[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we've had a fantastic time over these last three weeks exploring many of the ways that we are involved in mission together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just hearing from our mission partners, especially join on the last week in the Honeybunns, wasn't that fantastic.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was so good to hear what they're doing in both the Philippines and Cambodia.
[SPEAKER_00]: But of course, we have partners that we support in many other nations and across
[SPEAKER_00]: Melbourne and across Australia.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we are blessed and privileged to be able to join with God in what he is doing in so many different places.
[SPEAKER_00]: And although we are fundraising during this month to ensure we can continue to support
[SPEAKER_00]: those partners effectively.
[SPEAKER_00]: Part of the heart behind all of this is that as you hear these stories, there may be some aspects of what we're doing that really connects with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we would love to be able to help you dig further into how you might get involved in those relationships in that work in different places.
[SPEAKER_00]: So please do, if the Lord has prompted you in any way through this series,
[SPEAKER_00]: Follow up with us, chat with us, we'd love to help you take some steps further into what God might be wanting to do in and through your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: But praise God that we get to be part of what God is doing in all of those different communities and just to hear about the St. Kilda Gatehouse this morning, so encouraging.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to continue on.
[SPEAKER_00]: this morning with part two of what I started talking about two weeks ago, which is about the work of disciple making.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I want to do this morning, and I'm not sure I've ever preached a sermon quite like this before, so this might be an experiment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't tell me straight away after the service if this didn't work, but leave it a couple of days.
[SPEAKER_00]: My skin is not usually
[SPEAKER_00]: What I want to discuss this morning with us all is actually really important and is not talked about very much in the context of the local church and I think that's a tragedy and I want to unpack this morning some of the practicalities of what it might look like for us to move as we've been saying these last few weeks.
[SPEAKER_00]: from being learner bystanders of the ministry of Jesus, to empowered agents in the ministry of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm only gonna be scratching the surface this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get it.
[SPEAKER_00]: There'll be a lot of other questions I'm sure you have, but I think we've got to start somewhere, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: Talking about this in some way, in some form is better than not talking about it at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's go back to the text that we've been looking at these last two weeks ago, pardon me, when I was talking about this in the context of the Great Commission, Matthew 28, which is of course one of Jesus' last commands to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's on the screen, let's read it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then Jesus came to them and said, all the authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let me pray, Lord, I pray as we come into this moment, as we look at this text, as we think about what it means for us to join our lives to what you're doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you bring inspiration and challenge and conviction and encouragement to our hearts, Lord?
[SPEAKER_00]: And show us what it might mean for us to take steps forward in these things we pray in Jesus' name, in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the two key promises in this text, of course, that Jesus has all authority in heaven and on earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he has all the power through his death, resurrection, and ascension to the throne of the universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is now King of Kings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he also promises then to be with us always.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he has all authority and power, and he promises to be with us always, even to the very end of the age.
[SPEAKER_00]: So right the way through, Jesus will be with us in our desire, in our task, in our calling to join with him in being a disciple and making disciples.
[SPEAKER_00]: Until he comes again, so we're not alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's working in us and he's working through us to enable us to do this work to live this calling.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have not been left as orphans to figure this stuff out on our own.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's with us in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we can trust that if we start to pray and wrestle with him over what this means for my life to join in on this task of making disciples.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have this promise here that he'll be with us and he'll be speaking to us and giving us the power to do what we need to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, none of us are competent.
[SPEAKER_00]: Even Paul, the Apostle said in 2 Corinthians 3, you know, none of us are competent to do this ministry of reconciliation, but it is Christ in us who gives us the power to do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what he promises.
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do we experience that?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's experienced.
[SPEAKER_00]: As we've been looking out through our series in the book of Acts, by the outpouring of the Spirit, as Jesus said in Acts 1.8, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes to you, when He fills you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, there's something that's going to happen in us, a dynamic empowering that's going to come to us from God as we are filled with the Spirit and desire to join Him in His work in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, when Jesus says He has all authority and power, the gift of Pentecost is that He shares that authority and power.
