By: The Church.Digital

I’ve been gardening for 9 years, and every year our garden grows bigger. This pandemic year meant we spent even more time in our garden, and my wife harvested a child’s wagon full of vegetables just this evening. My wife and I host a podcast where we talk about our garden week-by-week this year. That podcast and COVID-19 have given me the chance to think hard about lessons from my garden and how that applies to ministry in our current context. Here are 3 things I’m thinking about regarding gardening and ministry:

1. Pay Close Attention to the Soil.

My best gardening happens in our raised beds where we control most of what happens in the soil and can track changes.

This is our fourth summer in this house, our previous houses we only lived and gardened in them for two and three years. This year I’m learning that gardening depends on the soil. You can manage your way around the need to develop your soil by starting with raised beds, but eventually, you have to start working on your soil.

This year I noticed two side-by-side beds where one is producing bountifully, the other is limping along. When we took some time to think about it, we realized that the one doing really well has manure from a local dairy farm that has aged in a pile next to our shed, the other box has “compost and manure” bought in a bag from a big box store. The soil is what made the difference.

Working on the soil is a long process that you have to start long in advance, you might start with making your own compost, finding a farmer friend to give you manure that you can let age in a pile, etc. It takes work, planning, and patience, there is no easy route to developing your soil. If you don’t prepare and develop the soil, then you will struggle to grow anything.

How does this apply to ministry?

Some things in ministry are a slow process. They take preparation long in advance. “Sunday’s always coming” tends to be my attitude, but some things need more time to marinate. It is really easy in this current season to be rushing from one thing to the next and just try to get through the week or through the next milestone, but we should stop to think about what the “soil” of our ministry is that will help us grow.

For me, personal growth is some of the “soil” that needs work now. I’m coming off a hard year. People, conflict, and leadership challenges combined with a breakneck pace left me destroyed. Something that alarmed me was when I realized that I stopped learning and developing because I was so busy with hard and urgent matters. Learning and developing is the “soil” of my leadership. We have to put in the work in advance to prepare for future growth.

2. Keep Planting Seeds.

In years past, I farmed like an industrial farmer. I planted once, and then hoped that the success of the garden would last me all year. This year, I plan to plant more seeds every week. I ask every weekend, ”What can I plant?” I have to plan to plant or I can easily ignore it and think that this isn’t the time. I’ve learned that what doesn’t get planted doesn’t grow. So I focus on how and when to plant more.

One of my priorities this year has been to use whatever space and time that I have to grow more things. Whenever I have an open space, it is easy to plant more fast growing vegetables like lettuce, arugula, peas, or beans. Right now, I’m preparing to plant Brussels Sprouts and spinach because they prefer summer-to-fall weather.

The reality is that every seed doesn’t grow. I often plant two seeds in one hole just in case. With things like carrots and mesclun mix, I cannot predict which seeds will grow and which will never germinate. So to make up for that, I keep planting.

Jesus talked about planting seeds in the parable of the sower in Luke 8. The reality of our job in ministry is that we don’t know which seeds will grow. We don’t know who and when someone will take their next step of growth with Jesus. Our job is not to figure out how to engineer growth in a few people. Our job is to sow seeds and watch to see the results.

What does this mean for us in phygital ministry?

We need to be sowing the seeds that we want to see grow. We probably don’t plant enough seeds in our ministry.

In a phygital church world, I want to apply this to digital ad campaigns. For me, digital ad campaigns are like a modern day sowing of seed. We don’t know who is out there that needs to hear our message of hope and freedom, so we’re going to spread it far and wide. It is too easy for me to get bogged down into getting the ad campaign right and targeting correctly, but maybe targeting incorrectly is the seed that needs to be sown. Instead of targeting a few people perfectly, maybe we want to target all of the people around us imperfectly because we don’t know who is ready to hear the good news of Jesus.

A woman in our community came to Christ recently beginning with our church’s digital presence. One of her family members, living out of state, looked to find a church in our area. He connected with us digitally and then connected us with her physically, giving me the chance to share the gospel with her, and walk with her as she responded. That story is the result of us digitally sowing seed over a period of years. We didn’t know which seeds would pay off. So we kept scattering.

3. Gardening is Always Solar-Work.

This year, I’m marveling at the work of the sun to grow plants.

A couple of years ago, I taught my kids some science for their school and felt like I saw with new eyes the energy systems that turn sunlight into stored energy in the plants. When I walk through our garden now, I marvel at how they are turning beams from a distant star into structures that we can use and eat. I pay attention to when each part of my yard gets sun in the morning and when the they are in the shade in the afternoon or evening. When we have too many overcast days, I begin to worry about the health of the plants because they need sunlight to grow and develop. I think about how too much sun can cause some plants to grow too fast and turn bitter so maybe we need to set up shade cloth.

There is much to do in gardening like developing soil, weeding, watering, fertilizing, watching for pests, etc. All that work is for nothing, though, if there is no sun to shine on them. All our gardening work does not grow plants. The sun grows plants.

