My Discipleship Program

For this project, I was to be presenting to a church board my proposal for a discipleship event or program.  I used the community of Long Branch, NJ where I am currently interning at Searchlight Church.  The idea for this program came from a previous experience in the summer of 2013 at my home church.

OVERVIEW:

My proposal is to start a weekly Young Adults Small Group study.  The goal is to create a small group community of young adults to promote effective spiritual growth, as well as a Biblical community in 21^st century American culture.

Here is the short version:

Who: Young Adults (20 somethings)

What: Small Group (maximum 20 people)

Where: Searchlight Church, although preferably at people’s homes

When: Thursday nights 7pm – 8:30pm, for 10 weeks

Why: To promote biblical community and effective spiritual growth

How: Crazy Love Curriculum

DEMOGRAPHICS:

Long Branch is part of Monmouth County, NJ.  Monmouth County is in the top 1.2% of richest counties in the United States.  There are approximately 630,000 people.  Long Branch itself has about 30,700 people, which is a 2% decrease in the past 10 years.  Hurricane Sandy devastated parts of the community, and thankfully Searchlight Church helped a lot with relief aid.

Searchlight Church itself is almost 3 years old, and runs about 150 people.  There is an atmosphere of “new” or “first generation” Christians.  They have contemporary worship (they have actually played for NJ Youth Convention, as well as conventions for other denominations), and a generally young-family type congregation.

Monmouth University is only a few minutes away from the school that Searchlight Church meets in.  There are about 4500 undergraduate students, with around 2000 of them living on campus.  The Christian Ambassadors Club and To Write Love On Her Arms are two student-led organizations that we could possibly reach out to, which I will discuss in more detail below.

CRAZY LOVE CURRICULUM:

I chose the Crazy Love curriculum because of my past success working with it in the summer of 2013 at my home church.  Francis Chan, the author, challenges the Christian to truly follow Jesus with their whole lives.  By the end of the 10 weeks, students make a conscious decision to either accept or reject Christ’s call of total devotion to Him.  This material is heavy, challenging, and remains positive.  At my home church, we saw positive spiritual growth in those who came from this material.  I believe this material will truly prompt spiritual growth in those who attend.

This small group curriculum would last for 10 weeks, as there are 10 chapters and 10 discussion sessions.  The group would have a maximum of about 20 people, and if it grew beyond this we would expand this to multiple small groups.

I also believe that this small group type format will encourage a true Biblical model of community in 21^st century American culture.  When originally doing this in my home church, I felt that we really were experiencing the “early church” type of community in this modern setting.  Our honesty in the discussions, accountability, and relationships that were formed were so energizing.  I believe that this will be a natural by-product of doing this type of small group format.

EVENTS:

Doing group events will contribute to creating a true Biblical community.  Three events that we came up with were to go to Hillsong Church in NYC, go to Six Flags, and also the beach.  I believe that making these trips free will encourage students to get involved who otherwise would not have.  After having a positive experience and making connections on a fun trip, they will be more willing to join this small group.  This is also key in forming the Biblical community among the students who attend the group.

BUDGET COSTS:

Resources:

$240 (20 books)

+$240 (20 study books)

+$27 (1 DVD)

=$507

Events:

$201 NYC (Gas, tolls, parking for 3 vehicles)

+$140 Beach (20 people at $7/person)

+$600 Six Flags (15 people at $33/person, parking, gas for 3 vehicles)

=$941

Totals:

$1,448 = All resources + all events

$848 = All resources + NYC & beach

SUMMARY:

This proposal is about creating a Young Adults Small Group that would meet for 10 weeks.  Its goal is to create a small group community of young adults to promote effective spiritual growth, as well as a Biblical community in 21^st century American culture.

The Crazy Love Curriculum would be used to promote effective spiritual growth, as I have seen it do in the past with success.  The three events throughout the 10 weeks would promote the Biblical community among those who attend, and also help plug new students into the group who wouldn’t have otherwise joined.

Monmouth University could be a resource of advertising, having more students come, and also doing a follow-up program.  After these 10 weeks, perhaps one of these groups could do the next “semester” of small group curriculum.

AFTER CLASS PRESENATION:

These are some things the “church board” brought up and discussed afterwards.

