Peter Witkowski Discipleship

Keep It Growing: Part A

What Comes After Baptism?

As soon as the child bounces out of the baptistery his parents, Sunday School teachers, and friends breathe a sigh of relief. They have diligently taught the little, wet soul about sin, Jesus, and salvation wrought SalvationSeries_KeepingItGrowing_6partAby the cross. And as the little guy dries off, his spiritual mentors prepare to move onto the next soul, leaving their former charge secure in the arms of Christ.

While this thinking that emphasizes evangelism to the point of neglecting discipleship has a host of complex sources ranging from “easy believism” to parents seeking heaven insurance, we can be sure it’s wrong.  As Matthew 28:19-20 makes clear, baptism and a confession is not the end goal of the Christian’s life. Jesus commands us show others how “to observe all that I have commanded you.” Our charge to declare the beauty of the gospel has not ended. It has just started! J.D. Greear reminds us, “

Salvation is not a prayer you pray in a one-time ceremony and then move on from; salvation is a posture of repentance and faith that you begin in a moment and maintain for the rest of your life” (p. 5).

Because the Christian life is a life time commitment, our commitment to declare truth to the next generation never ends.  We are to disciple our children (Psalm 76). Let’s keep them growing in the faith!    

What Is Discipleship

Like a New York Times best seller, the word “Discipleship” has been steadily clanking up the list of well used Christianese terms. But tossing around a word inside the church fellowship hall does not mean we understand what the term means. Let’s take a New York minute and see what discipleship is.

Unlike many Christian phrases adopted by the church to make it ridiculously confusing to outsiders, the terms “disciple,” “discipleship,” or “disciple-making” actually appear on the pages of scripture 281 times. Jesus defines the concept in Luke 6:40 stating, “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.” Essentially, a disciple is a follower. In John 6:26, Jesus directly discusses the nature of Christian discipleship saying, “If anyone serves me, he must follow me.” In his book Growing Up, Robby Gallaty helpfully defines discipleship as:

intentionally equipping believers with the Word of God through accountable relationships empowered by the Holy Spirit in order to replicate faithful followers of Christ. (p. 19) 

In short, discipleship or disciple-making is the process of intentionally helping others obediently follow after Christ so that they can lead others to follow Christ.

Family Discipleship 101

As the definitions show us, discipleship consists of biblical teaching within the context of relationship. Although families are relational by nature, we still must put forth effort to connect scripture to our family relationships in two ways. Many names exist to describe the two types of family discipleship, but for the sake of simplicity, I will call the first “Family Worship” and the second, “On the Job Training.”

Family Worship

First, we need to create family worship times to teach our children about, “the instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). This is a set time during which we bring the word of God to bear directly our children’s struggles and successes. As we talk about what the scriptures say about lying, we encourage little Johnny to be truthful; we apply the sermon on I Corinthians 13 to our son’s relationship with his sister; and we can use the Sunday school lesson on the rich young ruler to encourage our daughter forsake of love money. Although not every family worship time will be glorious (I can remember wrecking a few in my childhood), they will give a platform and opportunities to speak truth directly into your child’s heart.

On the Job Training

Second, we disciple through everyday life. As our children study, play, do chores, suffer SalvationSeries_BaptismClassforParents6heartache, and excel academically, we seek to redeem their life experiences by showing how the gospel helps us make sense of life. When they come home crying because their best friend has spread a lie about them, we can offer them hope, reminding them that Christ is going to return and free the world from suffering.  And more immediately, we can remind our daughter that she will be able to forgive her friend through the power of Christ because we have already been forgiven (Col. 3:13). But to have this influence upon our children’s hearts, we have to be diligently creating a platform from which we can launch into these conversations. Our own faithful walk with Christ and family worship makes on the job training possible (Deut. 6:5-6). If we never initiate spiritual conversations with our children, we cannot expect them to invite us into their hearts or expect them to welcome sporadic spiritual correction. If anything, we will just frustrate their young hearts. We need to be intentionally showing our children how to obey Christ every day in every way.  

You Can Do It!!!!

Now you might be thinking, “Of course the pastor is all about family worship as a means of discipleship; he did after all go to school for like four years to study the Bible.” But believe it or not being a disciple maker is not a seminary based skill. It’s a God given ability bestowed upon every believer. Think back to the great commission in Mathew 28. Does Jesus command only pastors and seminary students to make disciples? No, he commands every Christian to be a disciple-maker! If Jesus tells us to make disciples, we can have 100% confidence that Jesus will give us the ability to make disciples. And he has! He sent us the Holy Spirit to enlighten hearts. If we are faithful to pray and study the word, God will do the rest.  I fully agree with Voddie Baucham’s comment:

If you can read, you can teach your children God’s Word. All you have to do is stay a step ahead of them.” (Baucham V. J., 2007)  

You might agree that family discipleship should be occurring in your home, but you feel inadequate to teach. First check your heart. If you have sin in your life, repent of it. And if it’s public sin against your family ask God’s forgiveness and their forgiveness. For you to disciple others, you need to be obediently following Christ and repenting of your sins! With your life right before God, start proactively discipling! Remember,

Ministry is the pathway to maturity, not the other way around” (Gallaty, p. 29).

