Marks of Discipleship. What in the world are marks of discipleship and why should I be worried about this? Is it some kind of disease that is going to take over my body? Is it something that could attack my children?
No it is not a disease (although some might say you are infected with something if you do these things). It is not going to attack your children, but they may become lights shining in the darkness of this world if you practice these and help them to practice them also. Let’s understand what a disciple is, then move on. According to Merriam Webster Online dictionary a disciple is “one who accepts and assists in spreading the doctrines of another: as a : one of the twelve in the inner circle of Christ’s followers according to the Gospel accounts b : a convinced adherent of a school or individual.” So a disciple is one who follows the teaching of someone else. The 12 who were called by Jesus were His disciples, as we can aspire to be disciples.
That’s right, I said we can aspire to be disciples. Just because we are a member of a church does not mean we are a disciple. In fact the summer series on the marks of discipleship, or P_oW_eR S_uRG_e is to get us to look at ourselves differently. Just because you are a member of a church does not mean that you are a follower of Jesus. And I am speaking about me to here. I am not always the best follower of Jesus. I do not always pray, or read the Bible. I will have to say I am pretty good at being at worship, but there is more than just being there. I am in the same boat with you. We can help it rise to the top and be a mighty ship in God’s fleet, or we can try to keep it floating by bailing out the water, hopefully putting it out faster than it is coming in.
This summer I want us to take a deep hard look at the Bible and ourselves. I want us to rediscover the early church and what it means to be a follower of Jesus. I want us to move from being a church built on how many members we have to a church that talks about the number of disciples we have. Not boasting, but relational with God, not on the number of people on the books, but the number of people truly in the Book of Life. Just as Walt Disney World has no employees, only cast members. Everyone is responsible for the creation of a great experience, from the person who plays Mickey, to the person who empties the garbage cans!
Michael Foss in his book, Power Surge, which is were the sermon series this summer comes, talks about the Walt Disney no employee only cast members on pages 51 and 52. He says on page 52 “Just as Disney World communicates over and over that it has no employees, only “cast members,” how do we communicate that we have no members, only “disciples”?” Can we do this? Are you ready to do this?
I believe Hosanna I am ready to move forward in the mission God has called us to. I am to commit living the Marks of Discipleship, to make my relationship with God better and to help build up yours. Are you ready to join me?

It is truly amazing that God does the things he does. He still continues to provide for me. When I wonder how things are going to happen, where financial resources are going to come from, where the time to do everything I have to is coming from, He creates a way. He gives the resource, He clears the calendar.

God is simply amazing, if we will only step aside long enough and trust Him, great things will happen.

I have been rereading Power Surge by Michael Foss and ELCA pastor in Atlanta. In this book he discusses how the church has gone away from the way church was in the bible to making members in the church. We are more worried about the number on our annual report to the synod then we are about how many people are truly in a relationship with Jesus Christ. We are more worried about making sure that the budget get covers, then we are about our relationship with Jesus Christ. We are more worried about maintaining our congregation so that my status quo is not upset, rather then being Jesus Christ to the world.

We even try to keep Jesus out of our discussion as much as possible. We will not pray or read the bible….

Consider this quote from the book found on page 3:

Consider the following sobering statistics:
• 91 percent of all households in the United States own at least one Bible
• 80 percent of adults name the Bible as the most influential book in human history
• Yet only 38 percent of adults read the Bible in any given week
• Only 25 percent of adults volunteer to help a church during a typical week
• 96 percent of adults believe in God
• 93 percent believe in the virgin birth
• Yet 39 percent say Jesus did not have a physical resurrection
• 61 percent say that the Holy Spirit is not real
• 56 percent say a good person can earn his or her way into heaven
• And still 72 percent of those polled say that they are church members

As I am preparing for the summer sermon series with the same name as the book. I wonder:
How many of us have more than one bible? (ME)
How many of think the Bible is influential? (ME)
How many if us read the Bible once in a week? (ME, only because I am preparing for sermons)
How many of us volunteer at our home congregations? (Not me… I am here all the time)
How many of us believe in God? (ME)
How many believe in the Virgin Birth? (ME, it really happens all the time!)
How many of us believe in the physical resurrection of Jesus? (ME)
How many of us believe in the Holy Spirit? (ME, but do I always allow the spirit to work through me?)
How many of us would say we can earn our way into heaven? (Not me, I know there is no way I could ever be good enough to get there on my own)
How many of us would say we are church members? (ME, but I do not think this is what we should be worried about.)

