From the free e-book Grow: Reproducing Through Organic Discipleship.

Empower People to Serve

One way to help people connect with Christ-centered community is by empowering people with the gospel to serve God and others. Serving is one of the greatest things that Christians can do as disciples. We should be committed to helping people grow as disciples by using their gifts and talents for God in a way that will bless others and make the community a better place. The Bible tells us that God gave each of us the ability to do certain things well (Romans 12:6‐8). The Holy Spirit gives gifts to believers to be used for the building up of the body of Christ. As a church, we need to help people find and use these gifts for God. Serving is a powerful connection point that many churches ignore or simply overlook.

Serving others is certainly not encouraged in our individualistic society. To be a servant means that we must look after the interests of others. It means selflessness as opposed to selfishness. A servant asks, “What can I do for others” instead of “what can they do for me?”

Serve Like Jesus

Christians must strive to be like Jesus, our perfect example. Jesus set the example of being a servant by saying, “For even the Son of man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). This scripture beautifully embodies the task of Christian ministry. Disciples are to serve and give their lives for others. Serving is the example that Jesus gave, and his followers should follow it. Jesus met both the physical and spiritual needs of the people he ministered to in the Gospels. As the Body of Christ, we become his representatives to a lost world.

Create Pathways for Service

A servant revolution in our churches will reach our community and show the love of Christ. Each week and month, our church provides dozens of different opportunities for people to make a difference through service projects that touch peoples’ lives in the community. These pathways of service help people connect to their community with their God-given ability to serve. Serving is one of the major connection points in our church. The church should be an army of servants who are making a positive difference in their families, their community, and the world. Help find creative pathways for people to connect to your church through serving.

Read Winfield Bevins’ free e-book Grow: Reproducing Through Organic Discipleship.

Resurgence On Facebook

Become a fan of the Resurgence on Facebook, get connected with other fans, and stay current on all the latest updates. Find out more.

From the free e-book Grow: Reproducing Through Organic Discipleship.

Grow Disciples Naturally

Many churches have a linear discipleship program where they try to funnel everyone through the same process. Sadly, many times churches simply use the latest program or book in hopes that what works for a large church across the country in a different context will work for them. I have learned that discipleship is usually the opposite. What works in California or New York might not work in Tennessee. You need to find out what works in your culture and context. Being organic means that you begin with the gospel and let the people grow naturally, right where they are. This is growing disciples naturally.

Why Organic?

You may be asking yourself the question, “Why organic?” The answer is in the Bible. The Old and New Testaments are based on an organic worldview. The Bible uses various organic metaphors to describe spiritual growth such as sowing and reaping (John 4:37; 2 Cor. 9:6) planting and watering (1 Cor. 3:6), growing (1 Pt. 2:2; 2 Pt. 3:18) and bearing fruit (Mt. 7:17‐20; John 15:1‐16; Gal. 5:22). The church is spoken of as a family (for example the use of terms such as brother, sister, mother, father, bride, etc.). The church is also the body of Christ. In 1 Corinthians 12:12‐27 Paul talks about the whole body as a distinct metaphor for Christ’s church. In Paul’s body metaphor, every part has an important role to play in the whole.

The Body of Christ

Nowhere in the New Testament do we find the word church referring to a building. In its earliest expression, the church meant a group of individuals who had come together in the name of Jesus Christ. The Greek word for church is ecclesia, which literally means “the called out ones.” Interestingly enough, the English dictionary describes church as, “A place of public worship.” Over the ages, the concept of church has shifted from being a body to becoming a building. People have gotten it backwards. Followers of Jesus must get back to an organic understanding of what it means to be the church.

The church is the spiritual and living Body of Christ. Like all healthy organisms, it requires numerous systems and structures that work together to fulfill its intended purpose and overall health. Just as the physical body has to have an organic structure to hold it together while allowing it to grow and develop, likewise the body of Christ must have an organic structure that can do the same. As a new church continues to grow and change, it will outgrow its old systems and structures. Leonard Sweet says, “We must develop ministries that continually adjust and change with our continually changing culture.” In a similar way, a church’s discipleship strategy must be structured enough to maintain order, but organic enough to change with the ongoing needs of the church as it grows or it will hinder its growth. Therefore, the church’s discipleship strategy must be organic.

Organic Discipleship

Organic Discipleship is an organic understanding of spiritual formation that begins and ends with the gospel. Organic means growing or developing in a manner of living organisms. An organic understanding of the discipleship will require church leaders to rethink current church systems and structures in Biblical terms. Alan Hirsch argues that an organic image of the church and mission is theologically richer than any mechanistic and institutional conceptions of church that we can devise. Organic discipleship is not a program or curriculum; rather it is about learning the natural rhythms of discipleship within your church context.

