Freedom in Christ

05/22/2008 - Greg, I read your article on the 21st Century Restoration and it rang loudly in my life. I grew up in the church of Christ, was a Sunday school teacher, deacon, elder, small group leader, etc. But when we moved away from our childhood town after 40+ years, my wife and I decided to explore other churches because of the persistent view of exclusiveness many church of Christers continue to have, and partly our own need to grow beyond our traditions. Unfortunately, cofc traditions play too big a role in our identity in Christ. We have joined a Christian Church here in Las Vegas that is 7000 believers strong and it is amazing! The focus is not on... is that song/instrument scriptural, should she lead the prayer, can we be a part of this city-wide effort to help AIDS victims, etc. It's... YES, we can do all these good things and more because God has given us the gifts and the responsibility to get involved. The emphasis is on Jesus Christ and what he has and will do for us in our walk with Him. I am continually awed at the humility in people's lives who have turned their hearts over to God and have been changed by Him. Our motto is "come as you are" because God accepts you the way you are and He wants a relationship with you and being in relationship with you will change your heart, mind, and soul. It is so refreshing to take the focus off of form and put it where it belongs - a heart focused on Him. We are loving our newfound freedom in Christ.

We may be moving back soon and it will be a struggle to return to our old church. We have family and friends that expect us to come back. But I'm not sure whether God wants us to return and model a change or continue to learn from others on how truly to follow Jesus. So your family's struggle is similar to ours and we desperately want others to experience what we have experienced. God has a purpose for us wherever we are and He'll use us where we are planted, so I know that wherever we go, we'll be blessed... as long as our hearts remain open and soft and moldable to His.

Keeping on loving Him,

Sam Marutzky

Grace Nyanga: World Bible School

05/12/2008 - I'm responding to the call to write about discipleship plans or strategies of our churches today.

I do happen to be a Christian from the influence of World Bible School evangelism strategy. I started doing World Bible School correspondence courses a year before I decided to become a christian. My attraction to these well decorated papers was simply because I wanted to have a friend in the States and to also keep my Engish active.

However, in the process of doing these courses, I gained faith in addition to the first
two. Now I have friends and not just a friend, I speak and write English well, and most importantly, I do have a friend in Christ Jesus in whom I strongly believe.

World Bible School worked then and still works today. I've used this strategy to reach out to God's people in West Nile region of Uganda. As I write now 11 churches have been established in that area mostly through contacts gained from World Bible School booklets sent out from Jinja and other places.

I have also seen and talked to great leaders in the Lord's churches who come to the faith through this form of evangelism.

It worked and still works.

Grace Nyanga
Box 1226
Jinja, Uganda
www.busogachurchesofchrist.com

Central Church, Sarasota: Discipling, Transformation, Sharing

05/11/2008 - I am a member of the Central Church of Christ in Sarasota, Florida and Rod Myers is our minister.  Even though it's a relatively small congregation, we have at least 50% or more actively involved weekly in "Making Disciples Who Make Disciples.  The fuel of the discipling ministry is the gospel and driven by our hunger and thirst to know God.   We meet one-on-one with someone for at least 6 months and discuss:
 
  A.    The Christian Experience
            
    The Gospel is laid out in Romans 1-8
 
    The text speaks for itself and we let it do the talking
 
    Our task is to live this out and to communicate this to others                   
        
  B.    The Transformational Experience
 
    We come to practice the disciplines of prayer, meditation, Bible Study, confession, solitude &  fasting.
 
    When we faithfully put these into practice we are changed into the image of Christ
 
  C.    The Sharing Experience
            
    Involves being faithful to the person you are working with right now and praying for God to raise up someone for you and your study partner to work with in the next six months.
 
We also have a group of both men and women who are actively involved weekly in a Life Transformation Group.  They read large portions of Scripture daily, then meet in groups of 2 to 4 weekly for sharing and encouraging one another.       
              
Let me tell you about our teens at our congregation.  They wanted to try to reach other teens for Christ so they sat up a booth with a sign on it reading: "Confesssion Booth - It's not what you think".   We were right outside of "Hollywood 20" movie theatre.  They play a long list of different movies including the movie "Expelled".  Our young people weren't trying to promote any peculiar movie just that it is a popular and congested place on a Friday night for the youth and other adults to hang out and go to the movies.  We didn't know until the last minute if the booth would be allowed to stand in front of the theatre.  We are praising God for allowing us the prime location.
 
