CDM Archive

Discipleship Ministries of the PCA

Dennis

A Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs

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Like many of you, the sound of books dealing with the period after the first century leaves me wanting, but here is a book that is quite helpful in researching the beliefs of the early church.

Have you ever wondered what those of the first two centuries believed on different issues? This work allows you to look up doctrines and topics. For example, my daughter-in-law is Seventh Day Adventist. She kept telling me that the church never worshiped on Sunday until after Constantine. Well, I looked up Sabbath and Lord’s Day and found all kinds of brief quotes, such as one by Ignatius from about AD 105. In fact, there were 14 paragraphs by different church fathers before Constantine’s time showing clearly that the church was worshipping on Sunday. This is one of those works that won’t just sit on your shelf. It is worth having and worth referring to often.

Interconnected Discipleship

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Dennis.jpgIn the last Equip Tip, we emphasized the need of the church’s educational ministries to remember and return to the basics. Now, we address what those basics are. The goal of all our ministries is to make kingdom disciples. But what does that mean? A full-grown kingdom disciple would have two main characteristics. He would look, act, and think like Jesus and would be actively helping others become kingdom disciples.

Our theme in this edition of Equip to Disciple, as was the last, is the church. There is no kingdom disciple outside the church, because the church is the heart of God’s kingdom. In a similar manner we say there is no salvation outside the church because the two are inseparable. No individual has ever been saved to be unconnected to a church. Understand that the Bible never says Christ died for individuals. He obviously did. He did give himself to be a ransom for us, but not that we should remain individuals. The phrases used in the Bible say that Jesus died for His people, His body, His church, but never for individuals apart from the corporate body. Today more than ever, we need to instill in our students of all ages their need to be connected to something bigger than themselves, even beyond their immediate families. The church is God’s covenant family where we are members of one another, according to the apostle Paul.

When we teach the doctrine of the Trinity we teach the interconnectedness, the interdependent, and the reality of a close personal relationship. No member of the Trinity exists apart from the others. Being made in God’s image, we have those same relational characteristics. God said that it is not good for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18). He made us to be part of a community – interdependent and joined to each other for mutual love and support. Some of my friends involved in ministries often boast of their being independent. However, while they have good ministries, they are very lonely and isolated with no one to share ideas and accountability. I have been able to involve some of them in our denominational ministry training. While they might argue for independency, they welcome being connected to something bigger than themselves.

Greg Ogden, in his book Discipleship Essentials, says that Christians readily identify themselves as “Christians,” but are quite reluctant to call themselves “disciples.” An interesting observation because they see being a Christian as living a simple life with no demands placed on them. Whereas, being a disciple requires work!

What does all this mean for our educational ministries? Our goal is to make kingdom disciples. This means helping our people develop in three areas: their knowledge of the Bible and our doctrines, an ever deepening love for our Lord, and their abilities to do the work of the ministry. This “transformational” discipleship approach, as described in the book Making Kingdom Disciples, requires all three areas to be constantly addressed. The Holy Spirit’s job is to make us like Jesus. Our role is to help each disciple know and understand what that means and how it can be developed within them.

It is only as a denomination with a church and kingdom focus that we can effectively develop kingdom disciples who can and will think beyond an independent mindset. We need each other. We also need those resources that a denomination working collectively can provide that fit with our theological system. This includes a proper love for and involvement in the church’s discipleship ministry.

Let’s Not Lose the Basics

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The great football coach, Weeb Eubank, had a tradition at the beginning of every season. He would take all the new and seasoned players, sit them down, and then begin his lecture. He would take a football, stick it in their faces, and say to them, “Gentlemen, this is a football! Get to know it all over again.” He would go on to explain that unless they remembered the basics of the game of football, they could not win.

The same is true of the church. Unless we keep going back to the basics of who we are and what we believe, we will not continue to grow in the truth, for the truth starts with the basics.

