A couple of weeks ago I conducted a short informal survey to answer a question that was scratching around in my head; is our leadership development issue really a discipleship issue. Over the last two weeks I've had 25 responses from a variety of people and places and as I glanced over the results I wanted to think through what this may mean, and the reorientations we could make as churches to help create an environment for discipleship and leadership development. I plan on writing a more extensive few blogs on this, but here are a few initial thoughts, I'd love to hear your views also...
I've listed the questions and responses with a few comments below each...
How does your church prioritise building a personal relationship with new believers?
With regard to someone coming to faith in our churches, and beginning that journey of discipleship, I wanted to know if there is a prioritisation of intentionally discipling that person towards a faithful walk with Jesus. I was encouraged by the smaller group, and indeed 1:1 involvement of walking with people. One of the areas I'd love to dig into more was the 48% of people in which church services, or weekly church Bible studies were the soil for building relationships with people. Of course, there are many reasons for this, however in larger churches people might skip in and out and be lost in the crowd unless there is an active inclusion into the community of God's people as the soil for their growth.
How does your church foster a sense of introduction and community belonging for new Christians?
As much as this question appears similar, this is more about how we see new believers access and understand the culture of the church. Every church (like every organisation) has a culture, either formally set or informally influenced. Only a third appear to assume that new Christians will pick this up from informal attendance, the rest pursuing new believers to understand the community of faith that they are now attending.
Does your church prioritise building relationships between new believers and established members?
A quarter of respondents note an informality of this connection, either naturally with existing members. However, 46% do this with an intentionality, giving encouragement to existing members to create connections. My concern with the 32% who either rely on staff members, or the congregation, is how they know these things are happening. It may be that the person has been invited, and therefore has a natural connection with someone. Yet, if the burden of connection is with the newer Christian then there is a risk of that person being disconnected.
Does your church offer intentional guidance on these areas of the Christian life for a new believer outside of regular church activities?
Overall I was encouraged by the responses here in churches, and how people are invested in within the community of faith. The next question digs into this a little more...
What resources does your church provide to help new Christians understand the basics of the Christian faith?
As 44% of the responses indicated personal involvement in meeting with people, and an additional 24% used courses that I assume are in-person, there is a lot of personal contact in the conveying of information to new believers. Over half use some materials which have been noted in some of the responses and gave a variety of suggestions, most of which being either from organisations in the US or UK.
In what ways does your church encourage new believers to engage with the Bible regularly?
The majority of the responses indicated an active involvement in teaching people how to read the Bible. We have found one of the most challenging aspects of people coming to church who have been given a Bible is that they begin reading with very little guidance, or follow teachers on Youtube that are, well, not very skilled in understanding the Bible. With 30% of people mentioning the importance of Bible reading/study, and yet providing no guidance we might be hindering the healthy growth of the new believer.
How does your church address doubts and questions that new believers may have about their faith?
There again appears a good balance of approaches here in this area.
What role does accountability play in your church's discipleship approach for new believers?
This was one question that caused me a little bit of concern. In recently listening to a sports podcast, the interviewee was a personal trainer and was asked about accountability. His response was that without accountability very few people will actually accomplish anything. Almost 50% of responses indicated that it was left to each individual to develop accountability.
How does your church support new believers in developing a consistent prayer life?
I was really encouraged that a quarter of the respondents indicated that in their church people are taught to pray by someone within the church. This was not my experience per se, but it's great that this appears to be happening! Again, a slight concern is that prayer in probably one of the spiritual disciplines that we tend to struggle with most as Christians and 41% of churches surveyed didn't have active support in teaching people how to have a consistent prayer life.
Conclusion
Since there were only 25 responses to the survey it's safe to say that it will not be ground breaking or even give an adequate generalisation of the state of the church with regard to discipleship. However, some of the trends that might fold out have to do with intentionality. As I listen to pastors lamenting a lack of prayerfulness in our churches, I wonder is that because we are not intentionally encouraging people to pray? As concerns are raised about the knowledgeability and literacy of Christians in terms of their Bible, are we teaching and modelling how this should be done? As we see Christians live lives that seem to be out of step with a devoted relationship to Jesus and His teaching, does a lack of honest and open accountability exacerbate this? These are questions that we might need to know the answer to, and also a health-check that we can conduct in our churches. It is said that we miss every target that we don't aim at, and I wonder if the goal of healthy culture of discipleship in our churches will develop the mature Christians that we aspire to see eventually become the next generation of leaders.
תגובות