeps nor slumbers, and He knows who left the gate ajar.

The Path Less Chosen

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In light of the ongoing discussion from Monday’s post (“Killed All the Day Long“), I would like to talk about the path less chosen.

The idea of facing violence with something other than violence sounds crazy. “An eye for an eye” is so ingrained in us that “turn the other cheek” verges on madness. We are told we must always be vigilant so that others do not take away from us those things we believe own, even though the Scriptures say that all is God’s, we are not our own,  and to the one who asks for our shirt must go our cloak also. When asked to go one mile, why go two? Deny ourselves and take up a cross? How could any of that cloak-giving, cheek-turning, self-denying, and second-mile-going possibly profit us?

The older I get in the Lord, the more I understand that we humans are too often people who live at the poles of thought and practice. We think in terms of black and white, especially in the West (oddly enough, given the advanced education we Westerners have received). Attempting to see colors beyond those two is left for misty-eyed dreamers and ivory-towered philosophers. So rarely are we able to lay down our own pride and prejudices to step into the lives and minds of others, especially those whom we see as foes.

The problem of living in such a state is that we miss the path less chosen. The narrow path, by definition, is the one not often found. And it remains obscure because we do not have the mind of Christ, the mind that sees all things as they really are. For some of us, even when we do know the right way, our own willfulness and pride keep us from taking that narrow path.

A few weeks ago, I posted “A Dozen Sayings of Jesus That Will Change the World—If Christians Would Ever Believe Them.” Many of those sayings go unheeded because they ask us to move out of our extremes into a third way, which is Christ’s way. They put us on a narrow path that few take because the majority fails to understand how that path will lead anywhere useful. Such is the nature of our weak minds and hearts that we miss God’s way so readily.

For the rest of the week, I would like to open the conversation by asking a question of readers:

In what situations has Christ led you on a narrow path that was incomprehensible to others, even fellow believers, yet that choice led to major blessings?