Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Who Should Mentor You?

neonbrand-423329-unsplashCoach. The term used to be reserved for people who filled out little league line-up cards and for the volunteer leader of the debate team. But no longer.

Though we are all grownup, we still get to get coached!

Every day,  we receive an assorted pack of twitter invites, emails, LinkedIn notifications, and Facebook messages from friends, acquaintances, and our unknown bud in South Africa (Who knew?) graciously offering to be our new life (ministry) coach. Essential these buds and buddets want to be our next mentor.

And they are not alone. Friends, pastors, and coworkers that we actually see in the flesh will often offer to mentor us or to help us grow in the faith. If we want a life or ministry coach, all we have to do is whistle and say, “hello.” Within second our coach will be emailing us his amazing life plan! (And people wonder while millennials have made “adulting” a thing. But I digress).

Coaching and mentoring is in vogue. I applaud this development. As believers we should all seek to learn from others and to seek to be equipped by others. The gospel calls the people of the church to lovingly invest in each other’s lives. But the question remains, “who should be our life coach?” Who should be our mentor, teacher, and encourager? Who should we sit down to coffee with when are marriage starts to fall apart, when our deacons threaten a vote of no-confidence, and when our kids declare that they are over church? Do I really need the guy from South Africa?

Probably not. But we do need the man or the women who is sold at for the Lord. We need to place ourselves under those who place themselves under the authority of God revealed in the Scriptures. Notice how Paul begins the letter of 2 Timothy 1:1-2

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God according to the promise of the life that is in Christ Jesus.  To Timothy, my beloved child: Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.

All the advice of Paul flows from the will of God to declare the truth that we have life in and through Christ Jesus. We need mentors like Paul. I do not mean we need modern day apostles to come to our house for meatloaf. We need men to lead men and women to guide women who understand that their authority and that the resources for life-advice is the Scriptures. We need mentors who will declare the Word of God to us without fear, lovingly encouraging, rebuking, and admonishing us. When we find mentors of this caliber would should listen to them because following them increases our understanding of God.

However as we seek out such mentors and seek to be such mentors, we must remember that titles mean little. The validity of someone’s counsel does not depend upon their title of Pastor, Associational Missionary, or SBC President. We should not view someone to be an authority because he or she grew a tiny church into a large church, raised lots of money, or built up a wealth of connections that he or she is parlaying to gain positions of prominence and notice. We should only listen to the names behind these titles and success stories if they have placed themselves under the authority of the Scriptures.

The validity of our wisdom does not come from our schooling, our number of twitter followers, or from being on the church staff. Our wisdom is only wisdom if it reflects the message and content of the Word of God.

Many distinguished leaders in the SBC ranks encourage pastors (especially young pastors) to run up and down the organizational ladder for advice, counsel, and wisdom. But these distinguished leaders often forget that titles are empty awards handed out by partially blind men and women that may or may not reflect spiritual realities. Organizational hierarchy cannot be universally equated with personal holiness and with godly wisdom. Age and years of ministry service do not reveal that the veteran in question submits to the authority of God. Evil men and women regularly move in and out ministry circles eager to share all kinds of demonic and worldly wisdom.

We should be more concerned about our potential mentor’s understanding of the gospel than about his or her titles, degrees, and influence. We should seek out men and women who know that Jesus is their authority and who confess him in all that they do.

Do you know this kind of man or woman? Are you this kind of man or woman?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

God Doesn’t Have An Affinity For Affinity Group

All Christians want to be a part of growing, dynamic and thriving church. We all want to be part of a movement where the 150 seat sanctuary is replaced with a 2,000 seat sanctuary. We want to part of a movement that plants hundreds of churches. We want to drop our Pastor’s name and the water cooler and know that our coworkers will know who we are talking about.

Sadly a majority of Baptist Churches are trending the opposite way. They are remodeling their large 2,000 seat auditorium to seat 500. Most SBC churches lack members. The members that do attend suffer from a severe case of biblical illiteracy and lack passion and gospel fervor.

To remedy the situation, some Baptists leaders have tossed forth the idea of Affinity Groups. This new spin on the old church growth game teaches churches to form small groups around their communities’ interest.  The deer hunters would meet in room A; the single moms would meet in the old social hall, and the Hispanics would meet in the Mrs. Sammy’s old Sunday school class. People are grouped into Bible study groups based upon hobbies, societal designations, and racial norms. These smalls groups should facilitate communication and relationship because all the members have a least one noteworthy similarity. Those who bound over their shared experiences are more likely to feel a connection to their group and by that connection that should feel more connected to the church. The end result being more church growth, more people, and more money.

The Problem With Affinity Groups

Though basic elements of the Affinity Group idea resonate with the common sense notion that birds of a feather flocking together, Affinity Groups do not belong in the local church because they stand opposed to the witness of the gospel.