1. Some type of follow-up program.  I did not consider what exactly we would do afterwards, but I envisioned this as a “kick-start” to an official young adults group.  We could advertise this as a semester-type commitment, take a break after the 10 weeks, and then pick up a few weeks later with a new curriculum.

2. Cost of food each week.  This was something I did not take into consideration at all.  At the very minimum, the board calculated that it would be $200 ($20/week).

3. “Scholarship” language.  The board suggested that instead of simply making the events like Six Flags and book resources free, they should be scholarshiped.  This way we wouldn’t just be throwing away money, but still have the events perform their desired function.  It would also give students more ownership of the resources and events.

Overall, I felt good about the presentation and the idea.  The board loved my passion and the fact that I had previous success with this curriculum.  They decided they would go with it.  I am thankful for their insights as well, and I will consider those things whenever I have to do this in real life!

11.19.13 Interview with David Kennard

Tonight we interviewed David Kennard.  He is the Mills Site Pastor and Adult Ministry Pastor at Riverside Community Church.  There were other people who came with him (pastors and ministers in training) who are part of a small group he is in, even though they may work in other ministries.  We began by asking how he defined discipleship. At Riverside, they have an equation that for discipleship.  It is:

D = R + I

Discipleship = Relationships + Intentionality

However, this is more about process.  This could apply to anyone.  After Professor Reese pointed this out, David clarified that the discipleship process is in the “intentionality” part.  Discipleship is about being who Jesus wants them to be.  His church uses an approach called, “Free Market Small Groups.”

FREE MARKET SMALL GROUPS

            This type of small group philosophy equips people to become small group leaders, they go through a training process, and then start an intentional small group based around something.  The small groups vary per who is leading and who is involved; a Bible study on 1 Peter, hunting, knitting, etc.  This type of small groups enables people to become small group leaders, and the small groups are functioned around what the people involved want.  This has proved very valuable, as people have come to these groups based off of their interests and then get plugged in.  We received a booklet from him in class that helped define this better.

A small group: is an opportunity for people to connect weekly as they journey through life together.  Spiritual, emotional and relational growth takes place as everyone shares in the everyday experiences of life.

Characteristics of “Free Market” Small Groups:

1.     They meet regularly (preferably weekly)

2.     They have three or more people attending, including the leader

3.     They develop and identify an assistant leader

4.     They model our core values by striving to Revere God with their worship, Connect with each other for their growth, and Contribute to God’s plan for humankind.

5.     Unless specified they welcome new people into the group anytime during the semester

6.     They are supported by section and zone leaders

7.     They develop group members into future leaders

8.     They encourage group members to invite people who are outside of the church

9.     They complete their topic by the start of the next Sign-Up Rally

10. They grow

FACTS, NUMBERS, STATS

            Around 80% of their congregation of 700-800 people are involved in small groups.  About 80 people are involved in their small groups who do not attend the church.  The worship team, church board, etc. are all viewed as small groups as well and do things together in this capacity.  This church seems to be completely based around small groups!  All of the small group leaders get together once a month, and their church also does a lot of community projects.

The small groups are semester based, from September to the first week of December, a month off, and then January through May.  They almost all meet once a week, and they have noticed those bear the best results.  He said when they miss a week, they miss a month.  People are out of each other’s lives when this happens.

OTHER NOTES & QUESTIONS

            We talked about holiness in these small groups and bringing people to a more godly lifestyle.  In their small groups, they talked about the balance of truth and grace.  One of their conclusions was that more truth can work better with believers because they are on the same “playing field” as they all adhered to Scripture.  This is less effective with non-believers, but obviously both truth and grace must always be together!

            They use the “Follow” book by Daniel McNaughton.  They have a Follow Booklet that they actually have at the altars, which is an introduction step.  They have two campuses, one of them meeting in a mall.  We saw the history of the mall site, and it’s pretty cool how God kept having them grow to bigger facilities in the mall.

It’s interesting how they do the preaching, they use a system called “Streambox” to stream the video.  David sometimes does preaching live, maybe about three times a year.  He collaborates with the lead pastor about what they are preaching, and gets the notes Saturday night to preach the next morning.

David said he liked the “Follow” material because it has so much content, and is really based on Jesus and His disciples rather than other Bible characters most discipleship material is based off of.  This provides the content in a way that the spiritual coach does not have to have all the answers, which encourages people to become spiritual coaches.

