A Vision for Growth
The full title of this class is “A Vision for Growth: John Wesley’s Concept of Discipleship.” The Great Commission, as we refer to Jesus’ final words to His followers before He ascended to the Father, is a directive for us to make disciples, to teach people to obey everything that Christ commanded. Growth is all about discipleship. Christian bookstores and conferences are full of resources on “church growth” but we are faced with a dilemma. To put it bluntly, churches are filling up with spectators, but emptying out of disciples. Elton Trueblood, an author, theologian, and university chaplain whose life spanned most of the 20th century, said, “Perhaps the greatest single weakness of the contemporary Christian Church is that millions of supposed members are not really involved at all, and, what is worse, do not think it strange that they are not . . . There is no real chance of victory in a campaign if ninety per cent of the soldiers are untrained and uninvolved, but that is exactly where we stand now.”
My heart today is to not criticize where we’re at, but to bring a word of encouragement and hope. I pray that God would give us a bigger vision of who He is and what He wants to do to grow us upward and outward, for His glory. Nothing is too hard for God! I am not in any way criticizing the Church, or our church – I am greatly encouraged about the high value of servanthood around here. But we would be mistaken if we thought we’d “arrived”. Until every person is walking fully in the plans and purposes of God for their lives, the task of making disciples, the Great Commission, remains unfinished. God, give us Kingdom vision!
I want to start with John Wesley’s concepts and then hone in on what I believe the Lord has for us specifically today, for such a time and place as this.
Wesley’s great idea seems almost obvious to us today, at least mentally if not in practice – “The church changes the world not by making converts but by making disciples.”
John Wesley, 1703 – 1791, was a Renaissance man by any standard – popular mass evangelist, university scholar, social reformer, theologian, several-times-a-day preacher. Wesley was fluent in several languages, memorized classical and Christian authors, published his own English dictionary, developed his own discipling & nurturing system, sent out teams of traveling preachers, and published a home medical handbook that went through more than 20 editions! If there was a recurrent theme in John Wesley’s upbringing, as the 15th of 18 children, it was the importance of discipline and order. This is a great example of how God works all things together for the good of His people – discipline and order were the very things that God used in Wesley to enable him to do what he did. Wesley’s gift for organization was bent toward his main objective, which was to form a genuine people of God within the institutional church. He organized not to make converts, but to turn converts into saints.
Wesley had 4 main convictions about Discipleship:
- The necessity of discipleship
Wesley: “I am more and more convinced that the devil himself desires nothing more than this, that the people of any place should be half-awakened and then left to themselves to fall asleep again.”
- The necessity of small groups for discipleship
Wesley organized a Methodist “society”. They met in weekly classes, small groups, and leadership schools – these meetings were not considered optional, but an integral part of growing up in the faith.
- The necessity of lay leadership in discipleship
By the time of his death, Wesley’s society had 100,000 members with 10,000 leaders. The selecting and training of such an enormous number of leaders required a huge effort, a massive mobilization of lay people – the priesthood of all believers.
- Holiness and service as the goals of discipleship
The emphasis on both personal and social holiness kept Wesley’s movement from becoming ingrown and detached. When holiness and justice are the goals of discipleship, tough-minded Christians can be produced, who can truly reform both the church and the nation.
As I said earlier, we need a bigger vision for growth in the Kingdom of God. Francis Frangipane said, “We must let love grow until it reaches Christ-like proportions. We cannot be hemmed in by the preset boundaries of our love.” This is such a great descriptor of the Kingdom – by our own efforts, we may achieve a tiny, manicured garden in a quiet corner . . . but God has a much bigger picture in mind. We need to let go and let God bring growth however, whenever and in whatever manner He likes!
So, what are we talking about when we use the word “growth”? A simple definition is that growth is an increase in some quantity over time. It can be a physical quantity, such as population or finances, or it can be an abstract quantity, such as maturity or how something grows. Growth can be normal or abnormal, caused by internal or external stimuli, rapid or slow, seen individually and in groups. The Kingdom of God is about living people, and one thing is for sure – all living things grow. Dr. Charles Stanley says that when you plant seed, you will reap what you sowed, you’ll reap more than you sowed, and you’ll reap later than you sowed. Management experts have a saying, “Your system is perfectly designed to yield the results you are getting.”