When I was teaching in South Africa, I would tell the students the same thing every year. No matter what aspect of Christian work you go into, when you start in your new position always start by going back to the basics. If the people a l ready know them and can explain them, you are not wasting your time because we all need to keep going over them. If the people don’t know the basics, then you can only succeed, because to not teach the basics to your people means that you will have no foundation on which to build.

We are part of a denomination with many great traditions, but it is not our traditions which make up our foundation – it is the Bible! Our people have either grown up in our churches, or they have come from other churches and traditions where the basics may or may not have been emphasized. We are witnessing, even in the PCA, a weakening of our understanding of the Bible’s doctrine of the church. Because of this, some of our churches are accepting the teachings and practices of the Emergent Church Movement without even realizing what they are doing. We must never allow our churches to lose our understanding of the Bible or our traditions. In the day that happens, we will be like all the other churches who have stepped onto that slippery slope, moving further and further away from the truth, unaware of what is happening.

Here is my suggestion for pastors as well as teachers. Presume nothing! Find out exactly where your people are in their belief system. If they can articulate the basics, then you can move on. I emphasize articulate because if you simply ask people if they believe the Bible is the Word of God or that Jesus was born of a virgin, most of them will say yes. But if you ask them to explain and prove from the Bible these truths, you might be shocked by how little they really know. Read the lead article and ask your people if they understand the issue Charles is bringing out. Did you know that 60% of those that are won to the cults are won out of born again, Bible teaching churches? How can this be? This statistic occurs because we have wrongly presumed that our people truly know the basics.

THE BASICS: Teach them again for the very first time!

Time: The Gift that Can’t be Re-gifted!

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MEMORIZE THIS STATEMENT: God has not given us more things to do in a day than He has given us the time to get it done.

I served as Academic Dean at a Bible college in South Africa. I told the students at the beginning of each year if they felt a teacher was giving them more to do than was expected they could come to me to complain. The only provision was that I would ask them to show me proof for how they spent their time during the week. In nine years I heard much grumbling, but not one student ever came to me with their accusation. This either meant that no teacher was giving too much work (which I don’t believe), or the struggling students were not using their time well. Which do you think was the case?

Time is the most precious commodity God has given to us, and it is not renewable! Once it is gone you can never make up for lost time. No one has more, or less, time than you do. You have 1440 minutes per day and 168 hours each week in which to offer faithful service. Even Jesus had the same amount of hours in His day, but think about the ways He invested that time. Peter said to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3:18). Growth takes place over time. Your personal growth, or lack of it, is dependent upon the best use of your time. Time will not wait for you; it will simply pass you by.

We will be held accountable for the way we use our time. Paul says, Make the best possible use of your time (Col. 4:5, Phillips’ paraphrase), and, Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil (Eph.5:15). Jesus tells us, We need to be energetically at work for the One who sent me here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over (John 9:4, The Message). God promised to supply our every need: Is time not one?

Sermons are often preached on the stewardship of wealth and possessions. Far fewer sermons are heard that hold us accountable for the use of our talents. Fewer still, if any, are ever heard concerning the stewardship of our time.

Where do you begin?


Set Goals -Decide what you want to accomplish. Or better, what God wants you to accomplish.

Prioritize – Take your list of goals and order them according to importance.

Plan – Develop strategies for how you will reach each goal.

Schedule -Set a date by which you will check your progress. Also set a date by which you hope to fulfill each goal.

Set a goal to set your goals – The most effective leaders set aside time at least weekly to lay out what they want to accomplish that week. One thing they have in common is the confirmed belief that the more time they spend planning, the less time they have to spend implementing. They argue that it is 90% inspiration and 10% perspiration. It may sound strange, but once you try it you too will become a believer.

Tithe – We often hear about tithing our money, but have you ever realized that we should also tithe our time? There are 168 hours each week. Do you give God at least 10% of your time?