The gospel seeks to unify a diverse and holy people. The people of the church are not bound together by mutual sports interest, commonality of social standing, or by their race. The church has never been composed of just college football fans, or upper-middle class white folks who drive GMCs, or black deer hunters. Rather the church is made up of all of these people and more. The church should be filled with all kinds of sports fans, all kinds of social classes, and all kinds of races. Colossians 3:11 proclaims,

Here there is no Greek and Jew circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian , Scythian, slave, free: but Christ is all and in all.

The church does not exists to place people into groups based upon their earthly interest or genetic markers. The church exists to abolish those boundaries. The church exists to encourage both the old and the young to worship together. The church exists to bring about racial and social reconciliation at the foot of the cross. What binds the church together, what draws people into our church and keeps them in church is Christ. He is all and in all.

We should not come to church because everyone looks, thinks, and acts like us. We should come to church because everyone loves, depends upon, and looks like Jesus.  The unity of the church is the unity of the cross. If glories of Jesus do not compel people to church, why we would think that people would come to church to hang out who look and sound like us?

And if people do come simply because we have a divorce, single mom’s tea-room for women 60 and over or because they share our love for Cubs baseball, have we done our church a service? Have we done anything more than fill our churches with people who love the world more than Christ?

Are All Groups Bad?

Now I do not believe all small groups are evil. Paul instructs women to train women. Paul also personally mentored many people including Titus and Timothy. Jesus worked with the twelve disciples. Churches have to freedom to create small groups within the church to facilitate discipleship and spiritual growth. The church should be about such intense training. But such groups should never be the draw or the focus of the church. And such groups should be driven by the gospel and not the trends of our secular culture.

Final Thoughts

The church assembles not to divide people from one another but to unify around the gospel. What brings people from all age ranges, cultures, nationalities and skin color to church is Christ. What keeps people in church is Christ. God is more than glorious enough to be a draw people to himself. He does not need our help to build his church.

At the end of the day, we can safely conclude from Scripture that God does not have an affinity for Affinity Groups. He has an affinity for his Glory which transcends all earthly measures and interests. How about us?

Peter Witkowski Discipleship

The Pastoral Plan for Amissville Baptist Church

pastorFor all its vast complexities, Church ministry consists of two essential elements, preaching and love.

The church should preach the Word even when society opposes the Bible’s sexual ethic, even when the local community deems the Bible’s view of depravity outdated, and even when church members and pastors do not like hearing that God commands us to put the needs of others before our own. God’s Word is often unpopular. But it is also gracious, joyous, and life giving. Paul encourages Timothy in 1 Timothy 4:13-16 with the following advice:

Until I come, devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation, to teaching. Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you.  Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Salvation, hope, joy, kindness, and life are found in the Word of God. If the church loses the Scriptures or minimizes the presence of the Word in worship, in Bible Studies, and in the youth group, the church will die. Her building may expand, but her people will drift far from the God of the universe into eternal despair. Rather, the church must continue in the Word. If the people of God devote themselves to the preaching and the reading of the Word, they will save themselves and others. The church will grow, succeed, and survive.

As your pastor, I come to preach the Scriptures. During my first year at Amissville Baptist Church, I want to regularly and faithfully preach, teach, and share the Word in all that I do.

But great preaching cannot thrive on its own. The preacher’s devotion to the Word must be matched by his commitment to love others. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13:2:

 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

Though many associate 1 Corinthians 13 with romantic love that they have commemorated via the artwork hung on their living room wall, Paul is addressing the love of the believer. He is detailing how Christians should conduct themselves. Paul says believers should be known as those who love each other. A man can preach greatest sermons, fill row after row of pews with tech, savvy youth, and break into the conference circuit and still fail to love his family and his congregation well. Such a man is nothing more than a clanging cymbal. He is one who proclaims the majesty of God and then slinks into a hole because he cannot in good conscience encourage others follow his loveless lifestyle. His family knows he never has time to hear about their struggles or complaints or to attend their basketball games. His church members know not to call him because he has little time for talking, counseling, or prayer. And the advice he does give seldom goes beyond, “Read your Bible and pray more.” Lacking love, the preacher proclaims a gospel that he has not experienced. All people who have been deeply touched by the love of Christ cannot help but love their brothers and sisters.  The apostle John affirms Paul’s teaching and writes:

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. (1 John 4:20).

When preaching is combined with love, the Gospel goes forward with incredible power. When men and women know their pastor calling them to change is himself being changed by the love of God, their hearts fill with joy and encouragement. I have been blessed to experience this joy first hand. Both at the Bible Church of Little Rock and at Fairdale Baptist Church, godly men regularly preached the Word in love and kindly confronted me when they saw sin in my life. God used their love for the Word and for me to shape and grow my faith.

Though I am definitely an imperfect man with many faults who daily repents, I desire to love the people of Amissville well. I hope to love you as I have been loved.

When I think about all that has happened over the last several months, my heart leaps for joy! April and I our counting down the days till our arrival! We look forward to introducing two (soon to be three) little kiddos to our Amissville family and to getting settled into Northern Virginia!

I cannot wait to worship with you on April 22! To Preach and to love! May God bless us all!