[SPEAKER_00]: with you, with me, with all of us through the spirit so that we can do what he did, and we can continue to do what he is continuing to do in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have power to join him in his work, in his mission in the world, both here in Melbourne, across Australia, and across the world, across all the nations.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, by his help and power, not in our own strength and ingenuity, by his help and power, we are called to both be disciples, of course, and to make disciples.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, how do we enter into this?
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it mean to be a disciple?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's really only if we know what a disciple is that we'll know what it means for us to try and help others become disciples along with us to experience this too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I share Dallas-Willard's definition last time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like to go back to that for a minute because it's just simply I think the best that I've come across.
[SPEAKER_00]: He writes that discipleship is being with another person.
[SPEAKER_00]: under-appropriate conditions, in order to become capable of doing what that person does or to become like who and what that person is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, in apprentice of Jesus, that's what a disciple is, a student or an apprentice, is learning from Jesus, learning from him, how to lead their life as he would lead their life.
[SPEAKER_00]: If he were they, as Paul says, clothe yourselves or put on the Lord Jesus Christ, learn to become like him, and so then live your life, as he would lead it if he was you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I said last time, this means that we're not trying to become first century Jewish rabbis.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, by the desire to become more like Christ doesn't mean we have to transport ourselves, you know, 2,000 years ago into a first-century context, actually the opposite is true.
[SPEAKER_00]: What we're trying to learn to do is understand how Jesus would live his life if he were here now, which he is, well he is here now through you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the question then is how does Jesus want to live through you?
[SPEAKER_00]: How will you live your life so that it expresses his life in all that you do?
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're trying to do, and that we bring that into our homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to live this in our homes, in our workplaces, among our friends, you know, with all of our challenges and difficulties, but also with all our opportunities, using our resources, using our gifts, and our talents, using our experience, and our education.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like how can we bring all that we are and all that we have to the task of living and making disciples?
[SPEAKER_00]: to do what Jesus would do if he was us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while they're outworking of that, it's going to be different, right, for each one of us, for each person.
[SPEAKER_00]: Since we all have unique talents, gifts, abilities, personalities, spheres of influence, all of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But God wants to enable us to bring all of that into our discipleship.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so for that to happen, or should I say for us to learn how to live into that, I mentioned last week that there are two essential elements, two essential dynamics that need to be at work in the life of a local church in order for these things to grow in people.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the first one is that we have to be a community that is characterized by the empowering presence of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But dynamic life of the Trinity, baptizing in the name of the Father Son and Holy Spirit means more than just getting people in the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: It means living into the dynamic life of the Trinity, the presence of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And secondly, we need to be a community that is intentionally and deliberately training people in the way of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Delus will call this a school of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: that involves, obviously, both teaching, but also modeling or mentoring so that people can see plausibly how to live their lives as Jesus would.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those two things are essential if we want to make disciples effectively, but as I said last time, there is an order to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an order to these two things.
[SPEAKER_00]: because you cannot do the second effectively, like you cannot train in a quick people to live their lives as Jesus would, unless you have the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit at work, at the heart of it, enabling that to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at the same time, you can't just be teaching this all the time, teaching your way into the presence of God, it has to be something that's experienced.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you need both that work in the life of the church,
[SPEAKER_00]: as little Christ as Carly mentioned in the beginning of this one-care mission month, living, learning to live as little Christ in our own context.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Jesus wants to empower us to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you need both of these things because I'm sure you can all appreciate that if, for example, we only had the first, then we'd be a church that is very powerful.
