The Pulse

Date
December 17, 2021
Author
superuser
Category
Church Life

Church Life – News and Updates From
Effort Church
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Effort Family,

I’ve been thinking long and hard about the results of the congregational meetings we’ve had with Randy and the CHC. Hearing that the church wanted to place discipleship first in our list of priorities was a breath of fresh air. Let me tell you why.

When I started in ministry, I was a young kid who was all about excellence in music. That was the extent of my understanding of church – my job. I had never been discipled. I didn’t know what that even meant. Soon, I found the weekly rhythm of gathering on Sundays to be unfulfilling. I thought, surely there must be more to faith.

Not long after, a former pastor of Effort Church, John Chandler, discipled me for a year. He invited me into his life and gave me access to his rhythms of faith so I could imitate them. He was highly invitational when necessary; highly challenging when necessary. This high invitation/high challenge environment put me in a specific “environment” – like a room that is slightly too warm. It was warm enough that I couldn’t stand still, but not too hot that I was suffocating and had to get out. This led me to grow at a rapid pace in my faith. This is discipleship. Discipleship is what Jesus implored, no, commanded his followers to do after the resurrection.

You see, discipleship involves a mixture of information, imitation, and innovation. We learn knowledge of who Jesus was and what he did as well as imitate Jesus with real-life actions, in everyday situations. And then we bear fruit – we innovate.

Too often in churches we find the information without the challenge of imitation/innovation (most bible studies). Or we find one-on-one meet-over-coffee relationships with mentors that are only relational without including the deep study of the Bible and who Jesus is. But discipleship is both. It requires intentionality.

I will be bold and say this: any other approach to spiritual maturation will fall flat. Any other religion or philosophy won’t cut it.

Lastly, discipleship at its very core is laced with the idea of multiplication. We aren’t meant to horde our faith. Instead, we are discipled so we can multiply disciples (and not simply add, but multiply). Each person who is discipled can then disciple a group of others, and so on.

Is this attractive to those far from Christ? Yes. Does it look like culture? No. And this is why it works. It is counter-cultural and radical. Being invited into someone else’s life with full access to information and imitation? Weird huh? Yes, that is what discipleship is. And it works. Don’t worry if you say, whoa, I’m not ready to do that for someone else. First, you would be given access before ever implored to give it out. If you listen to anything I ever say as a Pastor, hear me here – this works. It is the way to health and growth, both personally and ecclesial (a fancy word meaning “pertaining to the church”).

As we move into 2022, staff and council will begin talking, praying, and planning how to listen to you, the church, about how to become a discipling church. This is a good thing, I promise. We’ll keep you posted, as always.

Much love to you and your family in this advent season,

Pastor Matt

We look forward to seeing everyone for our Christmas Eve Service at 5:30pm in the Family Life Center

Join us for Worship on Sundays in the FLC
at 10 AM
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