Heading Home - Yeah!
I'm leaving at 1:00 p.m. today for the airport. Whew -what a time of intensive training. We were done after lunch yesterday, so I took a walk and came back to my room and took a nap. I must have been tired because I slept right through our evening sharing time. This morning at 10:00 a.m my friends came looking for me to see if I was alright. I'm just beat!
But, around 9:00 p.m. I will arrive in St. Louis and I'm looking forward to being home with Michelle. I'm home until after Easter when I have another 8 days of travel.
This training has impacted my life greatly. We were faced with the terrible state of the current church model and her ineffectiveness to reach our culture. We are clearly losing ground. At the same time I felt relieved and refreshed that I am no longer in the Hagar system for doing Church. (I'll tell you more about Hagar later.) At the same time I have been encouraged because I am trying to create a different type of Disciple-making Multiplication System. I am encouraged to see that God has led me to this point and He is up to something in the world and especially in America today.
So my primary goal is not to plant churches. My primary goal is to make disciples who make disciples who make other disciples. If we will do this God will give birth to a different more fluid and freeing type of Church that keeps the Supremacy of the Great Commission and the need for the Holy Spirit's leadership as two main priorities.
posted by Bob Carder @ 12:13 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
Glad you are refreshed and heading home. I am -- finally -- feeling some healing in my shoulder. In turn, this makes me feel I can get back to some of my "extra" typing. So, I'm back!
Question: I'm looking forward to learning more about your training (am assuming you'll share bits and pieces with us). This Hagar church system I assume is the current primary model of church being practice (my church, for instance).
So, as we move toward this disciples making disciples making disciples model, do we do so from within the existing model or do we "Revolutionize" ourselves a la Barna and step outside?
Hagar is the institutional Church-a church built with human resources-a church often void of the Holy Spirit's power and presence.Hagar is marked by disunity and power struggles.
The best way to change America is for every believer in America to begin making one disciple who makes one disciple this year. As disciples are multiplied one by one we can redeem America. As we we redeem America, God will give birth to a different kind of Church.
I'm less optimistic that the Hagar system, the American "Come & See" system will be willing to shift from pouring all of our energies into trying to get people to come to church to taking Jesus to those outside of the Church.
The most important thing for us in America to discover is that we are called to make disciples who make disciples who make disciples but instead we have opted to sit in a pew on Sunday morning.
Mike, I challenge you not to go to church again -until you have led one person to Jesus. Then do not take them to church with you. Meet with your new beleiver every week -keep him out of the church (we cannot let the church talk this guy out of making disciples and being led by the Spirit), instead, -you do church with him until He leads someone to Christ and continues the cycle. You keep meeting in your home or wherever with him and other new disciples and I invite you to be their Shepherd, you teach them how to live for Jesus. In this experiment after 3-6 months give me your story of making disciples who make disciples.
You be the judge: Is going to church every Sunday and winning no one better than not going to Church and winning a multitude of people?
Something to think about. Which would please God more?
MIKE-Before I forget, "Welcome Back to Blog-Land" I missed you, my readers missed, the whole world missed you.
I'm glad you are back. Now my blog can become exciting again.
Thanks for the welcome back!
To your challenge: How is that even possible? Bobert, think back a few months -- where would you be today if things hadn't happened as they did? You'd be in the institutional church, loving her and ministering to her in the ways you do -- the ways that knocked me upside the head and made me look at things anew.
I say this with all the love for you I have, but, you're suggesting I leave the "woman" I love and have been faithful to, to take up with someone else.
I can't imagine a world in which that happens. I LOVE church. I LOVE what happens there (mostly). I LOVE God and I believe He is there with me and I with Him.
Would He be there with me if I left and did as you suggested? Of course. Do I need to do a better job of discipling others? Of course! That's not even a question. That's an indictment. BUT I'd be turning my back on one of the greatest gifts God has ever given me if I stopped going to church.
What if someone had issued you this challenge 15 (or so) months ago?
Hear me now: I don't love the church more than I love God or Jesus, but I do love those people, those flawed, hurting, sometimes desolate sometimes inspirational people. People who will welcome you with open, caring arms one moment, then turn around and boot you out the door the next.