Michael Foss makes his case for us looking differently at church. We need to not be worried about members, and start being concerned for the disciples of Jesus Christ that are being formed by our gathering. We should not be concerned with the bottom line of the number of butts we have in the pews, or chairs. But how many people are fostering a relationship with Jesus?

The title of our thought for the day comes from the book on pages 51 and 52. Here Foss talks about Walt Disney world, and how they have no employees. Everyone who works at Walt Disney World is a cast member. Everyone from the person who is Cinderella, or Mickey Mouse, to the person who makes cotton candy to the person who empties the garbage cans. They are all responsible for creating an atmosphere of fun and excitement for the guests. Are we ready to say like Disney we have not employees, only cast members, or more appropriately for us, we have no members, only disciples!

The question is whose faith is it? Is it my faith that I must produce, or is it God’s faith that is given to me?
Faith is a gift, that we can not of our own will do enough to receive, but yet it is freely given to us, by God working in us. If we say that it is our faith, then it is something we are working on, and have it to be ours, and it will not allow us the freedom of the gift, because it will not get us to God’s kingdom. If however we understand that the working of God in us gives us the faith that he has for us, then it is a gift that will allow us to do good works, over abundantly. These works will not be forced, yet flow from us, and we will amaze even our selves if we do not get in God’s way working out the faith in us.

God loved us and gave us this gift, so that we might be free from sin, yet slave to grace. Slave to grace in that we serve God, through the freedom His grace has given us.

To see where this answer comes from and what the question is go to Deep Water

I have been doing a lot of looking into things…
We are beginning a nursery, so I am looking into this, and the legal issues of background screening for volunteers. I feel like I am hitting my head against the wall sometimes with the things that are happening, looking for what is best for the ministry, and what is best for those being ministered to, and when there is an apparent gap, how do we deal with that?
I am also looking into stewardship things…
One of them is a book by Mark Allen Powell Giving to God. In this book as well as one of the Giving Magazines he talks about where your treasure is, your heart will be also.
We hear Jesus say this, and automatically think we know what it means, as Powell says, we have heard the sermons, that since you spend your money on this that or the other thing that is the kind of person your are. But according to Powell, and I have to agree, this is not what is being said. The way you spend your money, does not tell what kind of person you are, but what kind of person you will be. The place you put what you treasure does not speak about who you are this day, but who you will be.

But we must understand what our treasure is in this. In the book, Powell says it is money, which is the meaning I believe Biblically we have to go with, yet could not we look at this as being something else? I mean realistically, how many people do not go to church for the longest time, then they have a kid, and suddenly, God now seems to be important… Where your treasure is, in your child, there will your heart be.

The think I am getting at is that we think we have to get our hearts right in order to give to God, or to any other charity. The point of this is not that, we can not get our hearts right, we are sinful and human and we will mess it up. That is how we are created, but if we give our treasure up, no matter what it is to God, then our hearts will follow. If we allow our treasure to be used for something that will tell us where our hearts are going.

So where is your treasure? Is it in the hands of God, in the bank down the street, in the back yard playing, in the garage, on your desk, in your pocket, ________ (insert your answer here)? Where is your treasure?

It has to increase! I need more, I can not go on with this being this way it has to be more.

Have you ever wanted something so bad that it consumed your very life? Have you ever though about something all the time, that it completely takes all of your energy and time and strength?

Money is usually the thing we put in this place, we need more because the bills are mounting and we have to get the new TV, and a stereo system with surround sound. Or my kids need a new bed and clothes, and wouldn’t it be nice to get them that new toy they have been asking for…

Is this really what our lives are about? Getting more so we can need more, so we can find a way to work more, so we spend less time with our families, because they need more than I can give, so I have to do something to get more so I can give them more…….

