Disciple Making 2015
FRIDAY SESSION FOUR
Faith Driver #3: Teaching and Beliefs
Empowering or Restrictive?
“Oh my gosh, it’s the best church I’ve ever been to. .. Mr J
was the minister I think at that point in time, yeah, and
there’s a part at the end where he would just tell like a story,
it would be like a story relating to his life, so it was so
interesting because you can relate, actually relate to it,
because it’s real-life scenario and he would teach you things.”
Janice
“It didn’t look like a lot of the people enjoyed going. I found it
very, very boring, dry, and umm, very not open for discussion.
It was like, this is how things are done, memorize this for next
class.” Lois
Teaching & Beliefs
Empowering
Dis-empowering
• Content
• Haphazard
– Depth
– Tough topics
• Delivery
– Application
– Opportunity to ask questions
– Lacking Depth
– Inconsistent
– Fixated on Morality
• Perceived as
Restrictive
– Premarital sex (a no no!)
– Partying (a no no!)
– Homosexuality (a black white
issue!)
– Gender roles (narrowly defined!)
– Ultimate truth (narrowly defined!)
Ministry based on truth hierarchies
(Robert Gagnon)
The Early Church
1. Scripture
2. Philosophic
Reason/Nature
3. Science
4. Experience
Today’s Millennials
1. Experience
2. Science
3. Philosophic
Reason/Nature
4. Scripture
This has massive implications for ministry to millennials.
Many leave the church because they believe what
the church teaches is repressive. In the eyes of
young adults, the culture has moved forward
but Christians have not.
Black and white issues are seen as a stumbling
block to young adults.
Ultimate truth is seen as narrow-minded.
They believe that religion should support and help
the individual. Religion is therapeutic. As a
result they create a belief system of their own.
Right and wrong is not necessary because right
and wrong can be discerned intuitively.
(Transfusing Life)
Many young adults think:
What anyone else wants to believe is fine.... none
of what is distinctive about any given religious
tradition matters all that much. These
particularities tend to separate people of
different religions, bring into question the equal
value of different cultures, and imply implicit
judgments against others who are different ....
Such an implication does not seem inclusive but
rather exclusive and judgmental.
Christian Smith, Souls in Transition
Thirteen points you might
consider to teach emerging adults
1. Empowering teaching is “imitation”
more than information or inspiration.
inspiration
information
imitation
• They can’t be what they can’t see
• We can’t give what we don’t have
• We can’t impact if we don’t stay
2. Shift your definition of family –
church’s children same privileges
as blood children.
3. Take a millennial with you
wherever you go.
Be there for the LONG HAUL!
No depth or meaningful discipleship can
happen in short term relationships.
Peter Hanhart 1928 - 2009
4. Allow space to ask big questions.
Doubt can be a gift.
Twenty-somethings want a strong theological
home but the freedom to wander and
question.
They feel it is OK if pastors don’t have all the
answers.
Provide anchoring people and resources.
Bring up questions before they do, so that they
will not be blindsided later.
My Toughest Questions
Help with my toughest questions
100%
90%
9%
16%
80%
51%
70%
60%
51%
43%
76%
50%
40%
35%
30%
20%
39%
37%
18%
10%
0%
Engagers
3%
13%
1%
5%
1%
Fence Sitters
Wanderers
Rejecters
Leadership able to help with my toughest questions
Agree strongly
Agree moderately
Disagree Moderately
Disagree Strongly
5. Friendship is crucial.
A Conference Story
• Jesus called his disciples “friends”.
Discipleship will mean sacrificing our comfort
and intentionally spending time with those
who attach to us.
• If you are not friends, you do not know their
questions.
6. Access before apologetics;
Time before truth telling;
Incarnation before information.
A Ministry Strategy to 21st Century Millennials
• “You as a missionary to millennials in post Christian
Canada have to start with the Bible yourself but flip it
when dealing with my generation. You have to give us
an experience (not just a Scripture verse) which means
as leaders you are called to even greater holiness than
ever in the past. You can’t fabricate true love. You
can’t fabricate Jesus. You have to be living it so that
our experience of you magnetically draws us into what
is important to you – Jesus and Scripture and church!
We have been taught in university to deconstruct – to
be critical. The only thing we can’t deconstruct is a life
well lived. To us it is actual truth of what is true – what
is worth latching on to!” millennial engager
7. Approach it indirectly
– like Jesus did
Hitting sin head-on is sometimes like hitting a
nail with a hammer. It only drives it in
deeper. There are occasional exceptions,
strategically dictated confrontations, but
indirection is the biblically preferred method.
