Moving on and out one step at a time...

Tonight on the eve of my 51st birthday Michelle & I are taking next steps in our disciple making/multiplying journey. Not sure where we will end up but very sure our disciple multiplying efforts will remain the goal of our lives.

Saying goodbye to Disciple Driven Church and her safety net is exciting and full of the possibility of initiating the launch of many more disciple multiplying movements.

God refuses to let us settle in for very long. With excitement following our first step into the Red Sea or River Jordan we have no clue what that second step will look like. We move forward with the promise that God always honors faith and total dependency upon Him.

These are truly exciting days as we walk in His steps. Keep praying for the disciple multipliers who remain with Disciple Driven Church. And, praise God for His work in their lives.

What's wrong with this picture?

For some time I have been speaking out on the issue of a "Flawed Discipleship Process" in our churches and in the thinking of many parents. We have been taught and taught others to fully entrust our children into the hands of "professional/trained/teachers" for their spiritual development. In the end a perceived good thing like Sunday School and youth groups has brought terrible results. Instead of parents being taught how to disciple their own kids,others took that role for them. Really, handing our children over to the experts and into great programs seemed like the right thing to do. Parental failure to disciple their own children has resulted in consequences too painful to admit or even carry.

No,I am not church bashing/Sunday school bashing/youth group bashing or parent bashing, this article is presented to raise awareness.

The Following article comes from Disciple Like Jesus a ministry that focuses on parental disciple making and the tools to accomplish the task.

Disciple Like Jesus Article:

"What's at Stake?

Your children and your friends' eternal destinies are at stake. According to Barna Research and other organizations, the church is losing between 75 and 88 percent of its children (never to return) by their second year of college. Only 9 percent of all born-again Christians have a biblical worldview; that means that your child and friends have less than a 10 percent chance of having a biblical worldview in the future!

Assuming that only 75 percent of all youth are leaving, this translates into more than 2 million children in America each year who are permanently leaving the church and over 40 million lost in the last two decades. If we do nothing to address this situation, by the year 2050 we will lose another 113 million children!

Regarding adult converts, there has been discussion for decades about the "revolving door" in the church. Many churches have reached a plateau of membership, and many are actually declining.

What’s the Root Cause?

We believe that the root cause is a faulty discipleship process that has been used by most Christian parents for decades. In summary, the process is identical to the training system used in secular society, except for the presence of faith-related activities such as church attendance, prayer, etc. The total time spent on biblical training is less than five hours a week. With less than five hours of biblical training a week and more than eighty hours of nonbiblical training/influence a week, the nonbiblical influence easily wins out shortly after our children leave home. As a result, our children and future generations are lost to the world.

This faulty process is based on information transfer (secular education) rather than the development of deep, lifetime relationships with God and man. Consequently, there is no lasting fruit for individuals or for God's kingdom."

The Planter: The faulty process is not only just "information transfer over deepened relationships with God and man but also one of spiritual authority transfer from the parent to other teachers/leaders. We have given up our most important role of discipling our own children without even realizing it. When we do not disciple our own children they do not look to us as having any spiritual authority over them.

Declaring God's Glory over Satan's Devastation

Through Disciple Driven Church and Sun Ministries we have accepted the call to plant missionaries in devastated neighborhoods in order to reclaim lives and land destroyed by Satan's evil. We are not planting churches - we are planting trained missionaries to live in these areas and make the Christ difference in them.

I believe Satan mocks God by showing Him the large American cities ravaged by his evil. I can almost hear Satan mocking God, "Look at what I have done to your cities. Where is your power and where is your churches influence? I am destroying everything important to you."

So we are committed to taking the next step to reclaim the hearts and land devastated by Satan in order to Declare God's Glory once again. Satan is mocking us and our God.

Through our Disciples making Disciples efforts we are raising up Holy Spirit empowered missionaries with a commitment to move into these broken down neighborhoods to bring God's redeeming power to the city. In St. Louis just 9 blocks from the arch we have entire neighborhoods of destruction. While many have left those areas many are trapped. As we rebuild many will come back to the inner city.

As these neighborhoods come back -The Glory of God will be restored and disciples who make disciples will also bring glory back to the land. We envision new "God life" rising up from among the ruin.

We are calling missionaries to St. Louis! If you are up to a God sized opportunity -we are recruiting, training, and releasing for this cause.