MY CONCLUSION

            This church is a well-oiled machine.  Small groups are key to what they do, yet have 700-800 people attending!  Between their materials (Follow Jesus booklet, Small Group Catalog, church introduction video, etc.), small groups, locations, etc. they have a very clear idea of what they are doing, why they are doing it, and where they are going with it.

            It sounds like they have a great idea of discipleship.  Their process is very well defined, which actually gives me mixed feelings.  I think it is very effective, especially from the way he described the church.  Sometimes I am wary of church becoming too much of an “organization” and less of an “organism,” but that’s not the sense I get from this church.  They seem to have effective results, and I don’t think the focus is only on process.  I guess when you have a church of this size, process is just something you have to focus on a lot.  I appreciated having David and his small group in class with us, and feel like I gleaned a lot of valuable knowledge from this.

David also recommended these to us:

Susan Cain’s TED talk

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html

Dog Training, Fly Fishing, and Sharing Christ in the 21^st Century

By: Ted Haggard

http://www.amazon.com/Training-Fishing-Sharing-Christ-Century/dp/0849928974/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386340959&sr=8-1&keywords=dog+training+fly+fishing+and+sharing+christ

11.12.13 Portrait of a Disciple - Zaccheus

This is my "Portrait of a Disciple" presentation of Zaccheus, one of Jesus' disciples:

             I was a totally different person back then.  Before I knew Jesus, before I knew his love…yeah, I was a pretty bad guy.  Back then, everyone knew who I was.  You could have called me “Mister Rich and Famous.”  But, I wasn’t famous for any particularly GOOD reason…in fact I probably could have been described as INFAMOUS.

            Ok, my name’s Zaccheus.  Before Jesus came into my life, I was a chief tax collector in Jericho.  AKA, I was an important guy.  I oversaw an entire division of tax collectors – they reported back to ME.  NOTHING went down that I didn’t know about.

Now this is what you need to get – tax collectors weren’t really loved back in my day.  While there might have been a few honest ones, we generally ripped people off…ok, straight up cheated them.  How you say?  Well, I was kind of like a…a SALESMAN, yeah…my paycheck came from commission.  So basically, if I didn’t charge a little extra money, it’d be hard for me to pay for the essential things in life…like my yacht and 7-car-garage house.  So, if someone owed a certain bit of money…I’d charge a little extra on top of that.

Now ok, I know this sounds bad, but before I met Jesus, before his love changed my life, I didn’t really feel bad about that sort of thing.

But yeah, it was a Tuesday I believe…someone said Jesus was passing through Jericho.  Now I had heard of Him before, but I had never saw Him up close.  I was trying to keep it a secret…but I REALLY wanted to meet Him!  I don’t know what it was, but just hearing how He talked to the rejects of society, that He loved them for absolutely NO good reason…I was drawn to Him.  I mean, how could you love someone who didn’t deserve it?  And, something ELSE I kept secret…I HATED who I was.  Yeah sure, they money was nice, but I just couldn’t live with myself any more.  But I felt like I was stuck.  There was nothing I could DO about it.  I was too deep.  Too far-gone.

Well anyway I heard He was coming.  If you haven’t noticed already, I’m a little bit on the shorter side (I don’t like to talk about that).  But I knew that even if I went near Jesus, there was no way I could have seen above the crowd.

So I decided to get to higher ground…and by that I mean climb a tree.  I don’t know if that’s normal thing for you guys, but people didn’t really do that back then.  But hey, I figured, people are already going to see me there, so why not get a good view.  I mean I REALLY wanted to see Jesus!

            When He was passing through, I was so excited!  As I was trying to make sense of the whole situation, He looked up at me in the tree and said, “Zaccheus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”

            MY house!!  My house??  He was coming to MY house!  I had no idea why He picked me, but I got down and brought Him over.  (And how the heck did He know my name?)  I was dishonest.  I was a jerk.  Heck, I straight up ROBBED people.  But Jesus decided to eat with me!

            When He was over my house, He was talking, and He had His other disciples there, but it all became a blur…it was like one of those out of body experiences, and I just felt something overflowing out of my chest.  Like, my heart was growing warmer inside…and I knew what I had to do.

