Training Is the Work of the Whole Church

Congregations must return to the wisdom of earlier generations who understood their responsibility to train disciples and ministry leaders. Andrew Fuller of Soham Baptist Church puts it this way: “As the Church of Christ is His nursery in which He trains up and sends forth ministers, we think every measure tending to discover and encourage such gifts ought to be taken.”

That is exactly right! The church is a nursery, a farm for training disciples and ministry leaders.

Paul uses this language often. Disciple-making was not a formal program or curriculum to Paul. It was parenting. Paul, with great affection, repeatedly writes statements like this: “But you know his proven character, because he has served with me in the gospel ministry like a son with a father” (Philippians 2:22).

Paul was a model for Timothy not only in his teaching, but also in all of life. “But you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love and endurance, along with the persecutions and sufferings that came to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra” (2 Timothy 3:10-11).

The church is God’s specially designed training ground to make disciples who make disciples. Disciples need to see the heart of their trainers – the sins and confessions, the fear and faith, the visions and realities, the successes and failures.

Trainers need the humility to honestly share their lives, hopes, and failures. This happens as they serve together in the work of the gospel, but it also happens in the living room and around the dinner table.

Are you catching the vision?

Imagine for a moment a Christian disciple-making community where the pastors and leaders-in-training, and their families, really know each other. Imagine that their lives, their habits, their talents, their passions, their failures, their struggles are known and carried in community. That the curriculum is both imitation and instruction. That leaders are mobilized in this way for the purpose of establishing and strengthening God’s church both locally and globally. That is the vision of E4:12.

We believe churches can produce disciples in this way by:

  • Equipping: The Word of God is able to mold and make us. (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
  • Example: Our lives are the instruction book. (1 Corinthians 4:16; 11:1; Philippians 3:17; 4:9; 1 Thessalonians 1:6; 2 Thessalonians 3:9; 1 Timothy 4:12; 2 Timothy 3:10ff; Titus 2:7; 1 Peter 5:3)
  • Experience: We learn best by doing. The Word of God must not be merely studied in the realm of academia – it must be studied on the job! (2 Timothy 4:7)

Jesus is our ultimate model in this way. His training of the twelve was instruction and doctrinal (Mark 4:10ff), as well as imitational and relational (Mark 9:14-29). He sang with, prayed with, taught, corrected, and encouraged them. He went on mission with them.

I believe it is time to dump the academic model of degrees, accreditation, and tenure. The academic model is incapable of measuring the things that really matter – obedience to God’s Word, perseverance in prayer, self-control, love for others, humility, and so on. Knowledge of God and Christlikeness is not measured by grades and degrees and credits. A person does not become qualified for ministry and disciple-making by writing papers and memorizing material. Such training is incomplete. Sure, maybe they can parse verbs, which is a useful skill, but are they ready for the multi-faceted responsibilities of ministry?

It is my conviction that the local church is God’s specially designed place for making and multiplying transformed disciples, transformed leaders, and transformed churches.

It is well past time for the local church to get back in the driver’s seat.

A Daunting Task

All of this may sound daunting. Isn’t our pastor already busy enough? How could a congregation produce everything needed to do this work? How could they provide for this work financially?

I would like to suggest four actions.

1. Start Small

Charles Spurgeon is a wonderful example of this. Geoffrey Chang notes:

“For almost seven years, Charles Spurgeon had taken on pastoral training alone. He began with one student, then took another. Eventually, the two grew into eight and then into sixteen. From 1854-1861, Spurgeon covered all the expenses from selling his sermons in America, paying for their books, room and board, and tuition, not to mention giving his time and attention amid a busy pastoral schedule. But in 1861, sales plummeted due to his outspoken condemnation of slavery, and all the funds for pastoral training dried up. Spurgeon wondered if this would end his effort in pastoral training. Instead, his work was only beginning. With the support of his elders, Spurgeon presented the issue to his congregation on May 12, 1861, and the congregation unanimously voted to adopt the enterprise as their own. So, the Pastors’ College was born. Going forward, Spurgeon’s pastoral training efforts would not be a solitary effort but the work of the whole church.” [1]

2. Find your place

Having discerned what God is doing as a missionary God, we need to ask the follow-up question: “In light of our gifts and resources, how does God want us to participate in what He is doing?”

