Love the banter! I definitely hear where you’re coming from and would make the following comments in response:

1. Regarding the various ‘stages’ of spiritual development: I believe in the power of ‘experience-based’ discipleship (learning through doing as opposed to just listening/discussing) and see the potency for it at all stages of spiritual development. Moreover, from an evangelistic perspective I’m noticing that my neighbours are far more interested in serving at our church’s homeless shelter these days than they are in attending one of our weekend services – i.e.: that missional experiences can also be/become a more significant access point to faith for not-yet believing people. Having said that though, there definitely needs to be a greater emphasis on feeding those who are at spiritual stages that require it and activation into mission for those for whom it would be most catalytic in their development. I believe in REVEAL’s data that mission catalyzes Christ-centred people more than anything else the church could offer programmatically. But I also believe their data that other programmatic endeavors are more catalytic to people’s growth at other stages. So please don’t hear me suggest that mission is the spiritual development ‘silver bullet’ for everyone at all stages of spiritual growth; I’m just highlighting its importance because I feel it’s been under-emphasized in the Church’s approach to spiritual formation in recent decades.

2. Regarding your fear that mission could become ‘Christ-less’: That’s a legitimate fear that has demonstrated itself in history. And emphasis on mission can easily drift into an exclusive focus on mission apart from the Person, teachings and character formation of Jesus. So know that I believe that we’re on a potentially slippery slope, and know that I hear this concern not only expressed across the country among pastors but through the congregation in which serve. So here’s my bottom line reply (paraphrased by something I heard Brian McLaren say in an interview about his book ‘Everything Must Change’): appreciate that we’ve already slipped. Don’t assume that our current reality is the perfect ideal from which we could stray; recognize our (your) church’s current reality as an imperfect/incomplete version of God’s vision for His Bride and Body and work towards not straying. In this day and age I believe that means a greater emphasis, facilitation and operationalization of mission in the life of local churches; in future years it may be a greater emphasis on other aspects of discipleship – knowing we’re never shooting for either/or situations but always seeking to build and grow churches that offer holistic and well-rounded discipleship strategies.

Make sense? Hope so… Give me a shout anytime if you want to process this further. You’ve stimulated a great conversation that I hope others reading this blog are invigorated by and enjoying as much as I am!

Love the banter! I definitely hear where you’re coming from and would make the following comments in response:

1. Regarding the various ‘stages’ of spiritual development: I believe in the power of ‘experience-based’ discipleship (learning through doing as opposed to just listening/discussing) and see the potency for it at all stages of spiritual development. Moreover, from an evangelistic perspective I’m noticing that my neighbours are far more interested in serving at our church’s homeless shelter these days than they are in attending one of our weekend services – i.e.: that missional experiences can also be/become a more significant access point to faith for not-yet believing people. Having said that though, there definitely needs to be a greater emphasis on feeding those who are at spiritual stages that require it and activation into mission for those for whom it would be most catalytic in their development. I believe in REVEAL’s data that mission catalyzes Christ-centred people more than anything else the church could offer programmatically. But I also believe their data that other programmatic endeavors are more catalytic to people’s growth at other stages. So please don’t hear me suggest that mission is the spiritual development ‘silver bullet’ for everyone at all stages of spiritual growth; I’m just highlighting its importance because I feel it’s been under-emphasized in the Church’s approach to spiritual formation in recent decades.

2. Regarding your fear that mission could become ‘Christ-less’: That’s a legitimate fear that has demonstrated itself in history. And emphasis on mission can easily drift into an exclusive focus on mission apart from the Person, teachings and character formation of Jesus. So know that I believe that we’re on a potentially slippery slope, and know that I hear this concern not only expressed across the country among pastors but through the congregation in which serve. So here’s my bottom line reply (paraphrased by something I heard Brian McLaren say in an interview about his book ‘Everything Must Change’): appreciate that we’ve already slipped. Don’t assume that our current reality is the perfect ideal from which we could stray; recognize our (your) church’s current reality as an imperfect/incomplete version of God’s vision for His Bride and Body and work towards not straying. In this day and age I believe that means a greater emphasis, facilitation and operationalization of mission in the life of local churches; in future years it may be a greater emphasis on other aspects of discipleship – knowing we’re never shooting for either/or situations but always seeking to build and grow churches that offer holistic and well-rounded discipleship strategies.

Make sense? Hope so… Give me a shout anytime if you want to process this further. You’ve stimulated a great conversation that I hope others reading this blog are invigorated by and enjoying as much as I am!

I’m really appreciating these thoughts, I’m a relatively young leader and this whole conversation is pretty “front-and-center” in my world right now.

I have a couple things coming to my mind, and I hope you don’t mind the discussion (again I think a big part of what this is to be right?) but here is where my head is going…

The REVEAL results really were a game-changer in regards to how church leaders understood that which was the most catalytic in moving people towards Jesus, and their description of a progression of “movement” has been something I have really pondered over (exploring, growing, close, centred).