Each time my children go for a check-up at the doctor, their heights and weights are recorded on a chart. Growth charts show health care providers how kids are growing . . . they can see whether they’re developing proportionately . . . if the growth rate suddenly slows down, it might indicate a health problem.
When it comes to growth in the church, what are we looking for? Higher attendance records? Greater maturity? Bigger budgets? More staff? New programs? Deeper experiences? Signs and wonders? There’s nothing wrong with any of these measures, but I want to take a detour here and talk about growth from another perspective.
I’ve been reading Dallas Willard’s “The Divine Conspiracy.” Actually it would be more accurate to say that I’ve been nibbling a little of it each day – “reading” would be a generous word to describe the pace at which I am taking in this fantastic book. I want to share an excerpt with you from a section entitled “God’s Joyous Being” –
“God leads a very interesting life, and he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseparable from his infinite joy. All of the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink tiny droplets of soul-exhilarating joy, God continuously experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness.
Some time ago, a young man . . . took me out to see the beaches near his home in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. I was totally unprepared for the experience. I had seen beaches, or so I thought. But when we came over the rise where the sea and land opened up to us, I stood in stunned silence and then slowly walked towards the waves. Words cannot capture the view that confronted me. I saw space and light and texture and colour and power . . . that seemed hardly of this earth.
Gradually there crept into my mind the realization that God sees this all the time. He sees it, experiences it, knows it from every possible point of view, this and billions of other scenes like and unlike it, in this and billions of other worlds. Great tidal waves of joy must constantly wash through his being.
It is perhaps strange to say, but suddenly I was extremely happy for God and thought I had some sense of what an infinitely joyous consciousness he is and of what it might have meant for him to look at his creation and find it ‘very good’.
We pay a lot for a tank with a few tropical fish in it and never tire of looking at their brilliant iridescence and marvelous forms and movements. But God has seas full of them, which he constantly enjoys.
We are enraptured by a well-done movie sequence or by a few bars from an opera or lines from a poem. We treasure our great experiences for a lifetime, and we may have very few of them. But he is simply one great inexhaustible and eternal experience of all that is good and true and beautiful and right.
Human beings can lose themselves in card games or electric trains and think they are fortunate. But to God there is available, ‘Towering clouds of gases trillions of miles high, backlit by nuclear fires in forming stars, galaxies cartwheeling into collision and sending explosive shock waves boiling through millions of light-years of time and space.’ These things are all before him, along with numberless unfolding rosebuds, souls and songs – and immeasurably more of which we know nothing.
The poet William Cowper appropriately exclaimed of God:
Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never ending skill,
He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.”
It’s in God’s very nature to create, to grow, to unfold, to form. It’s unavoidable that we who are created in His image are going to grow. We may grow more wise or more foolish, more humble or more proud, more mature or more childish, more thankful or more grumbly, but one way or another, we are going to grow. Living things grow. Depending on the kind of seed, fertilizer, water, level of care, and a number of other factors, there may be a large or small amount of growth. But we can be sure of this – we are going to get more of whatever we plant, feed, water, and nurture. Weeds grow right alongside wheat.
Jesus spoke of growth when He taught about the Kingdom of God. In Matthew 13:31 – 32, Jesus says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”
God does with us what He wants. He is the potter, we are the clay. He is the master gardener. It’s not for us to understand why God does what He does – it’s for us to submit and surrender to Him. Ezekiel 17:22 – 24 – “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will take a shoot from the very top of a cedar and plant it; I will break off a tender sprig from its topmost shoots and plant it on a high and lofty mountain. On the mountain heights of Israel I will plant it; it will produce branches and bear fruit and become a splendid cedar. Birds of every kind will nest in it; they will find shelter in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will know that I the Lord bring down the tall tree and make the low tree grow tall. I dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish.”
God is the Lord of growth!
I want to take some time to talk about different kinds of growth.
Only in rare cases in the natural world can we see tangible growth literally before our eyes, in things like bamboo, which can grow several feet per day at the peak growing season. Most things grow slowly, little by little. Fruit tends to have superior taste when it is allowed to ripen slowly. I remember when honeydew used to actually taste like its name describes, but in our modern era, for the most part, we no longer allow fruit to ripen in the fullness of time – we speed things up artificially, resulting in beautiful looking but inferior tasting fruit. For 14 years, I’ve taught my children their schooling at home. One of the main appeals for Paul and me was that we could offer an environment in which our children could each progress at their own rate. In the Kingdom of God, we need to let people grow at their own pace in their spiritual journey. That’s not to say that we take a hands-off approach, but we can offer many different opportunities, resources, and pathways, with the goal of equipping God’s people to build up the body of Christ internally and externally. Each of us can lend a hand and encourage those who are a step behind us on the pathway, just as those who have gone before continue to call out to us to grow and perservere.
