What is a Covenant?

This week is a special week at The Road. We are going to covenant together as a body officially. People will step up and make this promise below to each other in Christian brotherhood. A covenant is an OT idea stronger than an agreement or a contract; more like a blood oath, a solemn vow, or a three-way promise which we enter into with each other. We will still worship with all the family of Christ who joins us on Sundays, but this group will have a promised commitment to one another, with a desire to be accountable to it, as they follow Christ themselves. Baptists have always been a covenant people, with many churches designing their own in order to capture the important points for their congregation. Here is ours

Having, as we trust, been brought by divine grace to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and to give up ourselves to him, and having been baptized upon our profession of faith, in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, we do now, relying on His gracious aid, solemnly and joyfully covenant with each other.
We will work and pray for the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. We will walk together in brotherly love, as becomes the members of a Christian Church, exercise an affectionate care and watchfulness over each other and faithfully admonish and entreat one another as occasion may require.

We will not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, nor neglect to pray for ourselves and others.

We will endeavor to bring up such as may at any time be under our care, in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and by a pure and loving example to seek the salvation of our family and friends.

We will rejoice at each other’s happiness and endeavor with tenderness and sympathy to bear each other’s burdens and sorrows. 

We will seek, by Divine aid, to live carefully in the world, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, and remembering that, as we have been voluntarily buried by baptism and raised again from the symbolic grave, so there is on us a special obligation now to lead a new and holy life. 

We will work together for the continuance of a faithful evangelical ministry in this church, as we sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines. We will contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the Gospel through all nations. 

We will, when we move from this place, as soon as possible, unite with some other church where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God’s Word. 

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all. Amen.

So excited for this Sunday, and for the body of Christ known as The Road!

Abortion in the Pews

We will have about 1.2 million abortions in our country this year. Half of those women will be regular church goers and self-identified Christians. One may argue that many of these women are casual or nominal Christians, and not genuinely saved. So just to be on the conservative side, let's say that 200,000 of the 600,000 are actually believers. An abortion costs about $500 on average. This means that in 2016 believers will contribute over $100,000,000; that's one-hundred million dollars for all of us who have trouble counting zeros. Therefore, if we could just stop Christians from have abortions, we would truly begin to defund Planned Parenthood without regard to a presidential veto.

After that lesson in math, here's one from statistics. A recently released study demonstrated that only 7% of women who were regular church attendees when they had an abortion ever sought counsel from someone in the church. When asked why, they responded in unison; the church was judgmental, condemning, and shameful. They felt like the church response would not be helpful, but terrible. They were probably right, and still are in most cases.

Having said those two things, I went to a seminar yesterday. It was put on by Care-Net which is a network of Pregnancy Centers seeking to care for women in unplanned pregnancies. The Pregnancy Care Center of Tiftarea, whom I work for, is an affiliated center. Our centers typically, not exclusively, see women who are unchurched. The seminar was addressing the problem of the other group of women that I mentioned before--those in the church that don't typically come to us.

They want to stop the money, the murder, and the mauling in the church. So what they are proposing is that the church be like the pregnancy centers within the church. They think that the church can and should non-judgmentally love and care for these women. Novel concept--love one another. Crazy, huh! Almost like Someone said that before John 15:12. Care-Net wants to offer training for churches, and ways for pcc's to come alongside the church (instead of the other way around) to help the churches help men, women, and families feel like the church is a place they can turn to in a time of fear, shame, and worry.

Training is good, but the perception of the people will take longer to change. The attitude of the church must change from condemnation to love. Our practice can be holiness and love simultaneously. We do not have to sacrifice our commitments to righteousness in order to look upon sinful people with compassion, and aid them in their suffering. When this is preached, taught, and lived out in the church for an extended time, perception may change. Hopefully church culture will change. Attitude will change. Only then will our effectiveness increase as we truly begin to rescue those who are regularly in our congregations, and those who would one day be in our congregations.

One-third of my generation is gone. Many from "Christian" mothers, afraid of "Christian" churches. Let's start changing the perception now.

Shopkeepers

American pastors are abandoning their posts, left and right, and at an alarming rate. They are not leaving their churches and getting other jobs. Congregations still pay their salaries. Their names remain on the church stationary and they continue to appear in pulpits on Sundays. But they are abandoning their posts, their calling. They have gone whoring after other gods. What they do with their time under the guise of pastoral ministry hasn’t the remotest connection with what the church’s pastors have done for most of twenty centuries.

