“Every Christian is either a missionary or an imposter.”
It’s a quote famously said by the preacher C. H. Spurgeon. His use of the phrase feels exacting, demanding, and implicating. Your ears might burn a little as you hear it, and you may feel yourself want to argue against it. If you’re at all versed in the scriptures, the cold hard logic of the quote doesn’t allow for an easy out. If you read the rest of Spurgeon’s sermon, he qualifies the statement by explaining that by missionary he means anyone who spreads the gospel, or who tells of Jesus to another soul. In some ways, I wished he hadn’t qualified it. A statement like this, even if it needs some qualification to be true, is most effective when left alone, with all its rhetorical weight falling on the listener without caveats or escape vectors.
On the other hand, the same exact quote was stated earlier this week by Brian Phipps at the 2022 Discipleship Forum, here in little old Findlay, Ohio. Phipps’s use was far gentler. That’s because Brian Phipps and Rob Wegner presented for two days on tried and tested ways to do genuine discipleship in ways that make it natural for every Christian to be a disciple maker, a.k.a. to talk at length about Jesus Christ.
Rob had tried the method of forcing discipleship to happen. Based on his resume and the places he had worked, you might assume Rob had been wildly successful, but to hear him tell it, his attempts at disciple making and mission were not only ineffective, but harmful. He describes his disciple making as painful, damaging himself and his family in the process. Rob testified that he tried to do the work of the Holy Spirit, and predictably, it didn’t pan out. In a somewhat defeated tone, Rob remarked, “Mission makes a terrible god.” When mission becomes the only focus of our Christian walk, we run past where God wants us, run over the people God has for us, and run ourselves ragged.
Of course, I can’t type that last sentence in good faith. I barely had an attention span for the Discipleship Forum. Despite being the person primarily tasked with promoting it, ensuring the CGGC livestreamed it, and taking footage of it, I wasn’t really focused on the content itself. Between answering emails, doing homework, preparing for a class I had to teach the next day, and running home to take care of a sniffly toddler, I hadn’t left much margin in my life to engage the content. Thank God for Jakobee Cotton of Movement Church for being present enough to pull me out of the busyness even if for the briefest moments of sincere conversation.
And sincerity is precisely what Brian and Rob talked about. If you looked at the slides and heard the fancy terms like ‘micro-church,’ or the acronyms they were throwing around, you might get the impression that Brian and Rob were interested in another new programmatic way to do discipleship, as if the church at large hasn’t tried a million already. But that would be reductive and downright incorrect. The micro-church model that they espouse isn’t a new way to do small groups or a new type of Bible study, and it certainly doesn’t replace the traditional church.
At its core, the idea of micro-church is a sincere reflection of what Christianity looks like in practice. It’s a formalization of genuine Christian activity. It’s a highly intentioned, rebranded way of being a Christian in community. We all understand that disciple making, at least the way Jesus practiced it, meant opening his life to people. Disciple making means giving over our time for the building of meaningful relationships. It requires deep conversations that probe at the heart and soul of a human. Micro churches postulate the axioms that: time is more important than space, deep conversation is more important than right curriculum, obedience is more important than competence, repentance is more important than refinement.
Around 40 Pastors from around the denomination and some from without came to Findlay to listen and reflect on the methods and stories Brian and Rob shared. If you’re interested in hearing what they have to say, we’ve recorded each session and are hosting them on our Youtube channel. Look out for more snippets and cut down videos in the coming days.
May God bless you,
Jacob
CGGC eNews—Vol. 16, No. 43
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