Importance of Discipleship

We’re hosting another discipleship conference at our Church where we have around 32 people preparing to be one-to-one disciplers.1 This would explain some of our down-time from VG and other web-work.  The conference speakers asked me to write a little somethin’ somethin’ on the importance of discipleship and I thought I would share it here on VG even though we’re still mining the subject of Christian community. However, I have personally found that healthy and systematic discipleship is crucial to form authentic and profound Christian community in our generation.

A Challenging Paragraph on the Importance of Discipleship

The Great Commission drips with discipleship ( Matthew 28:18-20). Jesus was concerned with imparting knowledge of His Father to the people of His day. But He also knew that facts alone would not bring about Kingdom living or Darkness-rending righteousness. The Father’s children needed living examples; discipleship. As any parent recognizes, their children are their legacy. So it is with the Heavenly Father — His children are Heaven’s Legacy arising through the Earth. Who will be God’s ambassadors? Who will stand in the face of Islam and represent God’s existence to humanism and naturalism? Who will do mighty, spiritual works in the fields of secularism and send evil spiritual forces scattering? It will be The Father’s Kids. And the Father has directly welcomed all of us into this nurturing, caring, and training plan that He’s brought from Heaven to Earth. Discipleship must happen — for God’s sake!


  1. We utilize one of the best plans available today for one-to-one culture called Discipling Another to Love Jesus [back]
Tags: , , | | Published on September 30th, 2006 by Rob Krause | Print This Post ~ or ~ Email This Post| 2 Comments » | show comments »

True Christian Community is Patterned in the Sacrificial System - Part 1

~ by Pastor Rob Krause

Studying the rich topic of worship, I came across an incredible picture from the first five chapters of Leviticus (Entrances to Worship). Now, these passages on the surface don’t inspire enthusiasm among most believers. However, these chapters are the basis of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. And, when taken slowly and meticulously, treasures abound for life after 2000 AD. My purpose with this article is to show how Christian Community is a crowning highlight of worship if not the apex of God’s repeated longing to dwell among His people and be their God.

I’m building this article into three sections for easier reading. But, you should know that each of these sections build on each other to demonstrate the purpose I just mentioned. If you catch these principles, they will breathe life and joy into your small group meetings, discipleship meetings, and congregational meetings.

Let’s start with this Vision Value:

Due to all of our sin, none of us should ever get along with each other or ever fulfill any good motive for why we were created. It is Jesus who both makes the way possible and joins His people together to show His delight.1

Entrances to Worship and Community - The Burnt Offering

Take a moment with me and look at the sacrificial system in brief to establish the context.

Leviticus 1 — Provides the basis of access to God. God made the way for everybody regardless of class or wealth to come to Him through the Burnt Offering2; the substitutionary offering for sin. There’s a special term in Hebrew "rason" that is used in this chapter to signify God’s good pleasure and acceptance. Leviticus starts with Good News. God made the way to be accepted through the offering. As Ross comments, "…a person new in the faith was delighted to begin worshipping with this sacrifice as a publicLeviticus 17:11 in Hebrew acknowledgment of the gractious provision of the Lord."3 There is so much more treasure that springs from this passage and the fulfillment of Christ. For now, it’s easy to see the way of salvation in this offering. ( Romans 3:25; 1 Peter 1:19; 2:22; Ephesians 5:27)

Application

Therefore, let’s apply what we see to real life. If not for God Himself making a way of acceptance to Him, our relationships, meetings, families, and dare I say - organizations would have no significance or basis. We as believers always meet for Jesus, because of Jesus, and with Jesus. Jesus is the basis of salvation and therefore Church.

Too often, we forget this supreme motive. We meet for our agendas, because of our salaries, and with our employees. This doesn’t happen solely because of pragmatism, postmodernism, or worldly marketing strategies invading the Church. It simply takes place because we lose our focus of communion which is Jesus. Therefore, we turn toward those other philosophies and techniques to fill the gap or serve as our central point of reference.

This leads us to something critically deceptive. We often assume that we have Jesus as the focus in our churches when we’re really depending on our programs, our preaching, or our wealthier givers. Many men have set up their  churches where the impartation of knowledge reserved for a select few is the sum total of "ministry". This leaves too much of the clergy-laity distinction that was constructed and left behind for us by Romanism. James 1:22 also calls this deception — that people can come, sit, hear (believe), and that’s good enough.

In other words, the Church is more setup for True Classroom Community than it is True Christian Community.

