Tag: discipleship

At the beginning of this class, CONG 630 at Indiana Wesleyan University/Wesley Seminary, I wasn’t sure what I would gain to help my own community since we are so small. Some of the work of looking into our ministries and our explicit and implicit acts was difficult just because we are so new. It was a challenge, but I believe that it will be rewarding as we move forward in our process. We can use these studies and timelines as a steppingstone to where we want to go next and what we don’t want to continue in our own tradition.

Some inspiration from the semester:

Will Our Children Have Faith? By John Westerhoff gives us a lot to think about when it comes to the generations behind us. What are we teaching them and how does our own current church context affect them in the long run? These are questions that I have been thinking about since the beginning of this class. At first, I thought our children were doomed according to this author. We had made too many mistakes, and the church of today is so outdated that we could not regain any traction on discipleship. I look at my own children and find that they long for more discipleship and less ritual. They have been a part of the ritual Sunday since birth. They long for relationship. Our current church context portrays that feeling of my kids and myself. So, will our children have faith? Westerhoff says, “I believe it suggests ways to engage in religious education that can insure a positive response to that question. Our children will have faith if we have faith and are faithful.”[1] Doesn’t this statement just sum it all up? We are so quick to change our ways of education and teaching of the gospel to fit our needs. We forget that when we reach the point of nothing working our faith sways and we begin to question if we are doing the right thing. God calls us to be faithful and continue to work.

Our Future:

We don’t have a large group that attends our community. We are small, but we are deep and searching. When you have a small community like that there is a tendency to give up and move on. If that were the case, then these small seeds of knowledge would be going to the wayside, and no one would benefit. As Westerhoff has shared with us, our faith is what keeps the generations of Christians going. We must stay the course and continue to teach and seek deeper discipleship.

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[1] John Westerhoff III. Will Our Children Have Faith? (New York, NY. Morehouse Pub. Third Edition. 2012) P. 126

There came a day in my own life’s spiritual journey when I felt like there was something missing. I was going to church every week and using my musical gift as the Worship director. I was attending extra events in a large church every week and checking off those boxes that I thought needed to be checked. Something wasn’t right and there was an emptiness that remained in the hidden depths of my soul. What was that thing that was missing within me?

Discipleship and the WWE

This weekend is THEE greatest Professional Wrestling event on planet earth. The annual WrestleMania event put on by WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment). Yes, I am that person, I watch wrestling. Yes, I know it’s scripted and made up, but so is the Marvel Cinematic Universe and Jurassic Park Universe, but we watch those too. Wrestling is the ultimate show between good and evil! What makes it great entertainment and fun to engage with is that each program or match is leading to, what every wrestling fan knows as, “the pay-off”. The pay-off is the culminating event that each good versus evil battle leads to, the final showdown. In professional wrestling the dream of every male and female wrestler is to have their feud end up having their pay-off in the MAIN EVENT, at WrestleMania. The main event is the most anticipated and talked about thing every year in their business. For us, at The Foundry, the most anticipated and talked about thing we participate in is, DISCIPLESHIP!  Discipleship is our main event, not Sunday morning, not a service, not an outreach program, not our children’s programming, not tithing or raising money, but discipleship! If we are ever talking about anything more than we talk about discipleship than we have missed our target. Everything can be talked about and thought about, but it must be spoken about and thought about through the lens of discipleship. Just like every match leading up to the main event at WrestleMania they must be planned, talked about, and rehearsed, but all those things are done through the lens of the pay-off. Our pay-off is seeing disciples made who make disciples. Everything else is secondary.

I am now a part of a small community of believers and unbelievers that gather with the prime intention of discipleship and fellowship. We call all our meetings, missional gatherings. It is what we do. As Paul and his followers in Acts went from gathering-to-gathering fellowshipping and talking about the love and message of Christ, so we too use that example to be missional with a purpose. This is also mandated in the great commission! The width and breadth of the gospel can be met in these small gatherings because there is freedom in the movement that we are a part of. The word is spoken, prayer is uttered, worship in song is given, laughter is a given, and tears of sorrow or joy are received. Healing from the hurts of the past is being made and our souls are forever grateful. Our full intentions for these missional gatherings are to develop authentic relationships, deepen our awareness of God, and discuss our journeys with awe and wonder.

Missional Community

Our denomination is amazing and supports us in our own autonomy. We are different and they like it. How ever we can meet people where they are and in the space that they need is what is important. We attend annual conferences yearly to gain district support and knowledge as well as monthly huddles that happen in our areas. God is moving and we are here for it.

We have been in our community for several years and we know a lot of people in many different places. Our missional groups have been created to support those different places and different people while bringing them together for the same purpose. Our name is known in large places intentionally by us supporting them. We make sure that we are doing the missional work outside of our groups as well as inside.

If you are feeling like something is missing in your soul. Take some time away from the hustle and bustle of life and try to figure out what that might be. Maybe it’s a change of some sort. Are you attending your local church? Are you doing too much? Do you need more intentional discipleship in your life like I did? If yes is the answer to any of these then I invite you to make a change. Join us in one of our missional gatherings where discipleship is the main event!