Nurture Faith with Dr. Doug Hood

William J. Abraham

What is it to make disciples? What are we talking about? Lack of clarity on this one question – what does it mean to make disciples – doesn’t seem to be a place of anxiety for many mainline churches today. Not that there is a general understanding or consent to the answer. The absence of anxiety is the result of the question not being asked. Simply, for many churches in the mainline family of the Christian church, “discipleship” simply isn’t the primary focus.

This, of course, begs the question, what is the primary focus of these churches? According to my friend and mentor, Greg Ogden, one only has to pay attention to the informal criteria by which professional clergy are measured by the membership. Churches that care about discipleship will ask, “Is the pastor hanging-out in diners and coffee houses connecting with people who do not have a meaningful relationship with Jesus?” “Is she meeting weekly with one or more small groups of people encouraging actual growth in personal discipleship?” These are the concerns of a church membership that takes discipleship seriously.

On the other hand, argues Ogden, if the questions are, “Has the lead pastor visited our members in the hospital?” or “Is the lead pastor calling on the membership in their homes?” then what becomes apparent is that the focus is inward. Such questions disclose a church that has directed its focus more upon “care of their own” regardless of the printed mission statement.

Of course some churches will have additional pastors that are called specifically for the purposes of pastoral care. And churches that have the resources to staff in this manner are blessed. Ogden’s contention is that pastoral care must not be the primary expectation of the lead pastor, senior pastor or solo pastor. The primary function of such pastors is to direct the church in making disciples. Nowhere is this observation made more forceful than the first seven verses of Acts, chapter 6. Here the apostles answer “no” for the request that they spend time administering pastoral care to the membership. Yet, they do recognize that excellent pastoral care is an important mark of the church. What they do is set apart specific people who have the particular gift of pastoral care. The result for the church is stated in verse seven, “and the number of the disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem.”

Joy,

Doug

“The faith that does nothing means nothing.”

In my first year of theological studies I attended a singles Sunday school class of the North Avenue Presbyterian Church in Atlanta.  One particular morning a student asked if he could address the class. He shared that five years earlier he had made a profession of faith in Jesus and was baptized. He continued that since receiving baptism he had done nothing with his faith so his faith had done nothing for him. “That needs to change,” he said, “And I need your help.” Here was a class member asking other class members to hold him accountable for an active faith. He had grown bored of an idle faith.

Active faith is dangerous. It is dangerous because control of one’s life is handed over to another – it is handed over to God. For all that our faith teaches us about God, there is so much more that we don’t know. As the Apostle Paul writes in First Corinthians 13, seeking to understand God is like looking in a mirror that has become darken – you can see something but much remains unclear. Yet, Christian baptism is nothing if it isn’t handing personal control of life over to God. It is a dangerous move.

Active faith also holds a promise. There is a promise that life will be experienced with greater vibrancy. A life that is tightly grasped by the individual misses what cannot be imagined. But a life that is imagined by God – and directed by God in that imagination – holds unfathomable possiblities and surprises. Simply, God has larger eyes for what is possible than our own.

Perhaps the greatest wound inflicted upon the church is an idle faith by persons who otherwise assert that they are followers of Jesus. Absent in their life is evidence of listening to God, submission to God, actively learning all that Jesus taught and obedience to those teachings. There is an unwillingness to walk the narrow path – to be peculiar – as William Willimon would say. Life is left untouched and unchanged by the hand of God. The result is people living lives that look no different from the lives of those outside the church. The result, of course, is the question of popular culture, “Why follow Jesus?” “Nothing seems different.”

That young man in the singles Sunday school class finally realized that he wanted more from his faith. An idle faith wasn’t working. He started new by asking for accountability. With that simple request he became to all of us a great teacher for how to begin moving toward an active faith.

Joy,

Doug

The late Elton Trueblood’s statement in 1979 still rings true today:

Elton Trueblood is of course speaking of involvement in the life, worship and ministry of the church. Yet, the involvement he speaks of is not one that proceeds out of duty or “have-to-do-this” but an involvement that proceeds from people in process of becoming spiritually mature. This kind of involvement is the natural result of persons growing in Christlikeness. Therefore, the greatest single weakness of the contemporary Christian Church is – in other words – that millions of members who say they believe in Jesus Christ don’t have as a personal priority a desire to be in relationship with that Jesus.

George Barna has found in his own research of the Christian Church that millions of church members lack the passion, perspective, priorities, and perseverance to develop spiritual lives. As a result they begin celebrating the wrong things. Halloween becomes a bigger celebration than Christmas, conquest over one’s personal enemies more important than forgiveness and reconciliation, material success trumps sacrificial lifestyles that would permit more resources to be poured into the work of the church.

The result, of course, is a church that is trying to reach the world without genuine disciples among its membership. I have to agree with Trueblood – this is the single greatest weakness of the contemporary Christian Church.

Through this blog it is my intention to cast a personal vision of God’s claim upon us as a people of God – and the intersection of personal faith and culture. Followers of Christ should serve the common good. This is the shared conviction of many great thinkers of the faith such as Lesslie Newbigin and Miroslav Volf. My hope is a growing dissatisfaction with “membership without relationship with Jesus.” As that dissatisfaction increases so will there be an increase in the power of the local church to impact the local community for God’s kingdom.   

Joy,

Doug