If we agree that all good things are from God, and that He never asks us to do more than He has given the time to get it done, then time management is really managing His time!

God’s sixth commandment could read, “Thou shalt not kill time.”

What is the Role of the Leadership in Christian Education?

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To answer this question we need to go back and define what parts of the church involve Christian Education. The answer: everything the church does is Christian Education! Unless we clearly understand this principle true discipleship will not happen. With this understanding we can begin to comprehend what Paul meant when he said the job of the pastor (and note he really says pastor/teacher) is NOT to do the work of the ministry, but to EQUIP the members of his church to do it. This is discipleship – getting all the church operating according to the gifts given to them by the Holy Spirit.

To equip the church means that we are taking deliberate steps to train the people to do all, and more, than we were taught in seminary. One man cannot train everyone. Jesus trained only 12 (in reality three). But think about this – if a pastor trains three elders to do certain aspects of ministry, then he has multiplied what he would have done on his own. Each teaching and ruling elder has certain gifts to be used for the benefit of the church, therefore, if each elder was tasked with training three others with those same gifts we begin to see the multiplication of disciples take place as Jesus intended.

Training more teachers: One of the really sad facts about seminary training is that we get a great deal of training in how to preach, but little, if any, in how to teach. Yet how much more time do we spend teaching than preaching? Therefore, if the leadership does not have anyone who is gifted and trained to teach others to teach, then the church needs to bring in help, such as CE&P’s Regional Trainers.

Jesus did not say to go and preach the Gospel, he said to make disciples, of which preaching is only a part. The process of making disciples takes a lot more than simply listening to a sermon – it takes training, and that training means coming along side those saints we are equipping for works of ministry.


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What I have said here is nothing new or earth-shaking, but it is often forgotten by the pastor who is so busy doing the work of the ministry that he forgets that this is not his job! And if the church thinks it is, then they have not been taught properly. If this is the case for you, then start by re-prioritizing your time and job description so that there is time for true equipping. Start by selecting those who may be already doing works of ministry and help them equip others to do the same. This isn’t brain surgery; it is the difference between having one minister and 200 congregants over against having a church with 201 ministers! It’s your choice – do it the way you are, or do it God’s way. Which do you think he will bless?

One last point: If we are going to set our goal to train disciples, we must first ask what a “fully discipled” person looks like. For this, I am indebted to Perimeter Church for their well-thought description:

“A mature and equipped follower of Christ is one who:

How Should We Understand “Curriculum”? Part 2

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dennis.jpgOne of the hardest things I had to do as academic dean in a seminary in South Africa was to educate the faculty to understand the different between a “content driven curriculum” and a “process oriented curriculum.”

One member of faculty argued with me that unless he covered all 16 chapters of the Book of Romans he had not taught the course. He was content driven. The students, however, complained that after completing the course they were still not prepared to do anything with it – like teach it to others, unless they covered it the same way they were taught.

My approach is different. My goal is this – even if I only cover only 8 of the 16 chapters of Romans, if, in the process, I teach the students/congregation how to continue to learn the book, how to live out what they discovered, and how to communicate the book to others, then I accomplished a much greater goal. I am process driven. My goal is for my students to learn how to learn, know how to put it into practice in their own lives, and to learn how to communicate what they learned. It is also for them to approach the study with their first goal to see Jesus in every verse of Scripture, and prayerfully seek to be changed into His image. Only then can they seek to present to others what they have learned and how it changed them.

The content of what we teach and preach must never be minimized. But if we leave it at the content level (head knowledge) it will never accomplish the Holy Spirit’s goal – for every believer to be like Jesus. Every lesson and every sermon must ask these three questions: As a result of this lesson/sermon I want my to hearers to know what? To be what? And to do what? Unless you can answer these, you have no goal for your lesson or sermon. If you have no goal, then what are you trying to accomplish?

If you need help with this, CEP’s Regional Trainers are available to come to your church. Contact us at:1-800-283-1357.