I’m writing this for ministry leaders, but we easily forget that ministry is a spiritual work. We easily have plans and methods and systems and strategies, but all growth is from God. 1 Corinthians 3:6-7 blatantly says this same thing, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth” (ESV).

Just as the sun is the big deal in plant growth, the Spirit’s work is the big deal in our church growth. Do we do phygital church like it is a spiritual work? Do we do all the important work that needs to be done while keeping in mind that we desperately need the face of God to shine on us and our communities?

I want to be aware in my own ministry that I need the face and work of God in my life and ministry, just like my garden needs the sun.

Source: Gardening and the Phygital Church

The post Gardening and the Phygital Church appeared first on Passion for Planting.

by Bobby Harrington: Bill Hull and I have joined together to urge pastors to learn how to focus on truly making disciples.

Let me explain . . .

There is general agreement among pastors that making disciples is central to the church’s mission. It is a curious phenomenon, then, that so few pastors would say they are good at it!

A recent study of church members found that 52 percent of those who have attended church at least once in the past six months believe their church does a good job of helping members grow spiritually. The same study found that only 1 percent of pastors think they are doing a good job at helping their members grow.

That is, only 1 percent of pastors believe they’re doing well at making disciples.

What do the pastors know that church members do not? Pastors have more theological knowledge and understanding than most about Christ’s expectation for the disciple making in the church. They know their churches well and can see all the faults. They are experts on their short comings. Most clearly, they understand that distractions, conflicts, and a shortage of well-trained leaders hold their church back from what God desires for them.

Pastors understand that they are to be disciple-making leaders who create a multiplying disciple making movement, beginning with the church they serve. But, unfortunately, if you asked most pastors to raise their hand if they were sure about how to go about it, very few would raise their hand high.

Bill wrote the seminal book on this topic, The Disciple-Making Pastor, over thirty years ago to address this problem. That is why, having sold 150,000 copies, this book is still in print today! In fact, it has never been more needed than right now.

With over forty years of experience, writing more than twenty-five books, and training thousands of pastors to make disciples who actually make disciples, Bill is one of the leading experts on what it takes to be a disciple-making pastor in the world today.

Continue Reading . . .

Join Bill Hull and his special guests—Bobby Harrington, Dave Clayton, David Young, Michelle Eagle, and Ben Sobels (all proven disciple makers)—for this online seminar, “The Disciple Making Pastor.”

This seminar will lead you through an engaging process that will clarify the role of a disciple-making pastor, what disciple-making pastors really believe, the challenges they must be prepared to face today, and the critical practices of disciple-making pastors whom God uses to create disciple-making movements.

Click Here – To Learn More

As a preview, here is what to expect in the five sessions:

Session 1. Why are Disciple Making Pastors Needed?

Pastors are to raise up everyday disciples who become disciple makers who reach the nations (Eph. 4:11-13; Matt. 28:18-20; 2 Tim. 2:2). But if Pastors are unclear on why they are to be leaders of disciple making communities, then confusion will be in control of the church’s activity. The Why is theological in that the gospel we believe will determine the disciples we make.

If for example our gospel is primarily about how the Christian feels, how fulfilled they are, and how the church meets their needs, there is very little chance that a consumer gospel can make any useful disciple.

The wrong kind of gospel just makes matters worse. We create disciples that are of no use to Christ and his mission. This session’s special focus is the nature of the gospel, a gospel that includes discipleship as a natural part of what it means to be saved.

The secondary issues is what is called the “high cost” of non-discipleship. Pastors have wasted much time attempting to talk congregants into upping their spiritual game. At the same time, we have taught them a non-discipleship gospel that has convinced them that discipleship itself is optional. This must be turned around, disciple making pastors are the key.

Session 2. What are Disciple Making Pastors Up against?

Opposition from the outside world against a pastor’s disciple making efforts is fierce and constant. Pastors are up against rigid religious traditions, misconceptions about discipleship, a culture that craves to be entertained, an anti-training bias in the church, a demand for immediate results, superficial knee-jerk decision making, a constant re-interpretation of things, not to mention the full frontal attacks of the spiritual forces of darkness.

All these outside influences work against a pastor. But it’s the struggles inside a pastor that ultimately determine their disciple-making destiny. Being a disciple-making pastor requires a satisfied soul. A satisfied soul empowers a pastor to be patient enough, tough enough, and committed to Jesus and His message and methods long enough for a movement of multiplication to take hold. There is a pathway through this jungle without signage, so a guide is needed

Writer Linda Stone aptly labeled our age one of “continuous partial attention.” That is, you are multitasking your way through the day, continuously devoting only partial attention to each act or person you encounter. It is the malady of modernity. We have gone from the Iron Age to the Industrial Age to the Information Age to the Age of Interruption. The anxiety associated with this addiction to superficiality is a serious threat to the making of disciples.