Read Winfield Bevins’ free e-book Grow: Reproducing Through Organic Discipleship.

Advance 09 Media

Video, audio, and images from the Advance 09 conference in Raleigh-Durham, NC, June 2009. Find out more.

If you are like me, you have probably had a bad small group experience at least once in your life. You know the kind, where some weirdo takes over the discussion, or where the leader allows too much time of awkward silence. There is nothing worse than a bad small group experience. In fact, this is the reason why so many people are reluctant to be a part of a small group. As group leaders, our job is to protect our small groups and make them a safe place where people can share, grow, and learn together. We train our small group leaders to watch out for the following five landmines, which can destroy a good small group.

1. They become a gossip group.

Small groups are not a place to talk about others; rather they should be a safe place that is free from gossip and condemnation. People who attend a small group should feel free to come as they are and share openly and honestly. If we are not careful, small groups can degenerate into a gossip group that will tear down instead of build up.

2. They become a one-man show.

The leader should not do all the talking. Encourage others to participate and share in the group discussions. I have been to some small groups where only one person does all the talking. When this happens no one wants to share, much less attend. An effective small group leader encourages everyone to participate in the times of discussion.

3. They become a place to complain about the church.

Small groups can become a sounding board for disgruntled people to complain about the church. This is not a place to complain and slander the church. If people have a problem with the church, they need to share it with the church’s leadership, which is biblical. Train your leaders to protect the unity of the church by not allowing upset people to use the small group as a place to complain about their problems.

4. They become a place for crazy people to take over.

Small groups can attract crazy people who will hijack the group if you let them. Do not allow people to get off the subject by chasing rabbit trails. Whenever people start getting off track in the discussions, bring them back quickly. This requires a lot of discernment and grace. A good leader can keep people on track and the discussion moving.

5. They become an end in themselves.

Sometimes small groups become merely a meeting place or a social club; rather small groups should reach out to new people in the community. Small groups can also serve the community. Encourage your people to reach out to others. Begin thinking of creative ways that you can serve together as a small group.

This post is adapted from a forthcoming ebook by Winfield Bevins.

Recommended Books

A collection of fantastic reading material on various important topics, used and shared by Pastor Mark Driscoll. Find out more.

Every ministry leader needs to be a positive. They also need to know who the positives, negatives, and neutrals are both in official leadership and unofficial leadership in their ministry.

Positives

Positives are people who do gospel things in gospel ways for gospel reasons. They are trusting, supportive, and encouraging. They build bridges and mediate conflict. Positives bring organizational health, work for the good of the gospel over any single issue or cause, and are a blessing because they humbly want the gospel to win. Positives are prone to turn neutrals into positives, while they also work to neutralize negatives. In the Bible, positives are often referred to as shepherds.

Negatives

Negatives are people who do ungospel things in ungospel ways for ungospel reasons. They are distrusting, unsupportive, discouraging, and contentious. They burn bridges, are wounded by bitterness from past hurts, and are often the center of criticism and conflict. Negatives bring organizational sickness, division, and trouble because they are proudly more interested in their cause winning than the gospel and the good of the whole. Negatives tend to draw other negatives toward themselves as factions, and they also prey on neutrals in order to increase their own power and control. In the Bible, negatives are often referred to as wolves.

Neutrals

Neutrals are followers who are easily influenced. They are prone to being unsure, confused, and fearful. Neutrals are often caught in the middle when there is conflict between positives and negatives. A neutral becomes a positive or negative depending upon who their friends are, whom they listen to, what information they have access to, which books they read, and which teachers they look up to. In the Bible, neutrals are often referred to as sheep.

Sadly, in most ministries, the negatives are the most vocal, most exhausting, and most distracting, as well as the least likely to contribute to growth and health. Though they are few, they are often loud and difficult, spreading—as Paul says—like gangrene through the church body (2 Tim. 2:17). Practically, this means that even a few negatives working together can become quite difficult. The Bible reveals that negatives often pair up like two barrels on a gun, as was the case with Jannes and Jambres opposing Moses, Sanballat and Tobiah opposing Nehemiah, and Hymenaeus and Alexander opposing Paul.

How to Stay Positive

For a ministry to remain positive, three things need to occur.

First, the senior leader and the other official and unofficial leaders who wield the most influence must be positives. Further, they must be continually exhorted to remain positives. This means that even when they deal with negative things, they do so in a positive way for the glory of God and the good of his people.