They are no less human than I am. I found my hope and deliverance THROUGH GOD within a body of believers not all that different from the ones I'm now affiliated with. How can I walk away from that?
Mike,
I was frustrated with Hagar long before I went through what I went through. I share your pain. You don't have to be married to Hagar, go into Sarah's tent. Sarah represents the Holy Spirit way.
I never expected you to leave Hagar. It is not American to do so. I was hoping to shake you up enough that you could see that Hagar for the most part is for the already reached. What about the growing multitude of lost people? What about the fact that Hagar is losing ground in America at huge proportions?
I know God will not leave Hagar -He will care for those in the system. I'm just suggesting that we create a new system growing out of Sarah's tent.
Mike, don't be to quick to write me off. I'm just desperate to see disciples making disciples. And, I'm not counting on the Hagar system to do it. Hagar is way to comfortable and inward focussed to get the job done.
Write you off? Never! Oh my gosh, if you got that msg, then I take back my entire post. Mea culpa, that's a deep misinterpretation.
No no no. Just trying to express how insurmountable your challenge to me seems.
I will NEVER write you off. You are my friend, my brother, and the ONLY person currently challenging me about my Christianity and how to best live it out.
Please consider writing an entire blog post (or two) about the whole Hagar/Sarah line of thought. I'd love to hear more about what you learned at the conference along those lines -- what those descriptions entail, etc.
Bob, I am enjoying your blogs and the comments you recieve so very much. Bob, when I first met you your goal was to take as many people as possible to Heaven. I was amazed to hear you say the "the scales are falling from my eyes" That my friend is the Holy Spirit working in you! As you know Steve and I were disenchanted with the Church that we loved. I remember the first time walking in BC, the first service, Crying over the feeling that God was there. That Steve thought he heard a voice talk to him that was not there. ( we know now it was God), over the years I did not feel the direction was there when we first attended. After thinking about what you said about Hager, I truely believe we became that kind of church. I have been to a few churches in the community that for some reason, it seemsis more about entertainment, bigger buildings, having gold faucets in the bathroom, man being more important than getting in the presence of our Savior. Your Challenge is right on target, Sorry Mike, but I have to agree with "Bobert" on this one. I am doing my best to take as many souls to our God as I can. I have expeierced a few coming to Christ because of "witnessing" or planting a seed, have changed the way they live, and they in turn let others know about Christ and what he has done. And I such a sinner, has confessed,Felt the Holy Spirit and walking the walk not in a church so to speak but at work! Bob, this is so motivating to me to listen to you! The time is near when we will see Christ, we need to get busy out on the street corner. Love to you and Michele, Andrea
Anonymous Andrea:
You disagree with me all you want! I'm certainly not saying I am right. As I've been telling Bob, I think he and I have a lot of the same passion, I just can't see walking away from the church, as is.
Although the stats he shared in his post about the world turning to Muslim and the US turning from Christianity, are certainly frightening.
One of my biggest problems with Bob's suggestions is I don't know how to do what he's suggesting. That and I love the church, I really do. Not more than I love Christ, but I do love it.
And, Bob, you were wondering if anyone would ever discuss anything when you started this... Ha!
To anyone, Do we love the Hagar Church as much as we do? Or do we put more into doing what Jesus said? Are you reaching lost people and disicpling them? What par tof this is hard to understand. We need to share Jesus, lead people to Jesus, teach them about Jesus and have them lead others to Jesus!
Maybe Hagar "the CHurch in America" has a stronger grip than I first thought.
Let's get to the work instead of going to it and watching all the work that goes intot he work on Sunday. Let's just do it.
This could be an ouch for some of you. But I have been known to speak the Truth in love on occassion.
It's time to get over your love with Hagar -the Church built on what man can do. It may be time to fall in love with the Church built on the Holy Spirit -I call her Sarah. I call her Sarah because it is built on only what God can do. Sarah gave birth at an old age because she trusted God. If God's Spirit was absent next Sunday in our Churches, how much of what we do would still go on as planned? This will sake you to your rafters.
Let's fall in love with Sarah's Church in America and be involved with what only God can do..
Hagar -Mans Church, man's methods or Sarah, God's Spirit doing only what God can do? You & I get to choose. I think of this way...whip cream or the banana split. I choose the banana split. Whataboutyou?
Post a Comment
<< Home