CONCLUSION

LET’S GO!

AS I THINK BACK through all the stuff we’ve talked about in this book, it’s hard not to be discouraged about all the things we need to do to become more like Christ. And as I look into my own life, there are several ideas I’ve articulated in this book that I’m not implementing in my life as much as I should.

If you’re feeling this way too, then be encouraged. This book isn’t about setting unattainable standards or even trying to master the full gamut of the Christian life overnight. It’s about reevaluating what it means to become like Christ in light of the Bible and asking God to show us the way. It’s about being self-critical, reformational, always eager to reexamine our perceived notions of what it means to follow Christ in light of Scripture to see if we’re doing it rightly.

The post-Reformers used to say, Ecclesia semper reformanda est, or “The church is [reformed and] always reforming.” The Reformers regularly returned to Scripture and celebrated its ultimate authority over all belief and practice. They were not just reformed (that is, Protestant) but also reforming —constantly —in light of Scripture. This should be an ongoing posture, not a one-time event. The church should regularly drag traditionally held ideas and practices back to the Bible and eagerly demand reexamination.

It’s common for unexamined beliefs to become detached from their scriptural roots through time and repetition. We assume that the way we’ve always done it should be the way we always do it. But if we believe the Bible is our final and ultimate authority over everything we think and do, then the Bible —not tradition —must be our guide.

This book is an attempt to do just that. To reexamine what it means to be a disciple of Christ, to “become more like Jesus.”

Now let me let you in on a little secret when it comes to writing a book. One of the main questions any writer must ask is Who’s your audience? To whom are you writing? Whom do you envision reading this book as you’re writing it? To be honest, I’ve had three different audiences in view: pastors, lay leaders, and general Christians who take their faith seriously. And when it comes to implementing the ideas of this book —assuming you think that at least some of what I’ve said is worth implementing! —this will probably look different for pastors, lay leaders, and general Christians. (I actually don’t love the term “general Christian,” by the way, but hopefully you get the point and aren’t offended.)

So let me close with a down-to-earth conversation about how all of us can apply what we’ve talked about.

Pastors

I imagine that if you pastor a large church in a diverse neighborhood with well-polished Sunday services and plentiful programs and members who are mostly wealthy and white —well, you may be angry or depressed.

If you’re angry, my only question is, do you find the stuff I’ve talked about in the book unbiblical? And if so, why? Where? What chapter and verse? Make sure your anger is justified. Disagreement isn’t refutation. It’s just a reaction.

If you’re depressed, it’s probably because you agree with much of what I’ve said, and yet you don’t know where to start. Here’s my advice to you: Don’t try to change things overnight. If you see several areas in your philosophy of ministry that need to change, take them one at a time. Even if it takes ten or twenty or thirty years to become a more faithful, Jesus-like, disciple-making church, that’s okay. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither was the kingdom of God. It’s still under construction.

After all, this is how we should pursue Christ on an individual level. There’s no way we can carry out all the demands of Christ all the time starting tomorrow. We can’t physically witness to the lost; help the poor; visit people in prison; care for the orphan, the widow, the elderly, the homeless, and the refugee; disciple our kids; love our spouses; study the Bible; pray without ceasing; care for our relatives; mentor younger believers; help with setting up and tearing down at church on Sundays; and still have time to watch Netflix. Even if we cancel Netflix, we still can’t do it all. Not all at once, at least. We need to cultivate a rhythm of life that reflects Christ. The same is true of ministry.

Don’t try to change things overnight. This will probably destroy the church. Instead, introduce things slowly. Perhaps introduce a “year of simplicity” where you have a more simple style of worship (one person with a guitar) and no bells and whistles during the service (whatever they may be: lights, graphics, or background slides on the screen during worship, which are pretty distracting anyway). Maybe you could have a goal of giving away twice as much money to missions as you have in previous years. The key is to get people on board —get them excited about living and worshiping more simply so that they can see Christ more clearly.

One of the churches in Southern California, where I was a teaching elder, used to hold a “Celebrate Generosity” Sunday every year on its anniversary. All of the tithes and offerings that came into the church that week went to fund outside ministries we were involved in. Fifty percent went to help other local church plants we were connected with, and the other 50 percent went to overseas missions work we were involved in (including Touch Nepal). It’s crazy, but Celebrate Generosity is always the largest giving Sunday of the year. People love to give to tangible needs, especially needs where there’s some sort of relational connection. Last year, the church gave more than $100,000 on Celebrate Generosity. And the church only has a few hundred members.