Cal Newport in his 2016 best seller, Deep Work, says it is rare, it is meaningful, and it is valuable. “’Deep Work’ is defined as Professional activities performed in a state of distraction free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill and are hard to replicate.” Most knowledge workers…have lost their ability to perform deep work. Dallas Willard called pastors and teachers to the nations. From a biblical world-view, spiritual knowledge is the most important kind, and pastors are custodians of that knowledge. The Apostle Paul described Christian leaders as “servants of Christ who have been put in charge of explaining God’s mysteries” (Col. 1:26-27) Since distraction is a major threat to this mission, what can be done?

Session 3. What are the Goals of a Disciple-Making Pastor?

It is alarming how many church leaders, board members, and staff teams are unclear on what a disciple of Jesus actually is. They don’t have a definition of a disciple on the tip of their tongues. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for Christian leaders to gather to define a disciple and for the conversation to go on for hours!

Even more unfortunate is that these discussions often end in either a heated argument or a frustrated stalemate. What is clear is that many church leaders aren’t clear on the goal of disciple making – a Christ-like disciple.

You can’t make Christ-like disciples if you don’t know what a Christ-like disciple is. If there is one person in the church who should be equipped with a clear, biblical, and viral definition of a disciple, it’s the pastor.

Many churches have a definition of a disciple that is true – but not useful. For example, “a disciple is a follower of Jesus.” Or, “A disciple is someone learning to live and love like Jesus.” Or,” A disciple is a person on mission with Jesus.”

All of these are true, but not useful! They suffer from ambiguity; ambiguity protects us from accountability. You not only can’t measure a disciple with these definitions, you don’t have enough specificity to make a disciple, forget replication of more disciples. The goal of a disciple-making pastor is about the creation of and replication of a certain kind of person who will change their world, a Christ like disciple.

“We now have sunk to such a depth that the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent persons.” George Orwell

Session 4. What is the DNA of a Disciple Making Pastor?

Some discussion has already taken place with respect to a Disciple-Making Pastor having a satisfied soul; being the kind of emotionally stable person needed to lead a disciple making movement.

Bill likes to offer definitions of what he refers to as “the DNA” of a Disciple-Making Pastor. There are at least eight characteristics of this DNA. For example, Bill says that a Disciple-Making Pastor must be convinced that all that are called to salvation are called to discipleship – no exceptions, no excuses.

The characteristics Bill will define – this disciple making DNA – must be consistently cultivated in a pastor’s life, not only for their own spiritual health but also for the fullness of life experienced by those they disciple. After defining the eight characteristics of disciple making DNA, Bill discusses with his guests how to best cultivate them not only in our own lives but also in the lives of those we disciple.

Session 5. What is the Strategy of the Disciple Making Pastor?

If you don’t have a plan, you don’t intend to do it! A pastor’s calendar is filled with many “good” things – preparing sermons, visiting the sick, maintaining and repairing buildings, conducting memorial services, coordinating volunteers, leading staff, etc. One thing that rarely makes it onto a pastor’s calendar is discipleship. They don’t have time for it.

A huge part of the problem is the established church – what it rewards, what it ignores, and what it punishes. But the church needs pastors to make disciples, develop disciple making leaders, and create a comprehensive discipleship strategy for the church. These things take time – a lot of time. If the pastor is not spending time doing these things, you can be sure no one else is.

In this session the panel will discuss practical ways pastors can manage their time, navigate the church’s expectations, and also what pastors need to spend time doing as it relates to creating a disciple making movement among their congregations.

Pastors should be making disciples but they’re not.

The Disciple Making-Pastor Seminar …

Most don’t know how. Many pastors have never grasped why.

For Jesus, making disciples was his passion; it was also his plan for rescuing people and restoring his creation.

Just recently, Bill joined with a group of church leaders to create a fresh and contemporary recording of the disciple making pastor.

If you are a pastor or you care about how pastors can follow Jesus and make disciples, please join us for the Disciple-Making Pastor Seminar.

For King Jesus,

Bobby Harrington, Point Leader, Discipleship.org

Join us at our National Disciple Making Forum!

November 7th- 8th in Nashville, TN

Sign up Today!

New Blogs

““Can I Pray For You?”—Alex Absalom’s Breakthrough Disciple-Making Learning”

by Alex Absalom

READ THE BLOG

“5 Principles of Discipleship from Colossians 1:28-29”

by Downline Ministries

READ THE BLOG

“Family Discipleship Activity: Intentional Faith”

by D6 Family

READ THE BLOG

New Podcast Episodes

LISTEN NOW

S6 Episode 28: The Driver Is the Intentional Leader: Take the Baton and Pass It Forward

S6 Episode 27: The Micro Group Vehicle (3s & 4s): Creating the Hothouse Effect

S6 Episode 26: The Micro Group Vehicle (3s & 4s): Relational Ingredients for Authentic Discipleship

The post What Makes You a Disciple Making Pastor? appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: What Makes You a Disciple Making Pastor?

The post What Makes You a Disciple Making Pastor? appeared first on Passion for Planting.