Our teens were the ones confessing to the curiosity seekers what God has done and is doing in their lives.   Two teens would usually be in the booth at a time while the other teens, their parents and other adults slowly walked around the theatre praising God and praying for open and receptive hearts.  One girl listened for a while and got tears in her eyes.   She was definitely moved, but didn't respond but was invited to come back if she wanted to talk later.  Two different times I saw guys stop who may have first been drawn to the girl in the booth, but their mannerism soon showed their curiosity turned to really listen with a sincere heart. God was touching hearts last night.  I just felt privileged to be there.  I can't wait to get the full report of the whole evening, but honestly only God knows the whole story and we may never know this side of heaven. 
 
I could go on and on and tell you many more exciting things that God is doing in and through the people at Central.  We are glorifying God for blessing us with abundant joy to be able to be a participate in His Work.
 
Sue Adams

David May: Bill Hybels' Book Just Walk Across the Room

05/10/2008 - I was wondering all the same things you asked about evangelism until I read Just Walk Across the Room by Bill Hybels. This book changed my entire perspective on evangelism, and I've been wondering how to do it for about 40 years. I can say more about it, if you want.

My perspective of the church's approach to evangelism is that we have trained individuals to go teach, but have given almost no support to do so. While we have organized our churches around the worship service and around training ("equipping the saints"), we have not organized very well to help those in need (Matthew 25:31-46) or to spread the good news (Mark 16:15-16). I think most members, like me, have struggled with our responsibilities in those two latter areas. Some of us have found ways to be supportive of others who are carrying out these missions through para-church organizations or through churhces other than our home church. But we have not engaged directly in either task.

What Hybels does in his book is very freeing in that regard with respect to sharing good news. First, he suggests that everyone is somewhere on a believer's continuum (my words, not his) ranging from -10 to +10. When a person crosses from a -1 to a +1 is when they become a believer. In the context as we understand it, that would be when they are baptised, though he does not express it in those terms. Hybels goes on to say that at any given point, in any given encounter, our job may not be to take the person from -1 to +1. In fact that may not ever be our assignment. He suggests that the Spirit is in charge of the process and that we are all assigned roles at different times. Today in the convenience store we may be called on to take a mom from a -4 to a -3. This evening in a community meeting we may be assigned the task of taking an activist from a +7 to a +8.

It seems simple, but what it did for me was to free me to do what I can without feeling guilty that I am not baptising the mom or convincing the activist of some error in doctrine. While those things may be the Spirit's goals overall, they are not my assignment in this particular encounter. Being freed in that way was very encouraging and I have done much more "evangelising" since reading the book. In fact right after finishing the book I went out and joined the Civil Air Patrol as a way of meeting people outside the church.

Needless to say, I strongly recommend the book. I have bought several copies and given them to friends.

Hope this helps,

David May, Author
A Call to Arms! Out of the Pews and Into the Streets

The Timothy Network: Focusing on a Few

05/09/2008 - Hello, I'm on your mailing list and just read about the upcoming issue on discipling. The news excited me because of an effort with which I'm involved, i.e. a ministry designed to get beyond "church programming" and focus on pratical and authentic disciple making.

I direct a non-profit discipling ministry based in Murfreesboro, TN known as "The Timothy Network." We launched in August 2005 with the intent and vision of developing a grassroots discipling movement that makes and grows disciples by "focusing on a few." Our work follows the basic pattern modeled by Jesus discipling the twelve. As Jesus intentionally poured his life into these ordinary men over the course of three years (starting a discipling revolution that continues today!) we equip men and women to be disciple makers who are in turn equipped to disciple others. Goal is to create reproducible, multiplying discipling networks by working intentionally and relationally. We sincerely hope to get beyond the trap that focuses on numbers and programming (i.e. to avoid the whole "mile wide, inch deep" syndrome).

We've worked with about 70 people over the past thirty-two months, mostly men and women who are already "Christian" but who have never experienced the blessing of having someone invest in (disciple) them. This number includes people that we've discipled and who are now discipling others, too. From the base of workers that are being equipped, we earnestly hope to begin discipling more who don't know Christ.

We're still a young, fledgling ministry that operates on a small budget. I'm the only full-time minister. That said, we do have a rudimentary website that will give you more info on our work. www.thetimothynetwork.org

I spent twenty years as a collegiate minister within churches of Christ. Relational discipling ministry became my passion because of its long-lasting impact and effectiveness. I'm now trying to work with a broader spectrum of ages and groups in teaching and developing these same principles.