After you begin family worship, I suspect you will still sin. I’ve even sinned in the midst of our devotion time and had to ask my wife for forgiveness. Even if we or our children sin every time we have a family worship time, we don’t stop. Family discipleship is not designed to make us perfect or to solve all of our family’s problems. Rather, family worship is a time during which we encourage our hearts and the hearts of our children to pursue holiness.  

We’ll have to teach the same lessons over and over, we’ll often make the same mistakes again and again, and we must continue to rely on the grace of God to see us through (Baucham V. J., 2011, p. 62) 

We never outgrow our need for the gospel!

All About the Daddio’s

Now Dad-s if you are in the home, please understand that much of the above instructions are written primarily with us in mind! We are called by God to lead our family. We are called by God to love our wives as Christ loves the church (Eph. 5:25). We are called to loving care for our children primarily by equipping them with life skills and by teaching them the word (Eph. 6:4 and Col 3:21). The Psalmist says fathers are commanded, “To teach to their children” about the things of God (Ps 78:5). We are called to encourage our families to “Seek first the kingdom of God and righteousness,” making sports, work, and piano practice second to the gospel (Matt 4:4). If we are taking our family to church, that’s great. Let’s keep going. But the spiritual formation of our children rests upon our shoulders.  We cannot offshore our calling to the youth pastor or leave all the spiritual stuff to our wives. We need to be spiritual leaders who disciple in the home.

 Admittedly, your wife may be a stronger Christian than you. If that’s the case, learn from her! Ask her questions, seek her impute (even if you are a well establish Christian, seek her input)! And remember, the power of the gospel is not tied to her or to anybody else! It’s attached to the Word of God. Even though you might not be writing Systematic Theologies, you can still encourage your wife and children with the word of God! Even baby Christians can make disciples.  Let’s get going!

Next week we will look specifically at how to make your family worship time a success.

Recommended Reading:

Baucham, V. J. (2007). Family Driven Faith: Doing What it Takes to Raise Sons and Daughters Who Walk With God . Wheaton: Crossway .

Baucham, V. J. (2011). Family Sheperds. Wheaton: Crossway .

Gallaty, R. (2013). Growing Up: How To be a Disciple Who Make Disciples. Bloomington: Crossway .

Greear, J. (2013). Stop Asking Jesus Into Your Heart: How TO Know For Sure You Are Saved. Nashville: B&H Publishing .

 

Peter Witkowski Children's Ministry

From YMCA to Veggie Tales: Children’s Ministries That Last

Blog_YMCA to Veggie TalesJust like its namesake song, the YMCA is quickly becoming classic of a bye gone era. The Christian gyms famously devoted to reaching young men are being replaced with Veggie Tale concerts, Winshape Camps, and a wild assortment of other pubescent activities. Every day churches are updating nursery facilities, hiring children’s pastors, and launching new kids’ programs. Children’s ministry is the new youth ministry. And in many ways the focus upon children’s ministry is a good thing. According to Ken Ham, some forty percent of those who leave the church decide to check-out during their elementary or middle school years.[i] We need to do a better job of reaching our children for Christ. But before we hire a themer or create the hottest new curriculum, we need to ask ourselves what is the goal of children’s ministry?

According to scripture, the twelve and under program should consist of the following three headliners: the gospel, parents, and discipleship.  Before we can look at putting together an A-list children’s ministry, we first need to understand our audience.

In the Psalms, we discover that all babies enter the world infected with sin.  According to the Psalmist, “The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray from birth, speaking lies” (Ps 58:3). The teaching that all children are born with “iniquity” is reinforced in Psalm 51:5 and in Romans 3:23. Reflecting upon these and other passages, the famed theologian J.C. Ryle commented, “one thing a mother can say with certainty: [her infant] will have a corrupt heart.”[ii] Similarly, Elyse Fitzpatrick and Jim Newheiser wrote,

“Children are not good by nature; they are not a “blank slate” upon which we can write our values; they are not inherently innocent, nor are they genetically predisposed to be good. In fact, the Bible teaches that they are genetically predisposed to be bad because every child is born with original sin and a rebellious nature.”[iii]

All babies and infants (and I would argue a majority of preschoolers, elementary students, and middle schoolers, “the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” Gen. 8:21) first encounter children’s ministry as an unbeliever with little to no knowledge of the gospel. What do we do with these precious little ones?

First, we introduce them to the gospel! According to Deuteronomy 6:1-25, we are to teach our uniformed, little sinners the word of God through Sunday school lessons and through our actions. We do so hoping that the Holy Spirit will spark questions in the hearts of our children that will burst into the glorious flame of salvation. As Paul says, the law is the tutor, the teacher, by which we come to Christ (Gal. 3:24). Before we bring out Lottie Moon or anything else, let’s expose our children to this firm yet wonderful teacher.