Second, the negatives must not be allowed into leadership. If they are in leadership, official or unofficial, they must be rebuked. Titus 3:10–11 describes this rebuke: "As for a person who stirs up division, after warning him once and then twice, have nothing more to do with him, knowing that such a person is warped and sinful; he is self-condemned." Too often negatives are tolerated for too long; the longer their sin is tolerated, the more toxic the ministry culture becomes. Therefore, unrepentant negatives need to be brought through formal church discipline after their negativity has been documented and addressed; this process may end with their removal from the ministry, if needed. Ministry leaders are often reticent to deal so forthrightly with negatives; however, the longer they are tolerated, the more neutrals they infect with their gangrene.

Third, the neutrals need to be lovingly and patiently informed that they are in fact neutrals and that they need to take responsibility to not give in to negatives. Additionally, neutrals cannot be allowed into ministry leadership because they are prone to be influenced rather than be influencers. Sadly, neutrals are often nominated for and voted in to ministry leadership because they tend to be nice people who are likeable because they are amiable and easily influenced. But they are prone to work toward consensus rather than lead and are therefore not helpful for moving a ministry forward into innovation and growth. Change is controversial and requires someone who is a strong positive to build consensus for change and who is also able to neutralize the negatives rather than being influenced by them.

Rain City Hymnal

The first offering from Re:Sound is the Rain City Hymnal. Listen online and get the record from the Re:Sound website. Find out more.

Church leadership is complicated. It must start with deference to Jesus as the Chief Shepherd and ultimate head of the body (Eph 5:23). He’s in charge, and we need to submit our plans and leadership to him.

Human Leadership: Elders

In addition, the Holy Spirit appoints human overseers who must follow Jesus’ leading (Acts 20:28). The highest office of leadership in a church is that of elder (1 Tim 3:1–7).

The elders must fulfill a wide range of responsibilities and address a variety of issues which grow in complexity as a church grows in size. The law of the land, for example, is extraordinarily complicated for large churches, and the elders must ensure that operations remain in compliance (2 Cor 8:20–21).

A Trinity of Complexity

The complexity must be dealt with in order to ensure a healthy and fruitful church. Therefore, the elders must organize in order to properly govern, manage, and shepherd the church as an organization and as a people. Every church needs these three functions to develop in concert:

• Govern: An overseeing body must ensure that proper systems and controls are in place to promote wise stewardship of all the resources entrusted to the organization’s care. Resources include the mission, leaders, finances, and people.
• Manage: Delegated leadership is responsible for day-to-day decision-making and operations oversight.
• Shepherd: Pastoral care includes preaching, teaching, counseling, and discipling the people of the church.

Case in Point

Here is how this plays out at Mars Hill: our Board of Directors is responsible for the governance of the church; our executive elders, department heads, and campus pastors are responsible for the management of different components of the church; and our shepherding is led by the campus pastors and their elder teams.

Specialized

As a church organization grows, leaders become more and more specialized. Each elder at Mars Hill has a general obligation to govern, manage, and shepherd, but typically specializes in one of these three areas (Rom 12:4).

Our aim as church leaders is to build an organization under the authority of Jesus and his Word, governed diligently, managed faithfully, and shepherded with great care for its people.

Jamie Munson is Lead Pastor of Mars Hill Church. Find him on Twitter and Facebook:

• twitter.com/jamiemunson
• facebook.com/jamiemunson

Re:Train

We are launching The Resurgence Training Center (Re:Train) to prepare leaders for ministry locally and around the world. Additional details and downloadable application form here.

Discipleship Starts at Home Series [Part 2 of 2]: Click | View Series

Start Early

You can and should teach your children basic Christian beliefs and how to memorize Scripture. This can be both fun and educational. You can choose short Scriptures to begin teaching your children. As you continue to learn the Scriptures, you can use longer passages such as the Ten Commandants and 23rd Psalm for when you and your children feel ready to go deeper. You can also use a short family catechism with questions and answers for you to discuss together that will help your children learn basic Christian doctrine.

Some Practical Ideas

Here are a few practical ideas that may help you disciple your children.

• Find a good children’s Bible.
• Remember to have fun with your children while learning the Bible.
• Keep the time brief to hold the child's attention.
• Recite the verse several times a day in your child's presence so it becomes familiar to them.
• Make flash cards with Scripture on one side and the book, chapter, and verse on the other.
• Put the verse to music or rhythm. Your child will enjoy singing and clapping their hands.
• Think of fun activities to make the verse fun and easy to remember.
• Tell them you are proud of them and have them recite it to someone else, like a grandparent or teacher.
• Pray with your children every day at meals and before they go to bed at night.