Mike Stroud
Executive Director / Discipling Minister
The Timothy Network, Inc.
P.O. Box 332555
Murfreesboro, TN 37133
615.653.6999

Christie McKee: Connecting People

05/09/2008 - Hello Wineskins, My personal story of discipling ...

My husband would call it nosiness. That "Do you know so-and-so?" syndrome. I call it trying to help people connect.

A woman my age (40 something) had grown up at the church my family attends. Tracy was married and had one preteen son. In the almost 20 years I had seen her, I would not have recognized her husband because of the few times he came in those years. Their son came every Sunday with her, but did not stay for Bible class or get involved in any youth activities. She helped in the nursery, sort of hiding because she did not want to go to classes full of couples. She had met her husband in college and they had returned to her hometown and home church.

One Sunday I saw in the bulletin that she and her family were moving to a neighboring state, to the town where my brother and his family had moved the year before. I had kept up with the story of my brother’s family becoming involved in a new, growing and exciting church there. I saw Tracy's address and phone number in that new state and thought about how hard it must be for her to leave her hometown and her aging mother. I put the bulletin aside and forgot it. A few weeks later, I was shuffling paperwork in the kitchen and saw her new address and phone number again. On a whim, I called the new number and left her a message about my brother and the church he loved and was such a part of growing. Once again, I forgot about the situation. A few weeks passed. One Sunday at church, Tracy’s mother ran up and hugged me, almost knocking the breath out of me! She thanked me repeatedly for inviting Tracy to visit at the new church. Apparently, Tracy and her husband had been visiting congregations they found in the phone book, but none was a good fit for them. Her husband had told her that because of the age of their son, he would go with them to church if they found the “right place.”

Another few weeks passed and I saw my brother at a family dinner. My sister-in-law exclaimed to me how much she loved Tracy and Ben! It took me a minute to realize whom she meant! I asked her about them. They had visited the new church and loved it, had never tried anywhere else. Ben attended with Tracy and their son every Sunday and was even asking to help with the sound system at church, having been in a teenage band. My brother was shocked to learn that Ben had not been a part of our church in all the years they lived here. Their son was also now involved in the youth group with my nephews, never missing an event.

About a month later, at another family gathering, my sister-in-law told me Ben had been baptized! He had asked to study with a small group and made his commitment to Christ. He was heavily involved in worship services, and was the official meat griller at church functions! I had to leave the room, the emotion of having helped someone know our Savior was overwhelming, and especially someone I didn’t even know. The next Sunday, Ben’s mother-in-law came up to me at church with tears in her eyes. She said she had given up hope of Tracy ever experiencing the true Christian marriage her parents had enjoyed. She hugged me and told me it was that one little phone call months before that had started this wonderful Domino effect! I told her my husband hated it when I try to help people meet other people who might know other people, etc.! She grinned and said, “Honey, you just keep up that ministry of “who knows who.” That ministry is the reason my son-in-law is going to heaven and taking his family with him!”

Needless to say, I no longer hesitate to make calls or talk to people in the “who knows who” ministry! I guess God made me nosy for a very good reason!

Christie Chaney McKee
Madison, AL

(Names in story were changed for privacy.)

Donelson Church of Christ: Home Churches

05/09/2008 - The first thing that comes to my mind regarding how we should approach discipling today is what we have been doing at Donelson Church of Christ since 2000, and that is, "home churches.#&34;

The shepherds have encouraged everyone to be in a small group of believers so that relationships in Christ can develop quickly and more deeply, so that practical applications of the Word can be taught, so that insights can be shared and validated, so that struggles with sin and life can be expressed and responded to, so that the command to love one another can be practiced, so that the life of a disciple of Jesus can be modeled, and so that we have a setting to bring an unbeliever into that could be easier and more effective than the assembly alone, at least for some.

We have about 25 groups that meet on Sunday nights. However, for some, a small group might be a Bible class on Sunday or Wednesday. We need several points of entry for those seeking God.

We are trying to be more intention to use the language of making disciples, emphasizing in all areas of involvment in the church the following four things: Love God, as Jesus showed us taught us; Love one another, as Jesus practiced and commanded; Love our families, as Jesus loved the church and gave himself for her; and Love the world, as God does and commissioned us to take the good news to.

Charles B. Herndon, Jr.
shepherd/elder