Eugene Peterson
8. Evangelism and discipleship
(both ours and theirs) cannot be
separated.
Baby Christians are dying for lack of discipleship
Bishop Cray – Discipleship is not an afterthought
Understand the link between thoughts and
destiny.
9. Never underestimate the magnetic
power of the person of Jesus
The central doctrines of Jesus are magnetic.
(see Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity)
We obey Jesus’ teaching because we are
captivated by his PERSON...it is the same
reason why people follow us!
Jesus is sticky by himself. We dilute by addition
“I think ultimately you need to be focusing on
Jesus. And the rest of the stuff, I mean,
details, they’re okay, but I mean, ultimately
you can’t be distracted from that.” (Bill)
10. Get new glasses. We are
addressing the glory of the
transcendent God !
“ When the glory of the transcendent God is not addressed, our
focus shifts to human behaviour….. Moralizing surges to the
fore…..and perverts the character of the Christian life. By the
time young people enter college, they have often abandoned God,
church and religion….. The loss of transcendence has left in its
wake the flotsam of distrustful, cynical Christians, angry at a
capricious God.”
Brendan Manning
Emphasize trust more than obedience.
Emphasize the gospel, not sin-management!
“[Churches] get wishy-washy…they’ll just
give [people] this wishy-washy Jesusloves-you rainbows-sunshine-puppydogs glitter version of the Gospel to win
them over. But it’s not about winning
people over for popularity points and
brownie points with team Jesus. . . .
There’s no sort of challenge, there’s no
stretching. . . what happens when that
warm and fuzziness wears out? ’Cause it
will. ’Cause it’s not real.” Don
11. Use imaginative, subversive
language.
People like prose. Information about God. Explanations of
Bible history. And pastors are good at this. People are not
comfortable with the work of creativity. It takes too much
time and is sometimes obscure.
But when things become desperate, they long for a word that
will create faith, and stir their imaginations and help them
to resist evil and take them to the core of what matters.
When we get down to the roots we become poets again, and
use personal, worshipful, core language. So much of
Scripture is poetic.
Not all words create. Some merely communicate. They
explain, report, describe, manage, inform, regulate.
Words can be trivial, or they can lodge in the heart like a
parable does.
Communication is good but a minor good. Knowing about
things never has seemed to improve our lives a great deal.
Our task with words is not communication but communion –
the healing and restoration and creation of love
relationships between God and his fighting children and our
fought-over creation.
12. Drench in Scripture
We require an immersion in Biblical studies. We need reflective hours
over the pages of Scripture, as well as personal struggles with the
meaning of Scripture. It gives our words a ring of authority.
The early church took everyone through three years of faith
formation, so they knew the Bible backwards and forwards. Take
seriously the importance of meaty formal instruction in the faith.
At the same time we need a drenching in culture, so that when we
talk, the people listening know that their lives are being addressed
on their home territory.
Eugene Peterson
13. Keep talking, even if they walk
away.
Worldview hangs on the
thin thread of conversation.
“Teaching and Beliefs” Reflections
• Are we treating the church’s children
like our own family?
• Are we in places and situations where
they can imitate us?
• Do we know their big questions?
• Are we using subversive language
(parables, metaphors, poetic language,
fresh language)?
IMAGINE
WHAT HAVE YOU LEARNED SO FAR ABOUT
MAKING DISCIPLES
AMONG RISING GENERATIONS
TOGETHER
Books
Thomas Bergler, The Juvenalization of American Christianity
Gordon Smith, Generation to Generation: Passing on the Faith
to the Children of the Church
David Sawler, Before You Say Goodbye: Keeping the Faith
It’s a paradigm shift, a whole new
way of being
The new normal is ORGANIC
• NOT about a new hire (new expert on staff)
• NOT about a new program
• NOT about a simple EXTERNAL fix
• NOT about a change in the church service
GOOD NEWS: THE CHURCH HAS TRINITY DNA
THE ROUND WHEELS WE NEED ARE
ALREADY IN OUR WAGON.
THE ROUND WHEELS ARE ALL OF US!
Used with permission: Performance Management Company.com
If we are the round wheels...it means
we all need to slow down.
“One of the most harmful
ideals to grip (our minds)
over the past two decades
is that of quality time.”
Youth need quantity time !
George Barna
www.hemorrhagingfaith.com