All growth involves change of some sort, and is usually accompanied by pain. When I had my adolescent growth spurt, I would lie in bed moaning at times because my legs were afflicted by “growing pains”. Similarly in the Kingdom of God, we need to realize that all growth, whether personal or as a church, involves some kind of pain. I want to refer back to Walt’s teaching last week – we need to lay down our preferences, comfort, and thoughts, and let God bring growth however He chooses. We can make room for new people. We can be flexible about times and places for meetings. We can be willing to serve in areas outside of our specialties.
After a heavy storm, limbs often fall all over our yard. Sometimes a limb falls on a living plant that continues to grow underneath it. The plant may be alive, but barely – it becomes stunted and pale. Once the limb is removed and the plant is again exposed to the life-giving sun and rain, it will grow normally again and begin the process of restoration. God wants us to participate with Him in bringing forth healthy growth. Our task varies depending on what He’s doing. It’s so important to watch what the Father is doing, so we’ll know whether to plant, water, fertilize, remove obstructions, transplant, protect, brace up, prune, or wait.
Sometimes growth requires extra TLC and attention. This week, our friends Misha & Larissa in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, gave birth to a baby girl. This was wonderful news! But she was born a month early, so she will require special care in order to give her tiny body time to develop healthy immunities and so forth. At times, disciples-in-the-making require extra TLC and attention. There’s no one-size-fits-all formula and timetable when it comes to growing healthy disciples. Certainly there are principles we can pay attention to, but each individual is infinitely valuable and deserves careful tending.
At times, periods of intense growth punctuate our lives. I think of my teenage sons, who seemingly add an inch of height overnight, while consuming unbelievable quantities of breakfast cereal and meat. When they expend their abundant energy on physical pursuits like long bike rides or hours of ball games, their hunger increases even more. A well-fed teen is a happy teen, from what I can tell! I think that principle holds in the Kingdom of God. When people are hungry for more of God and more of His Word, intense growth will follow. At such times, we can spur one another on, fanning the flame of what God is doing. As my sons grow taller, it makes me want to stand up a little straighter. Intense growth in the Kingdom is contagious!
Some living things need a peaceful environment in which to thrive. In rural Australia and other regions where there are vast areas of mostly flat terrain, you will often see rows of tall, thick trees which form a windbreaker. Without these windbreakers, fields of tender young plants will not survive the gusts and gales that sweep over the plains. Sheep are gentle creatures that need a calm environment in which to peacefully eat, ruminate, and rest. If pregnant ewes are greatly distressed, they will miscarry their lambs, immediately limiting future growth of the flock. We need to protect young ones in the Lord and provide a place of peace and support in which they can thrive.
There is a condition in babies known as “failure to thrive.” This is what happens when a young child simply stops growing, and perhaps even begins to decline. This condition can have a physical cause, or result from either neglect or hyper-vigilance. We need to be careful in the body of Christ to not err on either extreme of neglecting those whom the Lord has entrusted to our care, or hovering in such a way as to stifle freedom. Growth occurs best in a nurturing environment free from harsh restraints.
Too much growth too quickly can be detrimental – we need God’s wisdom and timing. Plants that grow up too quickly cannot withstand the storms of life. It’s easy to release people into places of leadership if there is a pressing need, but if this is done prematurely, it can have devastating effects on individuals and their families.
We know too well how growth can occur in a negative direction. The Gulf oil spill is a graphic example of this – it is a powerful picture of the way sin gushes out and wreaks havoc in many lives . . . but God is a God of restoration! I read a quote from the White House this week – “What we outline tonight will be the beginning of the process to restore the Gulf, not just the way it was the day the rig exploded, but years ago.” This may be an outrageously bold statement made for political purposes, but it mirrors what Jesus does for us – He doesn’t just restore us to what we were like before our sin showed outwardly, but to what He originally intended for us to be – pure and spotless, in a loving and intimate relationship with Him.
The key to healthy growth is faithfulness. Most growth occurs little by little, incrementally. Our job is to do what we see the Father doing, as Jesus did. We can encourage one another to persevere.