If you desire to raise the intellectual bar in your church (chapter 6), then maybe you could orchestrate your own City Forums, or a Sunday night gathering focused on engaging in relevant topics and modeling critical thinking and dialogue. Maybe read through an intellectually rigorous book with your leaders to get them on board. (I’d highly recommend Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.) Or preach a sermon series on loving God with our minds. The key is to show people that good thinking is part of good discipleship. Chances are that your people are probably hungering for more depth anyway.

If you believe your church is too segregated (chapter 8) and doesn’t reflect the multicultural heart of God, you can begin by having people of different ethnic backgrounds preach at your church or lead worship. You could reach out and befriend other ethnically different congregations in your city. Get to know their leaders and members, and see how you could partner together. If you are hiring for a position, try to hire someone of a different ethnic background than other leaders at your church (assuming they’re qualified for the position, of course). Get to know the ethnic minorities who are in your church. Ask them whether they feel like they have to assimilate to fit in or whether their ethnic heritage is honored and integrated in your church.

Since the Bible is filled with stories of scandalous grace (chapter 2), a good place to start is by preaching on grace. Read Jonathan Dodson’s Gospel-Centered Discipleship or Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing about Grace? or —at the risk of self-promotion —my own book Charis: God’s Scandalous Grace for Us. Then preach and teach about this radical grace. If people aren’t offended, you’re probably not preaching grace as faithfully as you ought to. The grace that Jesus preached offended the religious.

Creating a more missional church (chapter 7) is rather easy, since most people are so hungry for it. I’ve seen many churches ignite a fire in their people when it starts engaging the community in tangible ways. There will be some people, of course, who will accuse you of teaching a “social gospel.” But don’t let this scare you. Sure, implementing Christless, gospel-less outreach doesn’t reflect the heart of Jesus. But neither does ignoring the social aspects of the gospel out of fear that stubborn Christians will cut off their tithe money or leave the church if you start talking about the poor. If you believe it’s biblical —and it is —then you should make sure your people are engaging in the mission of Christ, if indeed you want them to become more like Christ.

Again, my main advice is to take it slow. Focus on one or two areas where your church needs to change in order to be more effective at making disciples.

Lay Leaders

A lay leader is someone who has some sort of leadership role at his or her church, even if he or she doesn’t get paid for it. To be clear, the Bible itself doesn’t make the distinction between lay leaders and paid leaders as two different vocations. The Bible only talks about elders and deacons. Some of the teaching elders might get paid, but this doesn’t mean they occupy some higher office. The qualifications for paid and unpaid elders are the same.

Being a lay leader can be awesome. You get to help out in the church, but you usually don’t bear the administrative or pastoral burden of the church. Lay leaders tend to sleep better at night, especially Saturday nights. But being a lay leader can also be frustrating. Sometimes we feel like second-class leaders, since we’re not in on all the conversations and meetings that the paid staff are in at the church. Or sometimes our gifts and leadership abilities are less valued because we’re not getting paid. I’ll never forget when a seminary-trained paid pastor told my friend who was a lay elder, “You’re one of the best lay teachers I’ve ever heard.” The paid pastor was actually a terrible teacher: excessively dull, unclear, and irrelevant. He couldn’t teach his way out of a wet paper bag. My friend —the mere lay teacher —was ten times better than the pastor. He just didn’t take a paycheck for it.

So what can we do with this weird space we find ourselves in? It all depends on the relationship you have with the other leaders of the church. In one sense, I’d recommend that you seek to implement things in the same way that the pastor should (see the previous section). But you’ll have a harder time doing this if the other leaders aren’t on board. (Paid pastors generally have much more pull in introducing changes than lay leaders do.) In any case, here are some general recommendations.

First, go about it in a humble way. If you see changes that should be made —maybe some programs that aren’t contributing to people’s growth in Christlikeness —don’t storm the next elder meeting and call everyone on the carpet. Whatever insight you may have is best introduced in a humble way, not claiming to have all the right answers but wishing instead to reexamine some things in light of Scripture. And as I said above, don’t try to suggest too many changes at once. Maybe focus on one and humbly talk to the leaders about it.

Second, talk about your concerns on a relational level with other leaders. Talk to your pastor or your fellow elders. Don’t rally the troops in your Bible study and cause them to think badly of the church or its leaders. That’s called gossip and spreading discord —and God hates this (Proverbs 6:29). Be sensitive to where people are, not frustrated because they’re not where you think they should be.