We are targeting mostly young college grads who long to experience the God they read about in Scriptures but have never experiences and those who long to rebuild people and land from ruin to God's Glory.

Kary Oberbrunner writes...

The excerpt below is taken from his new book "CALLED:Becoming What You Were Meant To Be"


In my experience, the extent of Christianity that I’ve been presented with goes something like this:

1. Accept Jesus and ask Him into your heart.
2. Don’t do bad things now.
3. Withdraw from culture.
4. Hang out with Christians.
5. Go to church.
6. Read your Bible and pray.
7. Be happy that you are saved and not going to Hell.
8. Tell other people about how happy they can be if they follow
these seven steps.

Is it just me, or is this a lame life! Where is the passion? Where is the adventure? Where is the abundant life that Jesus promised us? No wonder we’re bored. The Jesus we’ve been presented with asks for way too little. No one wants to devote their lives to something that requires nothing of them. Like the saying goes, “people figure, if it don’t ask much then it ain’t worth much.”

THE PLANTER: It's time we get stirred up!

Anony just posted this way down the line...I respond!

Anonymous has left a new comment on a post down the line, somewhere, who knows where? Here they are:

"Come and see the Love of Jesus Alive in our Church! That banner is an invitation to those who are lost.

Mr. Carder, I believe that you have lost the Joy of Jesus and gained a genuine dislike of the Church. And if that is so, how can you be a member of the Holy Church, the body of Christ.

Try as you might, the church will never be perfect because it is made up of sinners, saved by the Grace of Jesus!!"

THE PLANTER RESPONDS:

Since these comments were just received and far down the blogpost line, I'm bringing it up to the top for discussion.

1. First, I love the Church, always have and always will. I have given my life to Jesus so I am part of the Church - the bride of Christ. His holy bride!

2. Anony is right, I am not very happy with what I have seen in the church and I dislike her when she refuses to become the Church that declares the glory of God! I dislike our lack of freedom as in living a victorious life, our unwillingness to personally engage the lost - a mandate for all believers, our consumerism focus, our lack of holiness, our ineffectiveness in reaching younger generations, our departmentalized spiritual lives, our lack of a sacrificial do or die commitment. This is enough to start the discussion. If you are not guilty of the claims above - don't go down the defensive road, I don't have time for that anymore. If you can't see that the church in America is fast losing her influence and power to transform whole communities for Christ - I'm not going to be able to convince you -you are already fully blind. Go ahead and bask in your glory at the expense of displaying God's glory.

3. Inviting unsaved people to church has for too long become our excuse for not leading them to Jesus ourselves. We have missed our true calling. Why not teach and lead the church (every believer) to lead people to Jesus and then enfold them into the church family in baptism, into total freedom, and in the power of a Holy Spirit baptized relationship.

4. I love being a part of the Body of Christ. I grieve, deeply at what we have done to water down the power of the "setting captives truly free" message. If anony senses a lack of joy on my part regarding the church it is not as one who hates the church - it is because I love the church and I have a "weeping prophet" awareness of the state of the church. The ship (Church) has leakage, if we can admit it, there is hope/time to turn course and take back what has been ravaged by Satan so that God's glory can once again be declared to the physical and spiritual realms.

5. I strongly dislike what is represented here in anony's post to me. First it is done anonymously. That's not Biblical. What spiritual brother or sister would do that under cover? I should be used to such anonymous attacks -I've had them all my life (usually just minutes before I got up to preach). Secondly it is judgmental. I doubt that anony even knows me. Even if she/he claims to -they do not know me the way I and others close to me, know me. Thirdly, this is a perfect example of the self-righteousness of the church (sadly) toward others. In my case anony has presumed me to be or made me to be lost. Fourthly, everyone knows the Church is not perfect, none of us are perfect, we all know that, don't we? Is that any excuse for not being the thriving, beating heart of Jesus?

6. Finally, if the church is not teaching/leading all believers to make disciples who make disciples why do we not change that and regain the New Testament thrust of becoming a Holy Spirit fueled and transformational Church that declares God's glory?

I see the Church declaring the glory of God. It's like this - Even the demons know that God is God and that He alone is God when they see the Holy Spirit power of God unleashed through us. Are the demons convinced (because of you) that the God you serve is God and that He alone is God because of the Gory of God displayed in your life? After God does a work in others through you - do the demons run scared? Are they convinced that God is God in your life because of the fruit in your life?

Please no senseless - defensive - babbling allowed. Let's talk about making the difference.