The Goals and Vision of Adult Discipleship in the Local Church

I''ve been considering what the goals and vision of an adult discipleship program should be. Here are some of my thoughts.

Ephesians 4:11-16:

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming, but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

Here the Apostle Paul speaks of the mutually edifying ministry that is to take place in the church. God gives various gifts to the members of the church body in order that we might contribute in different ways to the growth of the church. This includes growth in our reliance upon Christ, growth in Christlike character, and growth in spiritual understanding.

If I had to try to summarize this in a one-sentence purpose statement, I might say something like this: To cultivate a Christian community in which believers love one another, exercising their spiritual gifts in mutual edification so that the whole community might be built up in Christlike faith, character, and understanding.

Implementing Change in Pastoral Ministry

Sometimes change comes easily. Church leadership may observe something that needs to be changed and those involved may embrace the change whole-heartedly. But implementing change can often be challenging. I think pastors need to have mature expectations about change. Sometimes this means recognizing that changes will not take place overnight. A long-range approach to change may, at times, be necessary.

Some of this depends upon the amount of ownership felt by lay leaders towards the item that is targeted for change. I think that ownership is generally a good thing, but it can make change difficult. I have personally found it helpful to talk to ministry leaders to get a sense of the level of ownership they have toward an item targeted for change.

If there is a strong sense of ownership regarding a particular aspect of the ministry, then it is generally a good idea to develop some leadership training designed to instruct leaders about the issue at hand. For example, imagine your children's ministry was using a curriculum that was not gospel-centered. Instead, they were using a law-centered curriculum (“law” refers specifically to how God calls us to live whereas “gospel” refers to the message of redemption in Christ that enables us to obey God’s law and experience the subsequent blessings that come with obedience). Law without gospel is simply legalism (gospel without law, incidentally, is antinomianism, the idea that there is no need to follow God’s laws because we have already been forgiven). So you have a legalistic curriculum that presents children with moral direction, but fails to teach them how they can only come to obey moral guidelines through the life-transforming power of the gospel. As a result, your children fail to live morally (because they are sinners like the rest of us) and begin to have a sense of guilt to which they have no answer. They then feel frustrated, they come to think that Christianity is all about obeying a list of rules, they begin to dislike Sunday school, and they are inclined to look to other things to make them happy (idols). So, you conclude, you need a gospel-centered curriculum!

Now, let’s say the teacher of this class really likes the current curriculum because it “takes sin seriously.” The curriculum comes down hard on sin and strongly presents God’s hatred of sin. Moreover, let’s say this teacher has been able to choose his or her own curriculum for the last five years. Based on conversations you’ve had with the teacher, you discern that if you change this curriculum it will likely be very ill-received.

So perhaps you would want to develop some leadership training to help all of the teachers come to a deeper understanding of the relevancy of the gospel in their ministries. In the meantime you could supplement the current curriculum with some strong gospel teaching. Then, as you were able to come alongside the teacher and help him or her develop a deep conviction about the centrality of the gospel, you could eventually change the curriculum with the teacher’s support (of course, sometimes it won’t be quite this simple, but you get the idea).