J.R. Briggs
Attempting to behold the miracle long enough without falling asleep
the process of discipleship
I’ve been thinking a great deal about discipleship. We often think about discipleship as an event and yet we see in the Gospels Jesus having a purposeful process of discipleship. I found an old journal that outlined this process (I can’t remember where I got these notes from).
Look at this progression of discipleship.
1. People were willing to hang out with Jesus (social)
- Jn 1:35-42: the first calling of the disciples
- Jn 2: hanging out with Jesus at the wedding at Cana
- Jn 3:24: John is in prison “before”
2. People were willing to give up something for Jesus (regional)
- Mk 1:14: after John was put in prison
- Mk 1:15-20: second calling
- Mk 1:29-39
3. People were willing to give up everything because of Jesus (comprehensive)
- Lk 4:42-44:
- Lk 5:1-11: third calling – repentance, fulfilling the calling from Mark.
A willingness to hang out.
A willingness to give up something.
A willingness to give up everything.
It’s worth asking:
-Where are you at?
-Where are the people you are discipling?
-What do you think about this process of discipleship? Is it too simple?
-Why do you think we gravitate to an understanding of discipleship being event-based?
Tell an alternative story
“Neither revolution nor reformation can ultimately change a society, rather you must tell a new powerful tale, one so persuasive that it sweeps away the old myths and becomes the preferred story, one so inclusive that it gathers all the bits of our past and our present into a coherent whole, one that even shines some light into the future so that we can take the next step… If you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.”
-Ivan Illich, Austrian philosopher
the 3 types of questions we ask
Recently I finished reading Terry Fadem’s book The Art of Asking: Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers. It’s a business management book, but as a pastor and a life coach, I am always looking to learn to become better at asking questions – no matter what the source may be. (One of the most helpful books I read a few years ago was the autobiography of Larry King). Sometimes it is better to question the answers than it is to answer the questions. The best question-askers have been – and will be – the best teachers.
Fadem, with his extensive experience as a business manager, gives a thorough look into the art of asking good questions, why they are important, the attributes of a person who asks good questions and the significance of timing in asking a good question. The topic made me want to learn more on the subject. I’m convinced that learning to ask great questions at the right time is an incredible way to build trust and deepen relationships with others. Fadem explores the 24 different types of questions – and explains the importance of each type and gives numerous examples of each:
- direct questions
- indirect questions
- open questions
- closed questions
- stupid questions
- filtering questions
- double-direct questions
- hypothetical questions
- provocative questions
- rhetorical questions
- reflective questions
- leading questions
- the pause as question
- silent questions
- one-word questions
- divergent questions
- convergent questions
- redirecting questions
- negative questions
- either/or questions
- loaded questions
- trick questions
- dual-answer closed questions
- general reference questions (to keep handy)
In the gospels, Jesus asked lots of questions. 180 questions to be exact.
Surprisingly, he only answered three of them. Just three.
Jesus was the master question-asker. Which prompts the question: if we seek to follow Jesus, shouldn’t we grow and learn how to be the best question-askers on the planet, like him?
Of all the 24 types of questions listed above, I see three primary categories of questions: information/clarification, suspicion and hope.
Information/clarification: where you want to learn and know (for various reasons and motives) what is happening.
Suspicion: questions rooted in distrust, questioning the credibility of something or someone. (Our postmodern culture is rooted in this hermeneutic of suspicion and these types of questions are everywhere).
Hope: these questions, built on trust, are hope-filled questions rooted in anticipation for the future. I recently came across this quote: “trust empowers by the questions it removes.” When trust is present, negative questions are removed so hopeful questions can be asked. Questions like “What if?” and “Imagine if we…?” When a culture is created where these questions are asked often, there is a great amount of permission and potential for creativity.
Think about the past week:
- What was the best question you were asked? The best question you asked?
- Was it a question rooted in information/clarification, suspicion or hope?
- What types of questions did you ask the most – information/clarification, suspicion or trust? Why?
- What might be the best question you could ask in the next 48 hours? Who could you ask?
church as becoming centers
A few years ago I was driving to attend a training session hosted by an organization that serves people with developmental disabilities. On my way back I drove past a place in Ambler, PA that had a large sign that said The Becoming Center at Artman. Its a health and wellness center that uses classes, aquatics and rehab for physical health.
The name – The Becoming Center – is so hope-filled, so saturated with potential and life change. It’s internal – and yet its an expectation for action. Present and future-oriented.
As I drove past, it sent my mind racing: what a perfect name for what the Church should be!
Imagine if every church – and every church plant – saw themselves as becoming centers. What if they were centers to help people become everything them were created to be? Jesus said that he came to bring life – and life to the fullest extent and measure possible (John 10). Isn’t the church’s role to be a center where people grow into understanding, embracing and experiencing this immeasurably magnificent life that is extended to us? It also makes me wonder: how can our churches become becoming centers?