I believe we need a much bigger expectation of growth in the Kingdom. We need to look for it, to see what God is doing. Just as a farmer watches a field, we can survey the land and see where God is working and what He is doing. If we don’t pay attention, we may be roughshod and ruin a field of tender plants if we don’t even notice that something is growing there. God is always working, always bringing forth new growth. He wants us to partner with Him in planting, watering, nurturing, protecting, removing obstacles, reaping. May God open our eyes and hearts!
As I prepared for this class, I thought about all the different ways we could apply the subject of growth in the Kingdom of God. We could look at physical, spiritual, and emotional growth. We could look at individual, small group, and church growth. We could look at growth within demographic groupings. We could look at the fruit of the Spirit. We could look at numerical attendance, giving, and other quantitative measures. We could look at doctrinal understanding. All of these approaches are valid and helpful at times. But the idea I believe the Lord left me with was to learn from the perspective of the six great traditions within the body of Christ historically.
For the remainder of our time together, I want to read you a quote from someone who has left a big impact on the body of Christ in each of these areas. We tend to think mostly about the areas that we are naturally drawn to or participate in regularly, but we can grow in each of these areas. I encourage you to read widely within all of these areas – we each need to be sharpened, stretched, inspired! Listen to what I’m saying, but more importantly, listen to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you today.
Contemplative (focused on prayer)
Quote from Making All Things New (Henri Nouwen, 1932 – 1996, Roman Catholic priest and psychologist) – “The spiritual life is a gift. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit, who lifts us up into the kingdom of God’s love. But to say that being lifted up into the kingdom of love is a divine gift does not mean that we wait passively until the gift is offered to us. Jesus tells us to set our hearts on the kingdom. Setting our hearts on something involves not only serious aspiration but also strong determination. A spiritual life requires human effort. The forces that keep pulling us back into a worry-filled life are far from easy to overcome . . . From all that I said about our worried, overfilled lives, it is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to understand in which direction he calls us . . . A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear. When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The word obedient comes from the Latin word audire, which means ‘listening’.”
Holiness (focused on virtue)
Quote from The Imitation of Christ (Thomas a Kempis, 1380 – 1471, monk) – “I wonder why we are so eager to chatter and gossip with each other, since we seldom return to the quiet of our own hearts without a damaged conscience? The reason is that by idle chit-chat we seek comfort from one another and we hope to lighten our distracted hearts. And to make matters worse, we chatter most freely about our favorite topics, about what we would like to have, or about those things we especially dislike. What a mistake! This outside comfort is no small detriment to the inner comfort that comes from God. Therefore, we must watch and pray that we do not waste time. If it is proper to speak, speak of what will benefit others spiritually. Bad habits and neglect of our spiritual progress contribute much to our endless chatter.”
Charismatic (focused on Spirit-empowerment)
Quote from The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (Ignatius of Loyola, 1491 – 1556, founder of Jesuit spiritual retreats) – “I call it consolation when the soul is aroused by an interior movement which causes it to be inflamed with love of its Creator and Lord and consequently can love no created thing in this world for its own sake, but only in the Creator of all things. It is likewise consolation when one sheds tears inspired by love of the Lord, whether it be sorrow for sins or because of the Passion of Christ our Lord, or for any other reason that is directly connected to his service and praise. Finally, I call consolation any increase of faith, hope, and charity and any interior joy that calls and attracts to heavenly things, and to the salvation of one’s soul, inspiring it with peace and quiet in Christ our Lord.
I call desolation . . . darkness of the soul, turmoil of the mind, inclination to low and earthly things, restlessness resulting from many disturbances and temptations which leads to loss of faith, loss of hope, loss of love. It is also desolation when a soul finds itself completely apathetic, tepid, sad, and separated as it were, from its Creator and Lord.
In time of desolation one should never make a change, but stand firm and constant in the resolution and decision which guided him the day before the desolation, or to the decision which he observed in the preceding consolation. For just as the good spirit [the Holy Spirit] guides and counsels us in consolation, so in desolation the evil spirit guides and counsels. Following the counsels of this latter spirit, one can never find the correct way to a right decision.”
