A New/Old Strategy for Shifting the Church Towards Discipleship

Sketchy Thoughts During Vacation

Look what I found while on vacation!

This is the beginnings of a strategy to shift the church away from programs and towards discipleship. Oddly enough, I began jotting this down while on vacation in 2017!

(Note to reader: I’m a big-brained creative genius while on vacation. If given enough time I can all but guarantee that I’ll write the next great American novel, or solve a rubik’s cube, or something. I just need to find a way to test this theory.)

Anyway… This was two years into my role as senior pastor at Friendship UMC. That means two years since thinking, “Once I become a senior pastor I’m going to do things differently; no more church as usual where Sunday worship is the main focus, but we’re going to do whatever it takes to make and grow disciples.”

It wasn’t that there were no disciples in the churches I served, but we weren’t known for making and growing them. Indeed, most churches are known for others things that what we’re supposed to be known for; right?

The problems I identified at that time were fourfold:

1. Sunday worship was bearing the brunt of spiritual formation. How can a person grow into anything if they only give one hour a week to the pursuit? As Dallas Willard said, “A drop of water every 5 minutes will never equal a shower.”

2. Our system tracked membership by looking at worship service attendance and regular giving. This both encouraged engagement that didn’t transform while limiting true accountability.

3. Because the primary expected engagement was on Sunday mornings, it was hard to measure any growth in Christlikeness.

4. Rather than real growth and training to be a disciple happening in community, it was shifted to the individual. Check your churches. Those who are most like Christ are probably that way because of a personal commitment to pursue God, not because of the formation that happened in the church fellowship.

Next was to come up with solutions to these problems. Remember, this was a rough sketch!

Step One: Sell the Building!

This shouldn’t have been step one. I must’ve just finished reading about Hernán Cortés. When he arrived in a new land, in order to motivate his soldiers that there was no turning back, he burned his ships, leaving them with no option but to fight or die.

Since our building was the primary place of meeting and membership tracking, I figured we should get rid of it. Where would we worship? Keep reading.

Step Two: Create Small Churches

I totally skipped over the training of leaders part. Remember, I was more zealous than knowledgable… and it was just a sketch!

These small churches would become the place of membership. Gatherings would include prayer, confession, testimonies, giving and service opportunities, praise and worship, and other spiritual disciplines including sharing the Lord’s Supper. It would not include sermons, choirs, praise team leaders or any of that large group stuff.

Step Three: Quarterly Large Group Worship Services

Since we have no building we’d need to rent space. Maybe we could rent it from the Presbyterians.

These quarterly large group services would be celebrations of what God was doing in the small churches. Group leaders would share stories, there would be exhortation, praise and worship, feasting, and opportunities to begin and join different small churches.

This would also be the setting where baptisms occurred. Rather than people just signing up to be baptized, they’d indicate a desire to be baptized in their small church, and that community would be responsible for preparing them for baptism.

What Would the Pastor Do?

The pastor would function as a bishop or overseer. They would meet with small church leaders to discuss the growth, challenges, and opportunities taking place in their churches. They would pray for leaders regularly and plan for the quarterly celebrations.

Pastors would also respond to spiritual matters through modern treatises, epistles, etc.

This Isn’t New

Those who know a little bit about church history know that there is nothing novel about this model. It first belonged to the early church, and was updated by the likes of John Wesley. Since then there have been many other house church movements. Indeed, after I jotted this down in 2017, Francis Chan stepped down as the senior pastor of a large church to become involved in a house church movement. He wrote a book* about his experiences.

What Happened?

Perhaps you’re wondering if these plans came to light. The short and obvious answer is, No!

As I said earlier, I was long on zeal and short on knowledge. This kind of change would be cataclysmic and would have little to no support. And not because people aren’t interested in a discipleship focused model, but because it’s a lot of change!

I think something like this is best done from ground zero. That way you can begin small, and manage the growth as it happens.

But not all was lost. I ended up starting a few Wesleyan style Class Meetings at my church. I’m happy to say that at least one group continues to meet since I left.

I’m currently serving at another traditional styled church, and I’m trying to serve as faithfully as I can. I remain keenly aware of the limitations of the model we use. Our system is not optimized for the making and growing of disciples. But, God being our help, we’re working on it.

I like to think I’ve grown in the knowledge category, without losing any of the zeal. So I’ll hold on to this sketch from vacation in 2017. Maybe it’ll come in handy some day, and in some way.

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Letter to the Church by Francis Chan https://amzn.to/3CFYlIK

*NOTE: This post contains affiliate links to the books referenced. Should you choose to use these links, I may earn affiliate commissions at no additional cost to you. Thank you for reading; I appreciate your support!