The Revolution Begins at Home

If we want a revolution of discipleship in our nation, it will have to begin in our homes. Discipleship begins in our marriages, by loving our spouses with the love of Christ. It happens by teaching, loving, and disciplining our children. When we bring the gospel back in the home, it will spread through our neighborhoods and into the communities where we live. If every family in every church got serious about making disciples in the home, it would change our world.

The great Puritan pastor Richard Baxter knew the importance of family ministry. He said, “We must have a special eye upon families, to see that they are well ordered, and the duties of each relation performed. The life of religion, and the welfare and glory of both the Church and the State, depend much on family government and duty. If we suffer the neglect of this, we shall undo all…. I beseech you, therefore, if you desire the reformation and welfare of your people, do all you can to promote family religion.” Let us not neglect our duty to disciple those who are within our very homes.

Recommended Books

A collection of fantastic reading material on various important topics, used and shared by Pastor Mark Driscoll. Find out more.

Discipleship Starts at Home Series [Part 1 of 2]: Click | View Series

“A house is actually a school and a church, and the head of the household is a pastor in his house.”
–Martin Luther

The Great Need

I am the lead pastor of Church of the Outer Banks, located in Nags Head, NC. I am the husband of an amazing wife and the father of two incredible little girls. More than ever before, I see the importance of integrating faith in the home every day. Statistics for divorce are rising at an alarming rate. Statistics also show that between 70 and 88 percent of Christian teens will leave the church by their second year in college. More than ever, it is time for us to step back and rethink the importance of discipleship in our own homes.

Don’t Neglect Your Family

What good is it if you make disciples of your neighbors, co-workers, and friends, yet neglect to disciple your own family? This is what Paul meant when he said, “If a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?” (1 Tim. 3:5). This Scripture is not just for pastors, but is also applicable for all Christian parents. The reality is that we are not putting enough focus on discipling our own families, and instead we tend to leave the responsibility to the church.

Disciple Your Children

The call to “make disciples” begins in our homes first. It is our spiritual responsibility as parents to teach our children about the faith. The Bible tells parents, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). As Christian parents, we should desire for our children to have a firm foundation and grow up to love Jesus and know what the Bible says about their lives.

Faith as Routine

Faith is not just something that we do once a week, but should be incorporated into the daily routines of the home. David Wegener said, “Reading and memorizing Scripture and the catechisms of the church results in incredible development of children, both spiritually and intellectually… What families regard as important is evidenced by the manner in which they spend their time.” How do we spend our time? Watching TV, playing video games, or shopping? Sadly, many families devote more time to these things than they do teaching their children about God, or just simply spending quality time together.

It’s Our Responsibility

It is not the churches’ or schools’ responsibility to raise our kids. Too often, we think that the church is more like a baby-sitting service to watch our kids for a few hours a week while we enjoy the worship service. While church is important, the Bible tells us that the home is the primary place of learning the Bible and moral instruction. In Deuteronomy 6:4-9, we read:

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

To be continued.

Pastor Dad

Every dad is a pastor. The important thing is that he cares for his flock well. Pastor Mark Driscoll's new eBook offers spiritual insights on fatherhood. Get it here.

Fight Clubs Series: Click | View Series
Get the eBook here.

Our spiritual war is a war against the flesh, that lingering vestige of our pre-Christian lives that must be beaten to death so that we can live in the fullness of life given to us in Jesus. The apostle Paul says, "Fight the good fight of faith" (1 Tim 6:12). We are to beat the flesh in the power of the Spirit: "For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (Rom 8:13). These texts call us to "fight" and "put to death" the deeds of the body, our sinful patterns of anxiety, self-pity, anger, fear of man, vanity, pride, lust, greed, and so on. Upon becoming a Christian, we are inducted into a Fight Club—the Fight Club of faith.

The Three Rules of Fight Club

Fight Clubs are small, simple groups of 2-3 who meet regularly to help one another beat the flesh and believe in the promises of God. Men meet with men, and women meet with women, in order to effectively address general and gender-specific issues head-on. We have three rules:

1) Know Your Sin.

The first rule of Fight Club is "Know your sin." If we don't know our opponent, how will we beat him? We must become well-acquainted with the areas in our lives where the flesh gets the best of us, where we are prone to sin.

2) Fight Your Sin.

The second rule of Fight Club is "Fight your sin." Once we know our sin, we know where to strike. The challenge then is to actually strike, to beat up our flesh.

