Although I was raised in the church and had a knowledge of God, I didn’t embrace Jesus until I heard gospel preached and lived out by some Young Life leaders. God has proven faithful and good to me since that day, even in great suffering and loss. I have learned to treasure Romans 8:28 as a wellspring of hope and truth.
God has blessed me with an amazing wife (Olivia), three sons (Micah, Hudson and Owen) and a daughter (Emmaline). Growing up in the northwest, the thought never crossed my mind that I would have four children who are native Texans. Despite landing in the south, I still watch Notre Dame games with my children every Saturday in hopes they will land at my alma mater.
I’ve written in the past about the different stages of formation and growth that groups tend to go through on their way to becoming missional communities. The chart below summarizes the process and provides a few points for those of you who are more visually oriented. I hope it serves you well!
I’ve been teaching a Theological Survey course at The Austin Stone this past fall and spring, and it has been a great experience in equipping the saints to think deeply about God, to love Him with a whole heart, and obey His commandments with willing hands. Yesterday, one of the class participants asked me about how I personally communicate the gospel, and I thought it might be instructive to share my response. Here you go!
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Ruth,
Thanks for your question…I’m happy to share! When I think about the gospel and how to communicate it, I usually have one of three grids I am using:
Below is an overview of each!
I actually used this strategy at the beginning of the class when I worked through 1 Corinthians 15:1-6 with y’all. This passage is perhaps the most clear articulation of the gospel of Jesus Christ in all of the Bible, so I use it frequently. I usually start with reading the text:
15 Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, 2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. 6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
Then I work through the following points in teaching:
I find this to be an important way to present the gospel to those who are already believers, but don’t have a clear understanding of it. It has the additional benefit of pointing out the foundation of the Bible as the authority on the matter.
The second strategy I often use is the basic facts of the gospel, which is stolen from the book “What is the Gospel?” by Greg Gilbert. Briefly, the 4 main tenets of a gospel presentation answer the following questions:
To answer those questions, I first talk about God as creator and God as holy and powerful. Next, I talk about humans as created in God’s image, but we are rebellious towards God in our sin. Then I turn to Christ, who is the God Man that lived in perfect obedience to God, died an atoning death on the cross, and was raised on the third day in victory over sin, Satan, and death. Then finally, we should respond to this message with repentance (turning from our sin) and faith (turning towards Christ).
Finally, the one I used in class is a modification of a Tim Keller strategy that has helped me think through the gospel as a story of Jesus. The story follows the basic pattern below:
It changes each time I tell the story, but those are the general points I usually work through.
I hope those help! Finally, I have found this article by Tim Keller does a great job of explaining why we need to communicate the gospel in a variety of different ways…it has helped me a lot!
This past few years, I have had the joy of participating the Doctor of Educational Ministry program at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I participated in a cohort of five executive pastors under the supervision of my friend Dan Dumas, and the product of that time was a thesis entitled “Missional Community as a Model for Integrated Discipleship in an American Context”.
If you read this blog frequently, you’ll recognize much of the material that I’ve written her provided the foundations for the thesis, but I expanded the ideas and provided the academic background that drove much of my thinking and practice.
As you continue to lead and experiment with making disciples, I pray this work would serve you well! Click below to download it:
This post was originally published at the SEND Network website here.
Many people much smarter than me have wrestled with the question “what is culture?” At the heart of it though, culture is composed of beliefs, values and practices shared by a group of people. Building a disciple-making culture in the local church is driven by foundational beliefs, shared values and common practices.
When it comes to core beliefs in a disciple-making culture, the fundamental belief that drives movements is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. While there are many orthodox truths that all churches must believe, the foundation of the church is Christ’s person and work, and a disciple-making culture is built on the foundation that Christ’s death and resurrection prove his Lordship over all creation.
If Christ is Lord, then Christ is worthy of worship and obedience! A culture of disciple-making makes this explicit and fundamental by every means possible.
Beliefs express themselves in values in a culture. Values are manifestations of beliefs amongst a particular group of people. When it comes to a disciple-making culture, one of the key values is the priesthood of all believers – the idea that everyone has a part to play in making disciples.
A disciple-making culture won’t be widespread until leaders in the church believe that everyone has a role to play in ministry and mission. The greatest barrier to disciple-making movements in America is that we cater to consumers in our churches rather than expecting everyday people to get off the bench and play in the game. Disciple-making isn’t for experts, it is for everyone who believes Christ is Lord!
In addition to shared beliefs and values, a disciple-making culture is committed to simple, reproducible and transferrable practices. A football team can believe they need to score touchdowns and value winning, but without a clear game plan and playbook, chances are good they won’t win a game! One of the challenges in establishing a disciple-making culture is providing a simple, understandable way to live out the vision.
Leaders often make discipleship so complicated that it requires a Ph.D. to understand, but it’s pretty straightforward. Living under the Lordship of Christ means committing to reading His word, repenting of sin and believing the gospel, demonstrating the kingdom and sharing the gospel with others. At the Austin Stone, we embed discipleship in a very simple, reproducible, transferrable tool we call a Life Transformation Group.
These groups are meant to reinforce the basic disciplines of healthy disciples, do it in a reproducible way, and make them easy to multiply with other people.
Finally, it’s important to remember that strong cultures are created over time. Being committed to the basics for a long period of time can seem tedious, especially for leaders in our day, but creating culture happens by doing simple things repeatedly over time.