Secondly, we need to welcome parents onto the children’s ministry stage. In Deuteronomy, Moses charges parents with the primary responsibility of reaching their children for Christ.  We are told that children will ask parents (not pastors or Sunday school teachers) about spiritual matters. Consequently, I believe equipping parents to disciple their own children is one of a children’s ministry leader’s most important tasks. As I look back over my time in children’s ministry, I have seen ample evidence of this truth. The number of children who came to Christ while interacting with their parents far out paces the number of professions made at camps or vacation bible schools.  Not surprisingly, every child that I have counseled has come to my office accompanied by a loving parent who has been fielding their child’s spiritual questions.  Let’s strive to equip our parents to bring up their children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph 6:4b). During the next few weeks, I look forward to tackling the subject of “leading your child to Christ” in more detail.

Although parents our charged with caring for their children’s spiritual formation, their calling does not negate the importance of the church. Psalm 78 reveals that teaching the next generation also contains a corporate element that extends beyond the immediate family dynamic. As J.C. Ryle notes, “Few can be found, I think, who might not influence some parent in the management of his family, or affect the training of some child by suggestion or advice.”[iv] When we have children in our homes, or in Sunday school rooms, or in Wacky Wednesday gyms, we should remember Deuteronomy 6, Psalm 78, and Ephesians 6. We are to partner with parents by diligently teaching all children the gospel story in a loving, engaging manner. “Both [the family and the church] have been given the task to disciple young people.”[v]

Thirdly, we introduce these warmed up crowds of little people to discipleship. Regardless of our audience’s age, we are called to make disciples not converts (Mathew 28). Consequently, we should make truth for growth a valued member of our gospel focused, children’s ministries. We should teach on Ephesians 6, encouraging our children to obey their parents. We should teach young Christians to put on the “tender mercies, kindness, long suffering” of Colossians 3. But, we must do so in a manner that also recognizes many of our listeners lack regenerated hearts and gospel knowledge. As children’s pastors, teachers and workers, we must remind all the souls under our influence that the Christian life is impossible without Christ. We must constantly show our children their sin and then introduce them to the Jesus who saves and transforms all who call upon his name.

Who knows if Veggies Tales will become a heralded classic or if the cute vegetables will return to forgotten produce isle? But this we do know. The word of God will never pass away (Mat 5:18). If we faithfully build our children’s ministries on the Bible by proclaiming the gospel, equipping parents, and on discipling children, we will escape the bounds of irrelevance.

[i] (Ham, Beemer and Hillard 2012,) Ken Ham also points out that another 50% of those who leave church decide to do so during high school. I wish in no way question the validity of youth ministry as it has a special place in my heart. I came to Christ under the preaching of a faithful youth pastor. I only wish to point out that the enthusiasm of yester year that went into youth ministry has now been redirected towards children.

Peter Witkowski Discipleship, Parenting

T.V. Discipleship

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We may not have a coffee stained book in our hand or a bible study course in our DVD player or a regular prayer time with our family outside of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. But we are still disciple makers. If we can convince someone to follow our way of life, we are making disciples.

I became painfully aware of this fact several nights ago. As my wife and I were powering down for the evening, I began cycling through the various ways to use the last hours of our day. I considered our family devotional, reading, or watching a movie. Driven by tiredness, I opted for the movie. As the screen blinked on, my mind felt conviction. Through God’s grace, I realized that I was not just passing on a traditional biblical discipleship time. I had done much more. I had embraced a humanistic discipleship. In that moment, I had taught my wife (who could not see my internal struggle) that human entertainment was more valuable than Christ. I was discipling her away from God.

I fear that I am not alone in this struggle. As I look about, I see people all throughout Christendom skipping church to go to a sports tournament, replacing quiet times with movies, and missing bible studies to go hunting. I hear about Christians embracing anger when life gets hard, turning to gossip when they are bored, and using alcohol, drugs, or entertainment to escape the struggles of daily life. And when we make these bad choices, we model a faith of self and worldly worship.

Just as flipping the remote influenced my wife, we all will influence our loved ones for good or for ill with every decision we make and with every word we speak. As the continual updates of important, trivial statuses on Facebook and Twitter show, we cannot justify sin by asserting that we live in a social vacuum. We are watched. We all disciple.

For this reason, we need to dive deep into scripture. As we study the Bible in private, with our families, and at church, we will learn how to love God and one another. We will see that God should come before all else. If we seek to make God our priority will excel at heavenly discipleship. If we act as Jesus acted, we will teach our spouses, children and friends to be like Christ.

Admittedly, we cannot disciple perfectly all of the time. I began this post with a story of my own failure. Moreover, we must agree with the words of I John and say that anyone who claims he is not a sinner is liar. But the existence of sin does not excuse us from of life devoted to pursuing the things of God. We must seek as Paul commands in I Corinthians to honor God in everything that we do (even eating and drinking) by relying upon God’s power.

Today, I invite you to join me in to analyzing your life through the lens of discipleship. Let’s daily ask if we are pointing our loved ones to death or to life. When we disciple people in godly living, let’s praise God. And when you or I point loved ones away from God, let’s commit to stopping our actions and ask our gracious God and loved ones to forgive us. We all disciple. Let’s strive to disciple in the gospel!