3) Trust Your Savior.

The third rule of Fight Club is "Trust Your Savior." How do we fight? We fight, not in our own strength but with the strength of the Spirit.

One day the fight will be over. Faith will become sight. Our image will be perfectly aligned with Christ's image. We will no longer know our sin, fight our sin, or struggle to trust our Savior. But until then, may God grant us his sovereign grace to fight the good fight of faith, for our joy and his eternal glory.

(Adapted from Fight Clubs, Chapter 5: A Spiritual War)

Recommended Books

A collection of fantastic reading material on various important topics, used and shared by Pastor Mark Driscoll. Find out more.

Fight Clubs Series: Click | View Series
Get the eBook here.

Real faith is fighting faith. This faith fights not for perfection but for belief. We fight to believe that Jesus is more precious, satisfying, and thrilling than anything else his world has to offer. We fight every day of our lives. We fight from salvation, not for salvation. This is the faith that works through love (Gal 5:6). It is faith that works, not faith in works. It is faith in the gospel—the grand announcement that Jesus has defeated sin, death, and evil, and is making all things new—which includes us. Our faith is a faith that fights.

Repentance and Faith

In order to receive the redemptive benefits of the gospel, we must repent from trusting in false gods and exercise faith in the one true God. We must fight. Repentance and faith are the two sides to the coin of the gospel. They are not a one-time act to get us into heaven, but an entire way of life to maintain Christian joy. Repentance is not a work we tack onto our faith; it is an expression of faith.

Fighting with God's Promises

Repentance can be described as giving up our sinful behaviors and turning our affections away from false gods. God wants our hearts, not just our morality. Repentance is a stepping-stone to true joy. Faith, then, is trust in the one, good, true, dying, and rising-from-the-dead God. It is relying on the person of Jesus through the power of the Spirit by the promises of God. It is not blind faith but perceptive faith. Biblical faith sees the truth, goodness, and reliability of God's promises and chooses to trust them over the fleeting, false, and bad promises of the world.

The Christian life is a constant repenting from belief in false promises and an increasing belief in the true, good promises of God.

Repentance, then, is letting go of false gods and promises, both with our affections and actions. Faith is grabbing onto the one true God and his promises with our affections and actions. Faith is not merely belief in the facts of the gospel message; it is trusting and treasuring the gospel medium—Jesus Christ our Lord.

Repentance and faith form the bridge that leads us away from union with false gods and promises and into the promise of joyful union with the one true God. This is a gospel that motivates, that animates the life of a disciple of Jesus!

(Adapted from Fight Clubs, Chapter 3: Faith and Repentance)

Religion Saves

Check out Pastor Mark Driscoll's newest book: Religion Saves: And Nine Other Misconceptions. Find out more.

Fight Clubs Series: Click | View Series

This series has been adapted from Jonathan Dodson's forthcoming booklet Fight Clubs: Gospel-Centered Discipleship. The eBook download will release here at The Resurgence on Saturday, August 1st.

Discipleship does not place the professional at the top of the stairs peering down at his novice disciple. It is not about a vertical relationship, professional instructing the novice. It's not good advice over good coffee. Discipleship is much messier and weightier. It is radically horizontal. It is about a shared struggle in the gospel to live a life of repentance and faith in Jesus through the power of the Spirit. This struggle is constant. Every day, not just every week, every minute, not just every hour. In this struggle, we desperately need one another to fight the good fight with us. We need Fight Clubs.

Fight Clubs

Fight Clubs are about promoting gospel-centered discipleship, groups of two to three men or women fighting the fight of faith. We make disciples of one another in the gospel and in community. We are peers in Jesus, not professionals or novices. Fight Clubs promote a radical peer-to-peer discipleship.

Gospel-Centered Discipleship

This kind of discipleship is, in the end, not about how I perform but who I am—an imperfect person, clinging to a perfect Christ, being perfected by grace. And in this I am not alone. I am one disciple among many. I no longer stand at the top of the stairs but sit in the living room, where we share our faith and our un-faith, our obedience and our disobedience, our successes and our failures.

But we don't stay there. We don't linger in imperfection, unbelief, disobedience, and failure. We fight. We fight the good fight of faith. We struggle to believe the promises of God over the fleeting promises of the world, the flesh, and the devil. We press on to Christ-imitating obedience and victory over sin.

(Adapted from the Introduction: The Gospel is for Disciples Not just Sinners)

Porn Again Christian

Pastor Mark Driscoll's frank discussion on pornography and masturbation is now available from Amazon. Find out more.