Our lives become a run on sentence that never ends, because the cycle keeps turning back on itself. When is enough enough? When do our lives hit that magic break point when we have finally arrived?

Or what really needs to increase? John the Baptist said “He must increase and I must decrease.” Jesus must increase and I must decrease. The only thing we need to increase is the amount of Jesus we have. How do we do this, by letting go.

Just let go of the worries and the troubles. Let go of your joys and the wonderful blessings in your life. Let go of everything and believe that God is walking with you and loves you more than His own life. (this is true He did die on a cross for you!)

So trust God that He is with you and guides you through life. Let Him increase and the rest will fall into place.

What is it that drives us? What is it that makes us go?

It is really easy to say that Jesus or God is our driving force, but is that true? Does that fact that the fire of God burns deep in my soul really drive me to do what I am doing?

It is easy to say, but hard to follow. It is easy to set out to do, but hard to follow through. Our minds and hearts get in the way. God wants us to love Him in the way that an infant loves his/her mother. Unconditionally and simply. Simply believe that God will provide for you. Simply come to Him with child like wonder and simply open your heart and mind to Him.

Simply read and believe these words of Catherine of Sienna (1347-1380):
“Our sin lies in nothing else but in loving what you hate and hating what you love. I confess, eternal God, that I have constantly loved what you hate and hated what you love. But today I cry out in the presence of your mercy: grant that I may follow your truth with a simple heart; give me the deep well and fire of charity; give me a continual hunger to endure pains and torments for you. Eternal Father, give my eyes a fountain of tears with which to draw your mercy down over all the world, and especially over your bride. Amen.”

Glory is an interesting thought. We think of it in terms of high status. In something that is better than something else.

I was thinking of the Bon Jovi song Blaze of Glory which talks about the person going down in a blaze of glory. He is an old western person, who is killed in a gun battle, and he goes down in a blaze of glory.

Glory is something attributed to God. A higher status than the rest of us. We talk about the glorification of Christ.

Just how and when was Christ glorified? What is the glory Jesus speaks of?

We would think of him being elevated as the son of God. Sitting at God’s right hand, creating the universe.

Well it is in His elevation, but not to sit at God’s right hand. Jesus is glorified in his being lifted high on the cross.

His glorification brought him death and us life. So rather than shot down in a blaze of glory, Jesus was raised up high in a blaze of glory!

Mother Teresa once said she was nothing more than a pencil in the hands of God. What a profound statement of faith and undying devotion. It is a statement of who is in charge, a statement on why everything is done in her life.

Can we say the same? Are we the instrument that helps to create a beautiful picture, or are we the one trying to yield the utensil to draw the picture? Are we trying to be in control?

Is it enough to say that God can use us to do His will? If we say we follow God and do not dare to do the things He has placed within us to do, then are we really allowing God to have control of our lives?

Is our ministry driven by our desires or by God? Is our discipleship truly an emptying of self to follow or our way of trying to maintain control?

Can you say you are a pencil in the hands of God? Does he have control over your life, so much so that you are willing to go up against anything to do what he places in you to do?

Dare to allow God to work through you and be ready to be impressed and shocked and awed by the picture God creates through you.

We have been traveling this past week with our girls, and they really have not been asking that much are we there yet….

BUT….

The other day I said we were there. We were sitting at a red light on the corner of two streets. And I said, “OK we are there.”
One of my daughters said, “no we are not there.”
I replied, “where is there?”
She said, “I do not know.”
I said, “Then how do you know we are not there?”

The problem with most of our outlooks on ministry is that we want to be there, with out first defining where there is. We put so much stock in how we are going to do the ministry, how we are going to get everything done, who we are going to get to help, and who we are going to help, that we miss the most important thing. Where are we going? If we have no defined location to arrive at, how are we going to know when we get there.

We can not go on a trip and not know where we are going. OK some of the people may not know, but one of the people on a trip has to know where the final destination is, otherwise, it is haphazard and is messy and takes a long time. Life and ministry are like this, but if we have some clue of where we are going, then we may actually make it.

So I wonder where is there? Where are we going?

How will we know when we have arrived?