Spiritual formation is the purposeful and ongoing process of becoming more like Jesus. This means that the local expression of his people – the church – who are being formed and shaped to be more like Him should be places for life change and hope and action. The problem is that most of our churches are Doing Centers. Activity, events, programs. Doing more, more more…
I think of the bumper sticker: “Jesus is coming back. Look busy.” It’s supposed to be funny, but isn’t it sadly all too true? Religious activity is not what we are called to. We’re invited into a relationship with the Living God and with others who help us become who we were truly meant to be – from the inside-out. The Holy Spirit helps us to become that. Others (who depend upon the Holy Spirit) help us to become that.
Churches – all spiritually healthy churches- are called to be Becoming Centers, helping people become more of who the Creator intended them to be.
3 important questions from N.T. Wright
“I believe we face the question: if not now, then when? And if we are grasped by this vision, we may also hear the question: If not us, then who? And if the gospel of Jesus is not the key to this task, then what is?”
–NT Wright
7 things that made Jesus a great teacher
1. Jesus’ teachings were authoritative and full of fresh ideas [Mt chs. 5-7; 13:54; Mark 1:27; Lk 4:32]
2. His teachings were saturated with object lessons [Mt 11:20-25; 12:13-17]
3. He let the questions guide the learning opportunities [Mk 8:17-19, 27-30; 9:21, 23; 12:15-16]
4. He understood – and effectively leveraged – the power of story, many of them with surprise endings [Mk 12;1; Luke 15; Mk 4:1-32]
5. He taught for self discovery by putting the responsibility of learning into the hands of the learner. [Mark 8:27-30]
6. He utilized conversational learning opportunities [Mk 8:27-30; 9:33-37; 12:15-17]
7. He possessed a deep love and genuine care for his audience [Mt 9:36; 14:14; 15:32; Mk 10:21]
What else would you add to the list?
Kairos Partnerships: accelerating through the turn
One day in driver’s ed, I remember sitting behind the wheel when my instructor said, “Now, when you are making a turn, put on your blinker. And as you are in the middle of it – once you realize you are going to make it through the intersection safely – accelerate through the turn.”
It’s advice I’ve never forgotten.
Much of the fall is an attempt to accelerate through the turn.
I’m in the midst of a shift from being full-time at the church I helped start to pulling back to part-time so I can steward opportunities to help train, equip and disciple other leaders, as well as invest time in networks and other kingdom initiatives. It’s a bit of a shift from ministry by addition to ministry by multiplication. If you haven’t heard, we’re calling it Kairos Partnerships. You can read the specifics here.
For me, this fall feels a bit like a trapeze artist who has let go of the bar behind him and is in that freaky moment in time, suspended high above the ground waiting for that bar in front of him to come swinging his direction so he can take hold of it.It’s good – and I love it – but its a vulnerable moment of in-between, where you go from “Yes!” to “Oh crap” – and then back to “Yes!” again – all in a matter of a few hours. I guess when you write a book on risk God has a way of remembering that stuff.
There’s been incredible encouragement and affirmation from those who know us. I’m super-proud of our church and the way they are not only embracing change, but also seeing the fit that this is for all of us. People have described it to me as a win-win-win. Those don’t happen often, so we realize the gift that it is.
Our elders were in unanimous agreement of this decision. When I announced the changes a few months ago, I was so proud of our church when they erupted into applause in affirmation of this decision and in affirmation of Doug Moister, our Renew Apprentice who will be coming on past full-time as pastor in the new year.
We love how it’s unfolding, but we also know the preciousness of a transition like this. It’s not without it’s hiccups, but overall it has been (surprisingly) smoother than expected. (Read more about the transition here for specific context.)
But in some ways, I feel whelmed. Not overwhelmed, just whelmed. I feel as though I’m working four jobs until January 1, when the transition will officially take place :
- attempting to shepherd and lead Renew well, paying attention to the movement of the Spirit and how we can join God in what He’s up to
- bringing Doug up to speed on context, our history and specific people and situations, as well as trying to set him up for success in the new year
- developing Kairos Partnerships and communicating its vision clearly
- raising support for this new initiative. People told me that support raising takes a lot of time. (I am finding out that they were right.)
Transitions like these require a lot of wisdom (we’ve been praying James 1:5 quite often as leaders) but, like I said, we are quite excited with how things have unfolded – and we anticipate that to continue that way, too.
Since our announcement I’ve had pastors, leaders, organizations and churches approach me, asking if I could help partner with them in various ways. I’ve been amazed at how these opportunities are surfacing so soon into the adventure of Kairos Partnerships.