A few of us are angry about it. We are angry because we have been deserted…. It is bitterly disappointing to enter a room full of people whom you have every reason to expect share the quest and commitments of pastoral work and find within ten minutes that they most definitely do not. They talk of images and statistics. They drop names. They discuss influence and status. Matters of God and the soul and Scripture are not grist for their mills.

The pastors of America have metamorphosed into a company of shopkeepers, and the shops they keep are churches. They are preoccupied with shopkeeper’s concerns–how to keep the customers happy, how to lure customers away from competitors down the street, how to package the goods so that the customers will lay out more money.

Some of them are very good shopkeepers. They attract a lot of customers, pull in great sums of money, develop splendid reputations. Yet it is still shopkeeping; religious shopkeeping, to be sure, but shopkeeping all the same. The marketing strategies of the fast-food franchise occupy the waking minds of these entrepreneurs; while asleep they dream of the kind of success that will get the attention of journalists.

The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community. The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God. It is this responsibility that is being abandoned in spades.

-Eugene Peterson in his intro to his book Working the Angles.

Is Pastoral Turnover in the NT?

I have been a director of missions in my association for 2.5 years. During that time, I have seen or am seeing twelve pastoral changes. We have 26 churches in the association. A couple of those turnovers have been the same churches, so not quite half the churches have switched, but nearly. Can this be good for a church? Maybe; each situation is different. Pastors and churches are like a marriage, the relationship has to be based on commitment, not just love. Sometimes pastors aren't very lovable, sometimes churches aren't either. Also like marriage and divorce, it seems that pastoral turnover is increasing in its frequency, and I can't help but worry about the health of our churches, and the harm to our shepherds and their families.

To answer the question that I provocatively asked in the title: I don't know. The evidence is fairly inconclusive. Paul speaks about false teachers leaving the faith. Jude speaks of the false teachers creeping in unnoticed, and the implication is that the church should beware and remove them.

However, the apostles never changed. No evidence that the elders in Antioch ever changed. The elders in Acts 20 seemed to be the same ones that Paul left on his previous ministry after starting the church. Our healthy churches (for the most part) have longer pastorates. Always seemed like to me that Paul trained Timothy, and told him to train others in Ephesus.  He also told Titus how to set up the elders in Crete. Before seminaries, pastors were trained up within the congregations, as they are now in places devoid of seminaries. Home church people tend to have relationships already established, they are not going anywhere, and they know the church.

I realize that all those factors don't necessarily apply in the same fashion, but it just burdens my heart for the turnover rate that I see. And maybe I am the biggest hypocrite of them all, because before I was 37 years old, I had left two churches in 11 years. My plea is for church members and pastors to have mercy and patience, bearing one another's missteps, and offering much forgiveness. Let's turn the tide toward longer pastorates.

Greatest Obstacle

I was in a meeting the other day, and the question was asked of someone, "what do you see as the greatest obstacle to reaching the area?" The answer did not surprise me, but I think the mindset behind it is common, but misses the point. Christians confuse winning individuals with winning a nation (in the geo-political sense of the word). They are convinced that the great american cultural tide flowing against Christianity is what is to be overcome if we are to reach people. Therefore we hear proposed solutions to obstacles to reaching people:

"God needs to be back in schools!"
"The Ten Commandments still need to be taught and posted!"
"Marriage needs to be back to a man and woman!"
"Nativity scenes should be put on the courthouse lawns!"
"We need a Christian back in the White House or on Capital Hill!
"We need prayer in a our school functions!"

And of course with the most recent incident of the KY court clerk and her marriage license civil disobedience, lighter fluid has been poured on the Christian fire of former days of a national moral conscience. But I really think all of these things are not the road back to making more followers of Jesus.

The advance of the church and expansion of the Kingdom of God is not tied to whether or not there are nativity scenes in courthouse lawns. In fact, historically, baptist have argued for a separation between church and state, not in the sense of removal of all religious symbols, but in the sense of we do not want the state inserting itself into the practice of one's faith, or endorsing one particular faith over the other. Especially the Anabaptist strain of our faith history was vigilant in its commitment to this principle, almost to a fault. The actual phrase "a wall of separation of church between and state" came from a baptist to then presidential candidate Thomas Jefferson, making sure that he had no plans to set up a state church or national religion. The first amendment provides freedom of religion and laws prohibiting the free exercise thereof; basically, it is protecting the church from the government.

