Let's Flip It—Making Disciples

Putting the Horse in Front of the Cart

Shouldn’t we be honest about results? Granted, when we try something new it may take some time before we know what our results really are, but when the dust settles and the results do come in and they are not what we were hoping for, no matter how much we might like our methods, we ought to change. 

Imagine looking at your results and, embarrassingly, finding that you had accidentally put the cart in front of the horse. Okay! Yes, it’s going to be hard to live that one down, but at least it’s an easy fix, right!?

And doesn’t it seem reasonable and wise to make that fix?

Why, then, do we keep doing church the way we’ve always been doing church? It seems that either of two things must be true when it comes to church. Either we are happy with our results and therefore keep our methods, which would make sense, or we are not happy with our results but are keeping our methods anyway, which must mean we’ve married our methods (hopefully not till death do us part).

So, I ask: Do you love our predominant church methods, or do you love our results? If you love the latter I suspect you haven’t seen the alarming data that trends inexorably toward the church going the way of the dinosaurs.

See here.

Perhaps you don’t have a very evangelical outlook and believe that church services are an end in themselves rather than a part of the means to an end. If so, it is understandable why one would not bother seeking to alter methods. This is a way in which one would be married to a method, for the method itself is the end goal.

Let me talk about this for a moment since I’ve come to suspect that it is indeed subconsciously held by many leaders that conducting church services is an end in itself. If it isn’t the case then I’m even more perplexed by our reluctance to try other ways of doing church, or at least by our insistence on leading with church in its predominant form. (As I’ve written elsewhere, it isn’t church (SMC) itself that is at issue, it’s that we’ve made it the main thing and have nothing left for a “horse” to do. It’s my contention that we have a poor horse standing behind a cart wondering what he’s supposed to do, and people in the cart wondering why nothing is happening.)

As I rack my brain to think of scripture that hints at holding a church meeting being an end in itself, Hebrews 10:25 quickly comes to mind.

Hebrews 10:25 (NET)
“not abandoning our own meetings, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and even more so because you see the day drawing near.”

I don’t think we can hang much on this verse, but it is probably one of the strongest verses emphasizing that we “ought to be in church.” And if it is one of the strongest verses, it seems hard to imagine that having church was itself intended to be some lofty goal we were to aim for as an end in itself. The verse does point out that it is important to be a part of a local church, but says nothing of it being an end goal. In fact, it seems to hint at a goal that being part of a church is supposed to help one attain, namely to be encouraged, knowing that Jesus is coming sooner than ever. This verse is “pointing outside itself,” saying that church is an important means to some other end.

Before I continue I should note that the lines between The Church (the body of Christ) and church (a local meeting of believers) can get pretty blurred. Overall, please keep in mind I am attempting to address church meetings, but to understand them we also need to look at the meaning and purpose of The Church (the body of Christ).

So as I skim through other verses about The Church and local church and meeting together, they seem to all paint the same picture: Church is important because . . . and then we are told about some broader and more foundational, or perhaps higher, purpose. Ephesians is a go-to.

Ephesians 3:10 (NET)
“The purpose of this enlightenment is that through the church the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms.”

It’s tempting to quote much more of Ephesians 3, but it eventually gets to this:

Ephesians 3:19 (NET)
“and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”

That leaves out a lot of awesome things that The Church is supposed to accomplish and parts of its purpose, but ultimately culminates in individuals being “filled up to all the fullness of God.”

Continuing in Ephesians, we find:

Ephesians 4:10–13 (NET)
“He, the very one who descended, is also the one who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things. It was he who gave some as apostles, some as prophets, some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, that is, to build up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God—a mature person, attaining to the measure of Christ’s full stature.”

It’s very tempting to copy and paste much more, but this will suffice to show us that The Church has a purpose, a function—it isn’t an end in itself. It is important because of what it does, what it accomplishes—and what it accomplishes is to make us like Christ.

At this point I suspect some will want to say, “Aha! So we are right to put our church services at the fore.”

But that assumes our current way of doing church is the way of doing church and is succeeding at its task. And that’s the very thing we are trying to ascertain.

Being like Christ

Forgive me for being so boringly obvious, but it seems like the issue can be boiled down then to this: If the purpose of The Church, and by extension our church meetings, is to become like Christ, then Christ’s mission, if He has one, would inescapably be our mission too. So, simply, does Christ have a mission? An objective? A goal? A purpose?

Of course He does! And He articulated it. Actually, He articulated how The Church was to work towards the goal. That is, and I’m sure you will not be surprised by me saying this, the Great Commission—to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all He has commanded.

It seems then that, in order to evaluate our current paradigm of church, we are forced to look at two things: 1) How Christ-like our members are; 2) How central genuine disciple making is.

Though I list these two criterion in their order of importance, for being like Christ is the highest goal possible, they are not in a logical order. The point is, we will never reach the ultimate goal of being Christ-like if we don’t do the thing that Jesus did—and unequivocally said to do, first—make disciples. The one will precede the other or they will both be left unaccomplished.

In this case, the “horse” is clearly making disciples, while having church meetings is the “cart.” I suggest to you that if our church meetings are operating correctly they will be an extension of and part of the disciple making process, which is to say they will be properly following the horse. Would you want to argue the position that Jesus’ method of discipling was an inferior method to our current church meeting paradigm? That He didn’t understand how to form Himself in His disciples? He both did discipleship and commanded discipleship. It is the way of effectively being The Church. I don’t know any other way we can see it.

It might be helpful to think of my arguments here as not being against church, but rather for making disciples. I am saying it is our duty to put disciple making first and, well, if there doesn’t happen to be much left over for elaborate church meetings we’ll just have to make due, just as we budget our money to take care of more important things first and if there isn’t much left over for ice cream, we just have to make due. It’s a question of priority. What is of first importance?

Please understand, if we can look at our current methods and identify effective disciple making taking place and resulting maturity into Christ-likeness, fine! Let’s not change a thing! But we know this isn’t happening. And we’ve known it for a long time. As I’ve said many times, I don’t hate SMC (Sunday morning church). I actually like it when considered by itself. But I contend that SMC is one of those good things that is an enemy of the best things. And it has been this way for a long time. We’ve become used to it. We are good at doing it. And we’re comfortable doing it. So we keep doing it, hoping we find some key to make it click.

I know a whole lot of pastors will not even consider changing how they do SMC. I’m not upset about it. I wouldn’t even say that I want to encourage churches to change their style of service. I think it would probably be better if they did, but realistically it’s not going to happen. What I do want to see happen, however, is for pastors to be brutally honest about the shortcomings of a church style that isn’t flowing from discipleship, and in most instances churches aren’t even trying that hard, if at all (though I know of some that are trying), to promote discipleship, let alone make it central.

That, at least, needs to change. By all means, keep your SMC running as it always has, or make only relatively minor tweaks, but putting disciple making at the center of your whole church culture seems to be scripturally non-negotiable. It must be done! To read Matthew 28:18-20 and not do so is utterly indefensible.

I’m sorry for such strong language. I know it can turn some people off. But, as I asked at the beginning, aren’t we going to be honest? I think some may already be feeling and seeing what I’m seeing and the strong language isn’t so off-putting. But for some, those who are against my againstness of the reigning church paradigm, I hope the strong words can penetrate. I’m not an enemy of leaders of SMC churches. I hope we can work together for the Kingdom that is beyond the four walls of all of our churches, no matter if they are SMC or not.

I hope that together we can ready the horses and help each other make sure they are properly harnessed and pulling the carts as the Kingdom advances for the glory of the King.