Here are a few of the things that have been brewing the past several weeks since our announcement:
- Last month we hosted a Vision Day for Fresh Expressions in the Philadelphia Area with over 50 denominational leaders and pastors from all over the region, sharing what Fresh Expressions is and ways leaders can cultivate fresh expressions in their context.
- Next week I fly to Taylor University, where I’ll be speaking in chapel again and discussing with leaders if there are other ways I might be able to partner and serve the university. They’ve also asked me to speak at some upcoming events next spring.
- I’m coaching church planters in the midwest, the deep south and in the region.
- We’re also in the works for hosting the Second Annual Epic Fail Pastors Conference in March 2012 in Mansfield, OH (see initial details here). We’re extremely excited about this.
- I’ve been asked to write an article in a pastors’ publication on the concept of the Epic Fail Pastors Conference.
- I recently completed co-leading an assessment for a 200 year old church in our area, helping them listen well to each other and see where they can be most healthy moving forward in their storied tradition.
- I’ve been approached by a few pastors who have asked me to disciple them, as they seek to create a culture of discipleship in their own churches.
- I’ve been asked by a seminary to help brainstorm, develop and plan a discipleship track for their Doctor of Ministry program.
- Next month I’ll be facilitating a panel discussion with a few church planters at a church planter training event on the topic of how to serve our cities by being an ally and an advocate.
I’m honored and humbled – and thrilled – to be seeing evident fruit being borne so soon into this venture. I’m truly excited to see what other fruit will come about from this. I can’t believe I get to do this.
Would you partner with me in prayer as I seek to steward the opportunities well, especially between now and the end of the year?
I want to accelerate through the turn.
[ 11 ] Links that will change your life
Enjoy:
[1] The inspiring story of paralyzed Rutgers football player Eric LeGrand and his determination to walk again. I watched this hit on TV live and knew immediately it was not good. Amazing to see how he has maintained a positive attitude.
[2] The Strangest Soccer Game Ever Played. This is about as odd of a sports story as you’ll ever hear about.
[3] Towards a Discipleship Framework. Good thoughts from my friend Todd Hiestand.
[4] Attention-Hungry Faith. How do we know the balance between building a platform and building the kingdom?
[5] Football game time lapse of an Iowa Hawkeye football game. This is fun to watch.
[6] Want a fresh understanding and expression of liturgy? Check this out.
[7] I’m not a huge fan of large-crowd Christian conferences, but this one looks solid. Check out the speaker list, too.
[8] My friend Walter Sawatsky is an incredibly wise, gifted and experienced life coach. In fact, much of what I’ve learned about coaching has come from him. He recently redesigned his coaching website for his business Customized Coaching. It’s worth a look, especially if you’re looking for a top-notch life coach. I highly, highly recommend this guy.
[9] The Importance of Communion: why we gather.
[10] This is, well… you tell me.
[11] This song moves me every single time. John Mark McMillan’s song “How He Loves” – and the incredibly powerful story behind it.
Eugene Peterson: measuring success
I’ve posted this quote multiples times here throughout the years and it just never gets old, nor does it lose its punch.
“American pastors are abandoning their posts, left and right, and at an alarming rate. They are not leaving their churches and getting other jobs. Congregations still pay their salaries. Their names remain on the church stationary and they continue to appear in pulpits on Sundays. But they are abandoning their posts, their calling. They have gone whoring after other gods. What they do with their time under the guise of pastoral ministry hasn’t the remotest connection with what the church’s pastors have done for most of twenty centuries.
A few of us are angry about it. We are angry because we have been deserted…. It is bitterly disappointing to enter a room full of people whom you have every reason to expect share the quest and commitments of pastoral work and find within ten minutes that they most definitely do not. They talk of images and statistics. They drop names. They discuss influence and status. Matters of God and the soul and Scripture are not grist for their mills.
The pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeeper’s concerns–how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package the goods so that the customers will lay out more money.
Some of them are very good shopkeepers. They attract a lot of customers, pull in great sums of money, develop splendid reputations. Yet it is still shopkeeping; religious shopkeeping, to be sure, but shopkeeping all the same. The marketing strategies of the fast-food franchise occupy the waking minds of these entrepreneurs; while asleep they dream of the kind of success that will get the attention of journalists.
The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community. The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God. It is this responsibility that is being abandoned in spades.”
-Eugene Peterson
The best 3.5 minutes of your week
This will be, quite possibly, the best three and a half minute investment you make all week long.
It’s a short video on the importance of wisdom – of life and death, of cultivation and seed-spreading. It’s very Wendell Berry-esque. This is especially meaningful to me as its read by Jay Kesler, President Emeritus of my alma mater, Taylor University. Beautiful. Breathtaking. Stunning. Refreshing.
It inspires my head, my heart, my ears and my eyes at the same time.
I’ve watched this multiple times and I get goosebumps every time.
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