Along with James, you must do your salvation if you really have it. I believe that all the saints in the Church need to be trained and co-commissioned to work-out their salvation; to display and demonstrate the life of Jesus to others. So, how do you do that? The first step is to think outside the box — the box of the auditorium — and to think where people live in their homes, families, workplaces, and communities. We can’t take a congregation into most job-sites — but you can send a brother or two into one who already work there.

You want the How -

JESUS –> in communion with YOU –> YOU in communion (not just classroom) with PARTNERS (one-to-one and small group) –> YOUR PARTNERS in communion with JESUS, YOU, and OTHERS at their workplace doing the same thing you demonstrated to them –> the GATES OF HELL collapsing.

A bit simplistic? Too naive for the modern world? Sounds like a guy wandering around in the desert with some other guys following?

Part 2 when the juices flow again…


  1. …and you thought it was your preaching bringing them in. [back]
  2. The Burnt Offering was the sacrifice most frequently offered, the first offering on the altar making it the basis for all other offerings, and had to be totally consumed. [back]
  3. Ross, Allen,  Holiness to the Lord, p. 95 [back]
Tags: , , , , , , | | Published on July 5th, 2006 by Rob Krause | Print This Post ~ or ~ Email This Post| 3 Comments » | show comments »

TCC is Crucial to Building a Legacy

~ by Brothers Mike Dredla & Rob Krause
TCC = True Christian Community
 

Last week, brother Mike sent me (Rob) an instructional document that he had prepared for his local church in Hawaii. The document contained spiritual and foundational principles for the local church, particularly the church’s education. What’s interesting to me and relevant to this topic is brother Mike’s insight into the role of teaching within the Biblically called-out community. Here are two principles Mike shares:

  1. There is an expectation within every local congregation for experienced, mature believers to teach the younger believers ( Titus 2:1-3)
  2. Those that are taught are expected to mature and become teachers for the next generation of leaders (2 Timothy 2:2 Hebrews 5:12)

For the word "teachers" I’m going to take a little Hebraic license and expand its meaning to "disciple-makers" for that is the goal of teaching in the Church — not just to impart brain stuff (knowledge) to students, but to raise the mind and character of disciples. Also notice the word expectation. That word covers everybody in the Church. You’re either expected to be a disciple or to make disciples depending on how your Christian character has matured.

 
Now, here are a few thought-provoking questions for you:
  1. Where in your Church does the modelling, maturing, & discipling of the Christian life take place?
  2. Who in your Church does the discipling? Is it a Leadership thing? Or, do qualified and quality members also have avenues of discipleship?
  3. How is discipleship conducted? Are we trying to raise kids in a classroom? Are we forming intellectual brats or serving & reproducing disciple-makers?
  4. What is your view of discipleship? Is the first thing you think of a program, notebook, or study guide material? Or, do you see it as a special, formative teaching relationship utilizing a number of tools both spontaneously and systematically?

The Trump Card (not Donald)

While classroom training is important, yes vital, to the believer cannot the same be said of the comprehensive, disciple-making process? Do we not see Jesus doing both? I believe the Church is falling short today because we’ve Greek-ed ourselves right out of Hebrew. The Hebrews followed their teachers and believed it was a chief honor to be covered in the dust of a rabbi. Classroom teaching alone forms sedate students. Discipling-teachers, however, form warriors.  In other words, there’s more than theory; there’s laboratory.

Teaching Beyond the Lecture

And, I believe the very best place for this nurtured-shepherding to take place is in the small group where one-to-one training can be implemented and guided. Again, I ask, Do we not see Jesus doing the same thing? Take the Sermon on the Mount… Jesus’ front-row students were the Twelve. Most likely, the crowds gathered to "listen-in" to the Disciples’ training. The Disciples served the Lord and the crowds. Later, Jesus dismisses the crowds to deeply train the Twelve, but He never dismisses (doesn’t preoccupy Himself with whether they follow Him or not) the Disciples.

Therefore, we have a model that shows us that True Christian Community is forward-looking. It’s concerned about God’s kids and where they’re going. It expects growth. Also, TCC is accomplished with an intimacy that includes both oral teaching and practical formation. And, the best disciples are formed out of a close-knit communion with the Lord and one-another. Those are the disciples that will reproduce. They will build a legacy.

Tags: , , , , , , , , | | Published on March 11th, 2006 by Rob Krause | Print This Post ~ or ~ Email This Post| No Comments »
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