So, there's my soapbox for those that want a return to national morality, and Christianity specifically, to achieve revival in America. Nominal Christianity is fading, which by the way is one of the main contributing factors to increase in immorality, and this is a good thing. Statistically younger generations are more willing to listen about faith and truth, but less willing to go to a church. Therefore, the greatest obstacle to reaching our area is getting our people to love their neighbors, build relationships with them, evangelize and disciple them in their homes, then integrate them into churches, Hence, the number one obstacle is us, and our unwillingness to reach unbelievers personally, where we live.

How To Treat The Shepherd

While I was in Maine with a church plant, I had a man (who was attending my church, but not a member) who called me one day, and he told me that he always dedicates the first lobster he catches each year to the Lord, and did I want it? Duh. He brought it over, and it was HUGE, 3lbs! It was just under the legal limit where if they get any bigger, you have to throw them back. It tasted really good too!

The names have been left out to protect the innocent, and me. Only those in the Sunday School class know this . I was in a church this month, and I caught the last part of the Sunday School. The lesson was from Nehemiah, and was pertaining to the reestablishing of worship, specifically the care of the Levites and the giving of fruit, wine, grain, and money to help take care of their needs.  It was interesting, and true to the text, and the teacher did a good job. It was Lifeway material (so many of you studied it, and may have entertained the question), and the writer asked the question: “including, but not limited to money, what does a church do to take care of pastors?” What a great question! Having been a pastor for 11 years, I thought of the ways that churches went above and beyond for me and my family. I also thought of the times that we really felt forsaken. So I was excited to hear this class’s answer.

I sat in a meeting of ministry leaders and pastor once, and I listened to how many of them felt alone in their ministries. Having been hurt by others or by churches caused them to be very guarded, and afraid to be fully vulnerable and trusting. There was a longing for it, but it wasn’t being met. I thought, maybe we are doing something wrong? Maybe we have the wrong mindset when it comes to pastors and churches? Maybe this is the reason that we tend to have short tenures in the pastorate? Do we make the divide to great between pastors and congregants?

So what did the class say? They were silent. Didn’t say a word. “Ok, moving right along…” Wow. Do churches not give much thought to what they can do to take care of their pastor other than paying him? October is pastor appreciation month, but not all churches do anything special. But why not do something all year? Having seen the pastor side of that question, as well as having seen a lot of turnover in the first 15 months of my ministry here, I raised my hand and led them back to answer the question. This is a question that I wish every church member in our association would be required to answer on paper.

I think I am going to preach on this, but let me give some suggestions today. 1) Money is good, it says you love him; but, if this is all you or your church does, he is only a hireling. He is hired to preach, to visit, to marry, to bury, to be at the hospital, to be at the beck and call of others.  2) How about his time off. Make sure he takes it. Some preachers will work themselves to a fault. If they lose their family for you church, you have not taken care of him. 3) Speaking of his family. What do you do for them? Are their expectations upon his wife or children that wouldn’t be on another church family? Give them more vacation time than a business would; the church is not a business. It is a loving family, so let’s all be one. 4) One of the best things that you can do for him and his family is to let them just be a part of the church. Let him just be a church member. Visit his family. Befriend him. The divide between the pastor and member is far too wide. Shepherds had a close relationship with their sheep.

These are general suggestions, you have to ask yourself, what does our pastor need; not just, what is it that we have to give to just do enough. Each situation is different. “A new command I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you should also love another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” –Jesus, and I think He would apply it to pastors too.

Shepherding from the Fellowship

I want to continue a series a started a couple of weeks ago about the early church and the way that they handled discipleship and shepherding of 3000 new believers following Pentecost.

Last post, I mentioned that they shepherded by the word--the apostles teaching.  Acts 2:42 says next that they shepherded in, or continued in, fellowship.  The word is koinonia, which means "close relationship or participation", in this case, in the lives of others.

But more than the meaning, I would like to think about the reality of what it looked like then, our shortcomings as the church now, and what it could look like (I am a dreamer you know, an idealist). So let's think about it a minute.

We are given a little more information in Acts 2:46–47, "continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." So this fellowship consisted of meeting at the temple for a gathering and going house to house and eating together.  The Jewish culture referred to this as the table bond. It meant a special connection was shared with those who came to your home.  A friend told his parents recently after they visited a church that didn't seem very friendly on the first visit, he wasn't concerned that they weren't friendly to him, because he could see that they were very friendly and connected to each other (function). This text speaks of the gladness and unity of their time together.  This friend knew that such fellowship awaited for those who became a part of it.  And of course the hope is that this obvious love that they share for one another bleeds over into their lives daily.