So what is interesting is now our conversation exists in different parts, one being the proper discipleship approach to those considered “explorers” (albeit labels always suck…but for the sake of conversation…), as compared to those considered “Christ-centred” and then everyone in between.

By Willow’s own concession the missional engagement was extremely catalytic for those they would place in the “Christ-centred” category, but what about those earlier on in the continuum? (That is actually a question I’m asking you….what do I do ?)

Is there even such a thing as a standardized approach to discipleship? Again we both would say that there is a healthy blend of relational intimacy with Jesus and missional engagement that must exist, but does that recipe change as growth occurs? Or even as different seasons of life occur?

The last comment I would put on the table is simply that my heart is to see people engage in mission, but at the same time as a Pastor I am scared to death that I could nurture a mentality that says the summation of the Christian-experience is acts of service to other people. While these acts of love are undoubtedly essential, and the way by which we should be known as Christ-followers, they are of course not the whole story, simply part of it.

So my second question would be how then, do we disciple people into a missional context of living, while instilling in them a Gospel-centric approach to their relationship with Jesus?

I hope I’m making sense, and that you would consider this a valuable use of your time.

Blessings,

Brian.

Thanks for checking in. I want to affirm that we are, in fact, on the same page – agreeing with you that Jesus’ teaching and relational investment in His disciples were important to their spiritual growth, and that discipling people apart in absence of these ingredients (i.e.: through missional experiences alone) would leave someone spiritually underdeveloped.

At the same time, I am proposing some potentially contentious ideas (that’s the point of this blog, isn’t it?!). What I see in scripture, and have observed and experienced in the context of our church’s approach, is that missional experiences have significantly greater catalytic effect in people’s spiritual growth than we’ve been assuming. Willow Creek’s REVEAL data affirmed this as well, citing that ‘serving the under-resourced’ was the most spiritually catalytic activity the church could provide ‘Christ-centred’ people. So from a discipleship perspective I’m in no way negating teaching and spiritual relationships – I agree that they’re essential to spiritual growth – but feel like of these three options we’ve typically been under-appreciating the potentially most spiritually-developing agent of them all. This is what I’m trying to highlight in the contrast of Luke 8 and 9 in Jesus’ original followers.

As well, I’d probably challenge the ‘mandatory precursor’ paradigm. While I completely agree that people can do missionally-oriented activity all their lives and never know Jesus, I wouldn’t want to assume that it’s impossible to know Jesus through mission alone. Again, let me state for clarity’s sake that I wouldn’t advise this – this is in no way holistic spiritual development, but there seems to be a mindset in North American Christianity that we ought not to engage people in mission until they ‘know enough…’ Again, I think that’s too linear a way of thinking and robs us of the fullness of spiritual growth opportunities that are right in front of us.

Hope that makes more sense… Thanks for pushing back and digging deeper into this discussion!

However I must be honest in saying that as I read this something inside me felt disconnected, as if I agreed with what you were saying and yet there was some nuance that didn’t fit inside my paradigm of missional discipleship…and after reflecting for a bit I think I figured out what I’m wrestling through.

In your post, you say that it was through “living missionally – not through teaching environments or relational exposure” that the disciples experienced the most radical growth in their understanding of Christ…and while I am by no means contending with your assertion that missional living is a fundamental aspect of discipleship, I am slightly bothered by that sentence.

I think you would agree with me in stating that the relational exposure to Jesus and His teachings was a mandatory precursor to the missional engagement the disciples experienced. To engage in activities that look missional without a relationship with Jesus is not missional at all, simply good deeds. Furthermore to claim Peter’s announcement of Jesus as the Messiah as evidence that they understood the “Christ-ness” of Jesus more than before as a direct result of their missional experience falls short when we read that immediately after announcing Jesus as the Christ, Peter rebukes him (Mk. 8:32).

Don’t get me wrong, I love mission….but I don’t want to be the kind of disciple that rebukes Jesus…I would suggest that while Peter understood SOMETHING…he still did not really understand Jesus.

I guess I struggle with any understanding of discipleship/mission where the two exist in dichotomy. From the rest of your post, I see that you do too, and yet the nuance I’m picking up is that direct relationship with Jesus does not result in greater understanding of him, THAT is actually derived from engaging in mission.

So while I really think you and I are on the same page, I would like to clarify by simply saying that MISSION is the result of good DISCIPLESHIP. In fact, if someone has been being discipled for a long time…and is not engaging in mission…they are not being discipled very well.

We have to know Jesus to engage in mission, we have to know Jesus to even understand which mission it is we are to engage in. We have to know Jesus to even understand how to really love people.

Simply put…we have to know Jesus. In relationship, by exposure, and FOR mission..

Again, I hope this is not needless banter….but that clarification seemed important to me.

Brian.