The fact is we can’t do it all. This is true for both individual followers of Jesus and for local congregations. But it is also true that God has gifted us all to do something! The point of discernment is to determine where and how to participate in God’s mission.

I love how Spurgeon said this to his congregation in his sermon: “Let each man find his own proper niche, each seaman on board the vessel finding which rope he can best handle, or what part of the tackling he best understands, take his place.” [2]

In other words, find your place. Search God’s Word. What is your passion, gifting, and ability? What part is God calling you to play? Then, rearrange your priorities and calendars to make it happen. Get the training and encouragement you need to make it happen – this is why E4:12 exists!

Are you ready to lose yourself for this incredible mission?

Our lives are not our own.

Our time, talents, and treasures are not our own.

Lay it all down.

Give it all to God.

Dream about what multiplying disciples would look like for you at your workplace, at your school, at Walmart, in your homes. Imagine what could happen in your church, community, county, and country if the Holy Spirit were to fill you in power. Don’t waste your life on personal comfort and security. We are not promised either in this life, but God has said He will provide for our needs. So why are comfort and certainty such a focus for us? We need to trust and obey.

3. Network with sister churches

We are starting E4:12 with the hope that it will grow into a community project, with local churches across our state embracing the call to train men and women for ministry. Much of this needs to be fleshed out practically, but we are confident that any effort to make disciples will be better done together!

We are starting E4:12 with the hope that it will grow into a community project, with local churches across our state embracing the call to train men and women for ministry.

4. Depend upon God in prayer

Most of all, believing that this is God’s desire for us, we will entrust ourselves in utter dependence upon God in prayer.

The fact that we cannot carry out our mission apart from a dependence on God proves that we are on the right track. Spurgeon says it best in his sermon:

“‘Well,’ says one, ‘I am afraid it would not work.’ That is it, my brethren; that is just the hitch in the whole matter; it would not work. ‘We have got a machinery,’ said a brother to me once, ‘we have got a machinery in our Church which will go on just as well, ‘depend upon it, yours is not that which God has ordained.’ For it seems to me that the most Scriptural system of Church government is that which requires the most prayer, the most faith, and the most piety, to keep it going. The Church of God was never meant to be an automaton. If it were, the wheels would all act of themselves. The Church was meant to be a living thing, a living person, and as the person cannot be supported, if life be absent, or if food be kept back, or if breath be suspended, so should it be with the Church. There should be certain solemn necessities without which she ceases to be a Church — certain things which she must have, and without which she cannot do her work. I am glad that this difficulty is suggested at all, for it seems to me that if there were not this difficulty, it would not be God’s plan.” [3]

The truth is, God would never give a mission to the church that she could do in her own strength. The truth is also, if the Spirit of God were poured upon us, we could do much more for Christ than we are now doing.

And why wouldn’t He pour out His Spirit upon us as we seek to align with His mission?

God is the great missionary God.

We will experience His blessing most when we are most involved in fulfilling His purpose.

Let us therefore throw ourselves unreservedly into God’s mission. Embrace the risk. And reap the rewards.

 

A Prayer

O God, make Your face to shine upon us.

Strengthen us.

Fill us with Your power.

Fill us with Your presence.

Help us to be the godliest, healthiest, strongest churches we can be on this side of glory.

Help every one of us to find our place, to know our gifting, to do our part.

Help us to equip every Christian for ministry.

Help us to speak the truth in love.

Help us to be doctrinally sound.

Make it so every member is doing their part.

Help us to have deep discipleship.

Help us to collaborate, not compete; to be strategic, not scattered.

Not because we are so good.

Not because we deserve it.

Not because we think we are better than anyone else.

Not so we can be cul-de-sacs of Your blessings.

So that we can share them.

So that we can bless others with You.

So that we can strengthen others through You.

So that we can saturate our world with transformed disciples of Jesus Christ.

O God, for Your praise and glory,

flood Michigan with spiritually healthy, biblically organized, Spirit-driven, Scripture saturated,

Gospel centered, Christ exalting, grace-infused, multiplying churches!