Equipping the Saints
Ephesians, again, is a gentle reminder for us as we pursue missional communities. Paul says in Ephesians 4:11-13:
And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
We have rightly focused in the missional conversation on the 5-fold ministry. I want to draw your attention to verse 13. Let’s think about maturity for a moment.
The image Paul is using here is one of a maturing body—bodies function properly because the different faculties are being disciplined over time.
A healthy body is fed appropriately, trained repeatedly and challenged consistently.
Maturity and health don’t come from growing quickly. Maturity and health come from incremental discipline over time.
Part of the way we failed in maturing our body was giving a simple set of exercises that we could stick to beyond church attendance. We had to teach people consistently A WAY TO read their Bibles, we had to teach people consistently A WAY TO repent of sin and we had to teach people consistently A WAY TO share the gospel with real people.
For a church to be mature, we need to equip the saints in the gospel, yes, but also in simple practices. You can have a vision of being a church that makes Christ known, but without consistent, thoughtful training and discipline, all you have is an unrealized desire.
That’s because vision without practices is just a good idea.
I want to implore you to cultivate a simple set of transferrable and reproducible practices that you equip people to do repeatedly over time.
Let me say that again. Simple, reproducible, transferrable. Repeatedly, over time.
Alan Hirsch says it this way: “You need to act yourself into a new way of thinking.” There are a lot of tools out there which are helpful. They won’t magically make you missional, but you need tools to help people put vision into practice.
Don’t kill a missional culture by casting vision without practices.
For us at The Austin Stone, the simple community practices of Life Transformation Groups, Family Meals and Third Places helped the 60 percent of people with a desire to change actually take steps of obedience.
Specifically, we taught people to gather in small communities in three different ways over time. The Life Transformation Group is where we gather to be disciples, the Family Meal is where we gather to be a family and a Third Place is where we gather to be missionaries.
Sticking to these practices over time, and applying them in a variety of different contexts, has helped that 60 percent act on their desire to live differently.
What mistakes have you made in putting vision into practice?