Houses were small for most people in the early church, if they had individual houses.  So a gathering of the church would have consisted of no more than about 40 people, probably less.  If someone had a really, really big house, maybe 70.  But most assemblies were probably smaller than that.  No actual buildings that housed the church were found until before the 240's AD.  So for 200 years intertwining relationships was natural in very small groups meeting daily or nearly so. So they knew each other well.

Size isn't the only thing that matters, even thought the modern Western world measures success by the size of a church.  Closeness, intimacy, and honesty were key in those early days to the function of the church, which is where success is determined. Is the church functioning as a church?  That is the question.  Is the church being the church?  Is it taking care of its members?  One of the first issues raised in the early church was Acts 6:1, where widows were not being cared for adequately.  So the leadership decided on a plan and the church selected seven men to oversee the serving of 100's of widows.  Why only seven?  The church was being the church. It didn't need fifteen or twenty deacons to serve 400 women every day or so.  And they obviously didn't do it themselves.  The church was being the church.

The culture in which we live has promoted a lifestyle of busyness and individuality.  The church has gone along with it.  The church has forgotten that people are the church (teach your kids, "Here's the building, here's the steeple, open the doors, and there's the church"). We have outsourced the shepherding that we are supposed to do through daily, intimate fellowship to a pastor or a staff of trained individuals. Pay someone to do what you should do, easy right?  Meeting three times a week for one hour and having superficial relationships is not enough to function as a church.  It will not shepherd people.  Thus the church leaves behind a stream of broken people because their closeness was not shepherding; and people without shepherding from the whole body get off track from the mission.  A church that doesn't function, doesn't complete the mission.  They had a simplicity of heart that was unity focused on the Kingdom.  And it all led to worship and people coming to know Christ.

I'm not saying I have all the answers, or am doing what should be done.  But think about it, do we shoot ourselves in the foot by the structure that we put in place to make disciples, when koinonia is one of the key pieces to the church and its mission?  Do we have people in our lives, are we in theirs, that are deeply rooted in you and you in them, taking care of each other in Christ?  I think people are desiring more than a Facebook, email, or a blog (ha ha) to help them through their lives with Christ. They need the community of believers, they need you.  Christ bought himself a people, a church, not an individual. Let the be the church, and great things will happen!

The 90 and the 10

And taking on my new role as the Associational Missionary of the Mell Baptist Association, I suppose that I will see churches and pastors go through many situations. I saw something today that I fear happens often, but was manifest in an open way, however too late.

A pastor who had been at a church for more than a decade, had began to make some changes a year or so back. Things went good for a little while, but then fell apart after the changes had been adopted. Then the grumbling started. This pastor who have been very patient with this church for years, was very patient yet again.  Reviling came, slander came, attacks came, unsigned hate mail came, and he suffered well.

However, as it sometimes goes, the attacks upon him and his family grew worse. There was a small number, maybe 10%, more powerful people in the church, who made the most noise, and most influential in causing harm to the pastor. There were a lot a very unchristian things that happened. Things that give the world reason to speak the worst about Christians. 

Eventually the pastor decided to leave. A few of the supportive people decided that they couldn't stand by and watch this take place, and they left before he could. After finding another church, and securing a place for his family, he submitted his resignation to the administrative team. He was to read his resignation before the church the following Sunday.

Sunday came, and the end of the service came as well. He approached the pulpit with trembling in his voice and his resignation in hand, but before he could read, one of the 90% stood up and asked if the self-identified "silent majority" could stand and come up there with him because he should not have to do this alone. And so they did, and they came and they came and they came and they came. It was a very touching scene. 

The stage was full of people. The steps to the stage were full of people. The choir loft was full of people. The aisle steps up to the stage were full of people, all standing in support of this pastor. It became very evident who the 10% were. The other thing that was interesting about this display, was that several of the 90% began to make public apologies, about their lack of support through out the attacks upon the pastor. They apologize about their silence, and how it had equaled complicity.

I have always been told about the 90 and the 10, that I had never seen it quite like that. Unfortunately my fear is that the 10% are in many of our churches, and that our shepherds are in danger of those 10%. And of course the related fear is that the 90% won't stand.

So if you are part of the 10%, beware, for the bible says to touch not mine anointed.  If you are part of the 90%, don't stand beside him, as he resigns in hopes of finding people who will do that for him the next time. Who knows, things might be different in many churches if good men arise and cause undercurrents of grumpy goats, or maybe wolves, and their efforts to be thwarted.  Many hearts were broken that day by a pastor who had poured out is life for many years.