Social Justice (focused on compassion)
Quote from Christianity and Social Order (William Temple, 1881 – 1944, an archbishop of Canterbury, teacher, preacher and outstanding leader of modern Protestantism) – “The method of the Church’s impact upon society at large should be twofold. First, the Church must announce Christian principles and point out where the existing social order is in conflict with them. Second, it must then pass on to Christian citizens, acting in their civic capacities, the task of reshaping the existing order in closer conformity to the principles.
If Christianity is true at all, it is a truth of universal application: all things should be done in the Christian spirit and in accordance with Christian principles. ‘Then,’ say those who want reform, ‘produce your Christian solution for unemployment.’ But there neither is nor could be such a thing. The Christian faith does not by itself enable its members to see how a vast number of people within an intricate economic system will be affected by a particular economic or political idea. ‘In that case,’ say those who want to uphold the status quo, ‘keep off the turf! By your own confession you are out of place here.’ Here the Church must reply, ‘No; I cannot tell you what is the remedy. But I can tell you that a society with chronic unemployment is a diseased society. If you are not doing all that you can to find the remedy, you are guilty before God.’
The Church is likely to be attacked from both sides if it does its duty. It will be told that it has become ‘political’ when in fact it has merely stated its principles and pointed out when they have been breached. The Church will be told by advocates of particular policies that it is futile because it does not support theirs. If the Church is faithful to its commission, it will ignore both sets of complaints and continue as far as it can to influence all citizens and permeate all parties. We are dealing here with Original Sin, the least popular part of traditional Christianity.”
Evangelical (focused on Word-centeredness)
Quote from Conversation (E. Stanley Jones, 1884 – 1973, missionary and theologian who is sometimes referred to as the Billy Graham of India) – “The best Man that ever lived on our planet illustrated a rhythm of receptivity and response. No one was so utterly dependent on God and no one was more personally disciplined in his habits. He did three things by habit: He read the Word of God by habit, He prayed by habit, He passed on to others by habit what he had and what he had found. First, the habit of reading the Word of God daily, preferably in the morning. The New Testament is the inspired record of the Revelation – the revelation is the person of Jesus Christ. He moves out of the pages of this Book and meets us with the impact of his person on our persons. That impact is cleansing. When you ‘expose your all to his everything,’ then you submit yourself to a daily cleansing of the mind, of motive, of emotions.
I know two brilliant Christians who come to the daily morning devotions without their Bibles. They can meditate, they say. They are both shallow. For they mediate God to themselves through their own thinking – they become the medium. They do not go to God direct as they imagine – they go through their own thinking; they become the mediator. That is why we have to have the revelation of God through the Word. It is God interpreting himself to us. His interpretation of himself is Jesus. When you expose your thinking to him, you expose yourself to God. These words of the New Testament have been in such close contact with the Word that they are vibrant with Life . . . Take the prescription of the Word of God daily. No Christian is sound who is not scriptural.”
Incarnational (focused on sacraments)
The incarnational tradition employs the material world to make real the spiritual world, ignoring the artificial wall between the material and spiritual worlds.
Quote from The Quotidian Mysteries (Kathleen Norris, born 1947, poet and essayist) – “I detect in the quotidian, meaning daily or ordinary, rhythms of writing a stage that might be described as parturient, or in labor, about to produce or come forth with an idea of discovery. And it always seems that just when daily life seems most unbearable, stretching out before me like a prison sentence, when I seem most dead inside, reduced to mindlessness, bitter tears or both, that what is inmost breaks forth, and I realize that what had seemed ‘dead time’ was actually a period of gestation. It is a quotidian mystery that dailiness can lead to such despair and yet also be at the core of our salvation.
We express this every time we utter the Lord’s Prayer. The ‘bread of this world’ is all that nourishes and energizes us, not only food but the love of friends and family, money, ambition, consideration, power, everything that puts into us the capacity for action. We need to keep praying for this food, acknowledging our needs as daily, because in the act of asking, the prayer awakens in us the trust that God will provide . . . Each day brings with it not only the necessity of eating but the renewal of our love of and in God. This may sound like a simple thing, but it is not easy to maintain faith, hope or love in the everyday.
It was in the play of writing a poem that I first became aware that the demands of laundry might have something to do with God’s command that we worship, that we sing praise on a regular basis. Both laundry and worship are repetitive activities with a potential for tedium, and I hate to admit it, but laundry often seems like the more useful of the tasks. But both are the work that God has given us to do.”
(Let’s pray . . . surrender . . . abide . . . encourage . . . let your Kingdom come!)
