For ten years, I have been happily involved in ministry. From inner-city family missions and street evangelism in the U.S., to planting and pastoring churches in the rural mountains of the Sierra Madres in Mexico, I have enjoyed every single moment of it. Even through my darkest valleys, God has walked beside me, guided me tenderly to safety, raised me up again, and sent me back into the field. The best years of my youth were spent advancing the Kingdom of God, and I don't regret it one bit. If I had to do it over again, I would gladly dedicate my life to Christ the King and happily walk back into the fire for His sake.
Yet, for the past year, I instinctively knew that 2013 would be my last year of mission travel for a while. I felt certain that I would continue in missions, but I had prayed intensively and was sure that the Holy Spirit was preparing me for a change.
At the close of last year, I was admitted to the emergency room. Those short four hours of tests and treatment turned into thousands of dollars of medical expenses (because, before healthcare was made financially accessible in the United States, an independent missionary rarely had medical coverage). After finishing my final ministry tour of 2013 in Mexico, I settled down into a job and new residence at the beginning of 2014, and began building the foundations of financial stability for my future (I'll talk more about that later). The new pace of life has been introspective and the experience has been eye-opening.
Something curious happens when you spend a long amount of time in unhindered service to the Lord - you forget how the "other side" lives. The "other side" is where you were before God called you into leadership. It's the other side of the pulpit, the people of the congregation who you lead into worship and active surrender to Christ. It's the student who is scrambling to finish her exams while finding time to actively participate in ministry in her local church. It's the businessman who arrives at midweek service at 6:30pm after closing his shop at 6:00pm, tired but ready to meet with the Lord. It's the factory worker who struggles to stay awake in the morning service because he just clocked out of his 3rd shift job at 7am. It's the mother who longs usher her three children into the hands of the children's ministry workers so that she can enjoy 2 precious hours of soul-food and adult interaction. It's the teenager who trudges into the midst of the youth group after an afternoon of soccer practice.
Forgetting how the "other side" lives can be a detrimental failure on the part of a leader. We can create impractical event agendas for our congregations and place unrealistic expectations on church attendance when we forget what life is like without the pressure of job schedules, family commitments, debts, mortgage, car payments, and insurance premiums. We expect families to juggle work, home, church, and personal time in a seamless effort, all while pleasing our deep desire to see them grow spiritually in the Lord (sometimes this desire can be distorted and exasperated by a selfish need to affirm our own success). We can easily forget that the "other side" often struggles to understand the art of integrating their spiritual life with their work, home, and personal lives; we can neglect the need to implement proactive one-on-one discipleship for time management and priority balance, becoming judges of our brothers and sisters rather than Godly mentors, since we ourselves struggle with the guilt of unbalanced and neglected areas in our own lives. In psychology, this is called "transference," and it happens much too often in leadership at all levels, secular and religious.
For years, I have preached an unchanging message: Discipleship is not a 12-step program or a Bible study, but rather a disciplined lifestyle of which we can say to others without shame or doubt, "Watch how I live, and imitate me, just as I imitate Christ in everything I do."
The art of discipleship changes with each phase of life. As a teenager, a disciplined lifestyle means juggling school, sports, friends, family, and church, all while shining Christ's light and inviting others to that light. As an adult, the art of discipleship shifts in order to balance new priorities and demands, while continuing to shine His Light. As I move into a new phase of my own adult life, I continually find new adjustments that I must make to assure that a focus of discipleship takes precedence in all that I do. A dear friend instilled this discipline into me for many years, reminding me constantly "It is imperative as Christians that we live intentionally every day, striving to be present at every moment."
When I first began this blog, I called it "transformations" because I desired to document the transformations that I am undergoing in my own personal life, and share the lessons that I am learning with others. I am convinced that none of us have arrived to the perfection that Christ calls us to; rather, we are constantly moving forward, constantly being transformed, as Paul describes in Phillippians 4:12 (NLT),
"I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me."
I encourage you to evaluate your discipleship goals today. Are you a judge, or are you a mentor? If you are a judge, then I suggest that you first arrive at your own perfection by the transforming power of the Glory of Christ before pointing out the imperfections of others.
As Christ said in Luke 6:42 (NLT),
"How can you think of saying, ‘Friend, let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye."
And as Paul stated in Romans 14:10-13 (NLT)
So why do you condemn another believer? Why do you look down on another believer? Remember, we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For the Scriptures say,
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bend to me, and every tongue will confess and give praise to God.’”
Yes, each of us will give a personal account to God. So let’s stop condemning each other. Decide instead to live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to stumble and fall.
As Christians, we have been entrusted with the important responsibility to love and live as Christ. In your daily life, in all that you do, seek to be a mentor, a discipler, a person who builds up and empowers those around him. Whether you are an appointed leader in your local church, or a faithful servant seeking to fulfill your calling in your community and home, carry the light of Christ proudly into the darkness of the world and be dedicated to living out the gospel of our Savior Jesus Christ. What is that Gospel? "Christ has come to seek and to save those who were lost, and to give them life in abundance." Live in the present, constantly aware of your lifestyle and intentionally building the art of discipleship so that your life is a reflection of Christ.
Want resources on how you can disciple others and create an intentional lifestyle of mentoring and discipleship? Here's some training links and good books that I recommend:
Revolution in World Missions (2004, K.P. Yohannon): http://www.gfa.org/offer/freebook/
Verge Network: http://www.vergenetwork.org/
Crazy Love (2011, Francis Chan): http://crazylovebook.com/
Evangelism Explosion: http://evangelismexplosion.org/
Dare 2 Share: http://www.dare2share.org/
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