"I believe in God..."

Common occurrence among those who share their faith (once the conversation rolls around to God, church, etc.):

Believer: "Which church to you attend (group of believers that they gather with)?

Friend: relates a bad experience with some "church" or "church member," then goes on to explain that they "believe in God," and how they don't gather or need to gather with a local church (implicitly or explicitly to go to heaven).

Is this theologically true? Yes, one does not have to gather with the church to go to heaven or be right with God (ex. thief on the cross). So those are the two options: gather with a local church or be nailed to the cross until you are dead, and go to heaven directly (do not pass GO, do not collect $200, or attend church).

Just kidding, but really the scripture says,

"We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death" -1 John 3:14

I know, I know, you could love other believers without attending a church gathering. But like a pastor said this weekend, "you can give without loving, but you can't love without giving." And it seems like to me that if one was submitted to the Lordship of Christ in his life, and really loved the brethren, shouldn't they want to be gathering with a group of believers? If Christ thought the church was important enough to lay His life down for her, couldn't we lay down some time and people investment for her? If you love her/them, shouldn't you want to be around them, encouraging them, giving your life away to them, and laying down your life for them? You wouldn't love your family, country, or even chocolate like that. So would it be a stretch to say that you really don't love the brethren if you are not gathering regularly?

Now, don't hear me say something that I am not saying: I am not saying that everyone who is not gathering with the church is not a Christian. I really am simply saying that I worry about those kinds of people. People who claim to believe in Christ, yet casually blow off gathering with His bride (and many other explicit commands). I worry that they are not worried. I worry that their children will not follow a Christ whose value doesn't compel their parents to gather with the bride. I worry that they lull themselves into false security because our culture thinks its OK not to gather with the church. Some need to mend their walk with the Lord, and find a fellowship. Some need to examine whether or not they have passed from death to life at all...

Good Question

Someone asked today on Facebook from a blog:

What would your church do if they all showed up on Sunday morning and no leaders were there. No preacher, no teachers, no worship leader/team, no musicians or sound/tech guys, "the show" had been canceled, and no fill-ins were lined up?

What would happen at your church?

Church Thoughts from Sunday

I am gonna start trying to encourage us to practice “applied Christianity” by emailing you on the first of the week, reminding you of a couple of major thoughts/applications from the sermons/teachings/discussions from the Sunday before. I am also going to try to give a preview of the next week’s. And I am going to try to put them up on the blog too, to maybe minister to readers there. I will include a link each week to the blog, but here it is, and you can subscribe as well.

I thought that we had a great day yesterday. We had a number of visitors yesterday, some local, some from away. But we also had several visiting families that were not there too. Remember them in prayer, call, email, visit, etc. I thought the worship went really well yesterday, despite the missing worship team members and change in venue in the evening service.

Had several people say that they really benefit from the PowerPoint slides for the sermons, so will probably start that back. The other thing that I will do for those of you who can’t write fast as I talk, is attach the sermon notes on this email. If you can’t open the attachment, you can go here, and get the notes and audio as well. But I thought that it might be helpful for those that really want to zone in on the sermon rather than the wall.

From the morning message: 1) remember that love is not proud, so work on thinking of others more, yourself less today; 2) love is not rude (so along with me) work on guarding what you say and how you say it, restrain your tongues and put forth your best manners today toward coworkers and family; 3) love is not selfish, so work on denying self and trying to figure out ways to lay down your agenda’s for others today.

From the night message: 1) let me encourage you to do the word that you know, 2) I know that you can work on the spiritual disciplines of bible intake and prayer. Grab verse for the day, and begin committing it to memory, write it down on a post it note. Can’t think of a verse, try Deut 10:12-13 (mine for the week), or Prov 18:7 (a personal one for me, as I strive to kill sin in my own heart). 3) teachers and ministry leaders, continue to reflect on ways that you can encourage your class toward obedience—reviewing, accountability, training.

Thank you for your flexibility with the service arrangements on Sunday nights (and Wednesdays). There are still a few bugs to work out, and we are on top of it, but feel free to make suggestions as we attempt to worship with our hands raised and live within our means as a church.

Thank you for providing a loving fellowship and support for my growing family to thrive in. Let me also encourage you to share your stories of faith and answered prayer and miracles in your lives with my children. I was reminded this weekend that we must pass on the faith as a community to our children. I am glad to be a part of New River Baptist Church!

Pursuing Christ,

Jason

Maybe we should...