Third, by all means, don’t go all Nehemiah on people in public. (Read Nehemiah 13:25. It’s really funny and scary at the same time.) Don’t publicly call out the people in your Bible study for being segregated. If you’re up on stage, don’t condemn the stage, the lights, the sound equipment, and the worship leader for buying the new projector when he should have sent the money to Nepal. If you go against the leadership and try to change the church by yourself, you’ll probably end up splitting the church —and then no one wins.

Fourth, start doing it in your own life. Find time to get to know the needs in your community. Visit another ethnically diverse church in town and get to know its pastor. Figure out ways in which you can live more simply and give more money away to people in need. Read some books on grace and ask the Lord to show where you are still trying to earn his favor through performance. Dive into your church community more wholeheartedly and demonstrate community. Get to know some of the Millennials at your church and listen to their questions, passions, and doubts.

General Christians

Okay, so I guess if you’re not a pastor or a leader, you’re just a general Christian. A plain old average pew sitter. I’m kidding, of course. Actually —whether you believe this or not —you have the same Spirit of God dwelling in you, and your gifts are just as vital, just as valuable, and just as powerful as the gifts that the Spirit has given to your leaders. The kingdom of God has been advancing on the backs of “general” Christians for the last two thousand years.

Most Christians who don’t have some sort of formal leadership role at church have a hard time implementing changes in the way we do church. The way things are usually set up, ministry decisions flow from the top down. This isn’t necessarily bad (depending on the leadership). It’s just the way things are. Start living this stuff out in your own life before you try to get the church on board.

If you’re really passionate about creating a better discipleship climate at church, you could propose a new ministry to the leadership that would help people become more like Jesus. Maybe it’s a new outreach to the poor in the community (like that laundry ministry I talked about in chapter 7).

If you want to create a more traditional church ministry, make sure it’s authentic and effective at helping people become more like Christ. Maybe lead people through a Christian book that will shake them up a bit rather than affirm the status quo. If you’re more of an outlier, share your heart with the leaders and help them see how your outside-the-box ministry can further God’s kingdom among fellow outliers of society. Tell your leaders about the various unbelievers you’re reaching out to, and invite them into your ministry to them.

Now here’s the thing. There’s a chance —maybe a good chance, depending on your church —that your idea will get shot down. This is one of the biggest complaints among people who leave the church. They say that all their ideas were shot down by the professional ministers who apparently had all the right ministries already in place. I know this can be discouraging, but if this happens to you, try not to get discouraged. Try again. Think of another ministry. If all your ideas keep getting shot down, then have an honest conversation with the leaders and share your heart. And —pay attention to this —be open to the possibility that your ideas are not actually good ideas. Don’t be so prideful that you simply assume you are right and your leaders are wrong. If they are truly called by God to lead the church, then there’s a good chance that they may see things in your ideas that aren’t biblical or don’t fit within the ministry philosophy of the church.

That said, there’s a chance you are right and they are wrong. Ministry philosophies aren’t inspired by God, and they can sometimes hinder creative kingdom-advancement ventures from blossoming. Seek counsel from a diverse group of godly people. Have them examine your idea. Search the Scriptures, pray hard, and talk to your leaders again. If you are constantly stonewalled from using your gifts in ministry at your church, then it may be time to find another church.

I don’t say this lightly. I almost didn’t want to say it at all! I’m not an advocate of hopping around from church to church, or leaving a church anytime you disagree with its leaders. This isn’t what I’m saying. If you must leave a church, do so humbly, graciously, and openly, seeking forgiveness from anyone you’ve sinned against.

Go

God’s kingdom transcends any one church. It’s expansive and dynamic; it can’t be contained within the walls of any one church. It covers your community and is expanding into the county. It’s manifested in every place where believers are gathered and advancing good through the gospel. This kingdom cannot be shaken, and it cannot be stopped. You can kill it, stab it, and crucify it, but it will never die. It will only multiply. God’s reign over the nations will prevail, and the gates of hell don’t stand a chance.

So we must go. We cannot stay put. We cannot pursue the American dream, for this land is not our land —we belong to another kingdom. God’s kingdom. The global reign of God through his image bearers. And God has released his Spirit in you so that you can incarnate the love of Christ to a dying world.

So go. Go do that. Go make disciples of all the nations.

And I’ll see you on the other side.