Jeff Finley “We’re supposed to make disciples of all nations, and to do that we have to be collaborative.” - Efrem Smith at
Exponential 2020
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to make disciples?
Pritchard Dave Great question. Living through that now, for sure. What I have found is the best thing to do is leave the worldly
political discussions and theological discussions at the door and focus on the mission. In conversations I have had with a
district leadership team with a huge spectrum of beliefs, it has been super challenging. So right off, I would say that a baseline
philosophy of ministry and understanding of theological belief needs to be a foundational starting point before anything can
happen — and that understanding between individuals needs to be given its due time through conversation and prayer.
Often, like-minded individuals come together to do something without an emphasis on discipleship. I’m seeing that change,
and because the focus is changing, the discussions are changing too. With quite a bit of listening and asking questions at the
outset, a vision/mission/purpose can develop. Grounding all through prayer can lead to some amazing things.
Jesse Parker God has been having me study and meditate on the church being a body for a couple years now, and one of
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an effective children’s ministry and youth ministry and young adults’ ministry and dynamic Sundays and Bible studies and
outreaches and sending missionaries and... What I believe we need to wake up to is that each church is only a very small
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a multi-church undertaking. I believe we would all be more joyful, stress free and effective if each church focused on what it
was really good at and then partnered with other local churches who are really good at other things. This is how we build a
net without any gaps.
April 2020 — pg. 16
Comment
of the Month
Kevin Stoltz One of the effective ways is to
know the gifts of your local congregation. In
my community, our church offers a hygiene
bank, a Baptist church offers shelter during the
winter months for the homeless when temps
drop below a certain point, and a Foursquare
church offers free meals every other Friday.
Various churches jointly provide children’s
activities in the summer for the community. A
good way to start making disciples is to love
on your community. The community will know
the love of Jesus by how we as the body of
Christ love on them — each and every one.
Comment of the Month
Because our church is so diverse, we have people
on all sides of the spectrum. ... We actually have
taught our staff that we don’t preach about politics;
we don’t talk about it. Instead we’re preaching
biblical values, and when it comes up in my small
group, I just kind of monitor the conversations if
it starts to come up, but there are often times I
just may have to say, “You know what. This is an
important conversation, but it’s getting divisive,”
and I’ll just call it out and say, “Let’s just get back to
what we’re focusing on, which is learning to be like
Jesus who makes disciples who make disciples,
and we’re going to have that conversation on the
side, or you guys can continue that over coffee or
whatever” — just really trying to bring it back to
the core of who is Jesus.
– Deb Walkemeyer, lead co-pastor of Light & Life
Christian Fellowship in Long Beach, California,
when asked during a Light + Life Conversations
video interview about how her congregation
handles diverse political views among members.