Last night I was preaching on being real (you can get the message here), in a series from the book Shaped By God's Heart about missional church commonalities and characteristics, and I made a statement that wasn't in my notes (that happens quite often) that shocked some people (that happens often too). I was thinking out loud about ways that we can encourage our people/church to prioritize avenues to form relationships with unbelievers. (Understand that I believe that we should prioritize relationships within the body as well, but the context of my comments was related to the fact that the world needs to see our faith as real, life-changing, vibrant, and daily, and they can't do that without knowing us.) And so I asked the people to help think of some ways that we do encourage authenticity in relationships with non-believers, and other ways that we could encourage this, thus prioritizing relationships and avenues of relationships with them.

And that's when I said it..."maybe we could cancel Sunday night services, and encourage our people to be 'with' non-believers at this time intentionally." And of course, the idea is not to dedicate more time to a one-night a week program, but to engender a lifestyle that loves non-believers enough to build relationships with them and take down barriers for them and be able to share a gospel witness...all the time.

Just the thought of canceling something that we have done for years is enough to cause most baptists to have a mild heart attack and reach for the nitro-glycerin tablets (although there were some in our group last night that were all in favor). And some would defensively argue that we should never reduce commitment to "church" things, and thus bathe themselves in self-righteousness.

But this morning as I got the CD from the message last night in order to upload it to our website, I also got the headcount for the worship services (done so we can put that in the bulletin each week, another long-standing tradition). We had a record-breaking crowd last night...28 people! Many people that will argue that we maintain certain church "services" or "ministries" are the same folks that don't participate in them, funny, huh? And most of these people are definitely not eating with sinners in their free time like Jesus did?

So maybe we should cancel some services or ministries that inhibit our people from truly reaching out by consuming much time, and that cause our people to over-compartmentalize their faith/practice of that faith. And invest that time teaching our people how, where, and who to minister to with this new found freedom. The pastor of the church plant that we are helping plant in Tifton wrote a blog post about this yesterday after their worship service; it's a great read.

I know, it's a little crazy, but we should be ever-striving to be more kingdom-minded, even if it means, departing from tightly-held traditions.

What do you think?

Sharing Life II

In my previous post, I discussed how we started to discipleship triads, and how great they went. So let me fill in some of the gaps on how's and why's.

I ordered some of the Discipleship Essentials manuals and asked two men to meet with me once a week for about an hour for a year. The commitment to the time is the hardest part. But this study is really not content-based. It is more about relationships and sharing life than about learning lots of verses of biblical truths. Although that having been said, the study part of it is not shallow, in fact is very deep, and deals with difficult truths (theodicy, sovereignty of God in salvation and suffering, etc.), quotes Piper, Packer, Stott, and others. But again, the main point of the study is to develop lives together.

So Monday morning at 5:45 AM three of us began our walk together with Christ and Greg Ogden in September of last year. We shared some of life each week, prayed for each other, and studied the Word together. And this group became the group of people that I would share anything with, and I mean anything. We all began to grow in closeness with each other and with Jesus.

It was going so good that I started a second triad with two other men. I will not do two groups at a time again simply because of time, but it went great too! The first two men were biblically-knowledgeable, and discipled. The second triad was made up of men whom the church had seen come to Christ, baptized, and then expected to grow upon their own. No one had ever discipled these men intentionally. And I figured that this would really be the test of Ogden's methodology. So we began meeting at 6 AM on Wednesdays. And their testimony was weekly, "this is the best thing that New River has ever done" to promote spiritual maturity and growth.

They began to grow in leaps and bounds. And it is not that these men were worldly or anything, but they just began to press on toward maturity. And their families and friends noticed their passion for Christ and the relationships in our group. And our relationship has surpassed that of a pastor or a hunting buddy to that of a friend, deep and true.

And this is one of the reasons that I say that this is what God has been using in my life. I have been grown, challenged, held accountable, and been encouraged through these two triads. I thank God for His grace to me in this fashion, and for these men.

And now, as our first triad is over, these men are finding two other men a piece, and beginning their own triads; forming deeper relationships over truth with other men; discipling others in the way that Paul and Jesus did. In fact, even in the second triad, these men are beginning to think about who they want to take on in their next triad. And we have some ladies in our church that have seen how the men have responded, read Ogden's book, and are contemplating beginning triads of their own. Hopefully this will help transform our church over several years, and fill it full of genuine disciples for Christ.

In the next post, I try to outline some of the helpful hints and suggestions that our groups have come up with, in case you are interested in doing triads.