            I said it right there.  I think they were laughing about something when I said it, but I just blurted it out.  I confessed, “Lord, I will give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have robbed anyone anything, I will give back four times as much.”  I’m telling you, when I finally verbalized that, wow, it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders.

            And Jesus, He had this look on Him…like He already knew I was going to say, and was just waiting for me to do it.

            He told me that today, salvation had come to my house.  He said that I was a Son of Abraham, even though I cheated all those people!  His love had completely transformed who I was, and I was forever changed.

11.12.13 Discipleship Scenario

Tonight was our “discipleship scenario.”  We talked about a few different things relating to how discipleship plays out in a real life scenario, and then Prof. Reese gave us examples that we had to pick apart as groups.

SOME QUICK NOTES

            Some of my notes from our discussion before breaking into groups:

Love is a continuous selfless action/compassion towards a person to better the person it is being extended to.

            We talked about different ways to be a disciple.  Disciples can be made through a class (although generally we seemed to shy away from this), by taking them out to dinner, eating with them, spending time together and just talking.  We said that we can’t let discipleship fit into one little box; it’s so broad.  Ultimately, being a disciple is about being a follower of Jesus.  I brought up my definition of discipleship that I wrote down a few weeks prior during our group discussion on it:

A disciple is a student of Christ who has devoted their life to knowing who He is and doing what He says.

            The class thought that wasn’t bad, but Prof. Reese pointed out that the word “student” doesn’t entail relationship.  You can be a student of something, learn all about it, and not be intimately connected to it in any way.  This is why I thought adding, “…devoted their life to knowing who He is…” was important to put in there.  It really is tough coming up with one, single definition of discipleship!

            When it comes to discipleship, we said that it is important to have a good relationship with the person who is becoming a disciple.  We also said that using the “Learning to Follow Jesus” book by Daniel McNaughton is a great tool to use.  I’ve noticed that so many people that we’ve brought in throughout the semester have used a lot of Daniel’s material; I feel like I should explore this more.  A few churches seemed to almost swear by it!  I have one of his first copies, but have never read it.  I also have the Youth Edition (co-authored by Claude Valdes), which I thought had great material inside for one-on-one discipleship for youth.

TAKING INVENTORY

            Based off of some of our discussion, we talked about evaluating ourselves as disciples of Jesus Christ.  We talked about important questions to ask ourselves every day, which I thought were so essential!  I’m glad we went over this, because I don’t always evaluate myself in this way.  They were:

Have I engaged in a personal relationship and fellowship with Christ today?

Have I even talked to Jesus today?

Have I only studied Him?

The RELATIONSHIP factor is key!  We still have to devote ourselves to knowing who He is, wherever we are in our walk with Christ.

DISCIPLESHIP SCENARIO

Prof. Reese gave my group a fictional scenario for my group to discuss how we would disciple this couple:

            -They are both 24 years old, married for 2 years

            -Fight like cats and dogs

-Made a connection with us through hearing that we do a marriage mentoring ministry

-Came out to a marriage workshop thing we did

-Don’t know much about God

-Not Christians (she went to a Bible club a little bit when she was 16, that’s it)

            The first thing our group said is that we would take the couple out for dinner.  We would just want to get to know them, as we were able to make a meaningful connection during the marriage workshop.  At some point, we would intentionally bring up the marriage workshop and their thoughts of the event, which would hopefully lead to a bit of insight to their marriage and why they decided to come.  We would invited them to our (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly?) meeting where we have our marriage mentoring ministry.

            As part of this process, we would also meet individually with the couple.  I would meet with the husband, mostly just hanging out and getting to know him, and Alexandra would do the same with the wife.  Perhaps it would be over coffee, but later on maybe even hanging out at each other’s houses, playing video games, or whatever it might be.  It would be casual yet still intentional.  There wouldn’t be any material we would officially go through (unless they wanted to), but we would just spend time together with them.

            Between them coming to our marriage mentoring ministry, our individual one-on-one meetings on a regular basis and our already established meaningful connections, we would hope to start to see a change.  This process would definitely take a while, surely more than a few weeks.  Perhaps it could take several months before they started to see real change, but we would stick it out, because that’s what it would take, and that’s why we would be there.  We didn’t think that they would be turned off to this invitation, as they decided of their own initiative to come out to the marriage seminar we hosted.  Perhaps we could even talk about how they came to that decision as a talking point somewhere in this process.