[SPEAKER_00]: We might have lots of the gifts of the spirit at work and all of that, but we'd be severely lacking in wisdom and understanding.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, we'd look a lot like the Corinthian church that Paul is having to deal with over this exact issue.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got a lot of power, but
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're living powerful lives for the glory of God, but you're also doing terrible things to each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you need to both have the experience of God's power, but you also need teaching in order to ground that power into lives that are lived well, that it lives that are lived ethically and in the love of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you also, I'm sure, have experienced churches where there's a lot of knowledge, there's a lot of teaching, there's a lot of understanding of the Bible, but there's almost no ability to put it into practice because all we have to do is talk about it and learn about it, and we don't know how to translate that into an actual lived day-to-day lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: How do we live the knowledge that we have and turn it into power to live for the glory of God?
[SPEAKER_00]: And now, since last time I focused mostly on the first, today I want to focus mostly then on the second, how do we become a church that is a school of life, that is training and equipping people to live lives as Jesus would live them, to use our gifts and opportunities and abilities and talents outside of the Christian community in our day-to-day lived experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, of course, our theme for this month is together together, so of course, it starts, this work starts in Christian community.
[SPEAKER_00]: The communal aspect of this is essential, so learning how to be the church together.
[SPEAKER_00]: and learning how to go deeper together into the life of God into the reality of the Spirit's work and power is essential.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where it begins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul makes this very clear and Ephesians chapter 4 where he writes the Christ Himself gave the apostles the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, the teachers, to equip his people for works of service.
[SPEAKER_00]: so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it starts
[SPEAKER_00]: Among us, learning and being equipped to understand what it means for us to live into all of the fullness of Christ and to grow up into maturity and all the gifts of the Spirit need to be at work in order for that to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one single person can equip everyone with what they need for living the Christian life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need all of the various ministries at work.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the point of this is that the task of these ministries is to equip the church so that we can attain to the fullness of Christ, which surely means that we're then learning how to live out lives as Christ would not just in the Christian bubble where it's safe and easy, and we all can understand and we share the same language, but outside of this context where you're in your workplace or in your family that may not be followers of Jesus or among your friends,
[SPEAKER_00]: or at your sports club or whatever it is learning how to be Jesus there is essential.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I think Paul means when he's talking about works of service.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we serve one another, but we're also called to serve the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why Christ came and that's what he is empowering us to do to serve the world in his love and to offer what we've experienced in Christ to everyone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what Jesus did.
[SPEAKER_00]: He taught and equipped his disciples kind of along the way in the context of doing ministry and then by seeing him doing it and getting involved in it themselves, they were able to take steps forward into what it means to live into the fullness of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course that really kicked off when there were filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered on the day of Pentecost, which is something that God is still doing today.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think
[SPEAKER_00]: is that our hearts will break for a lost and hurting world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if we're experiencing God's love, then we will immediately understand that that love is not just for me and for you, but for everyone in the world who is lost and hurting and broken, who has made a mess of their lives, who needs to be reconciled to God, and part of our essential work is to make sure that we are being equipped to take that love in the power of the Spirit outside the walls of the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: into the communities around us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I get an amen to that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have witnessed exactly this over many, many years as a pastor that people can attend endless courses and go to hundreds of worship services and go to small groups and listen to our Christian content and all of that for years and years and years and years.
[SPEAKER_00]: But actually, the growth that they most deeply want that they're actually searching for does not tend to happen until all that they've been learning is put into practice in the real world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when they start to do that, when they connect what they're experiencing here, or in a small group, or in a course that they're attending, and they say, OK, I need to bring this into my family, or I need to bring this into my workplace.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when the growth really starts to happen because, you know, when we start saying, Lord, show me how to live this, you know, in my, among my colleagues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Show me how to do live this in my work, show me how to live this in my family, show me how to live this with my friends and my sports club at my school or at my university.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's when our faith starts to stretch.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you'll know that when you go to the gym and you lift weights, stretches, your muscles kind of tears, the muscles are a little bit so that new growth can occur.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the same principle at work when we stretch our faith into areas that might feel risky and difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: That stretching causes new growth to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: And oftentimes, it is not until that happens that
[SPEAKER_00]: Christians will actually begin to experience the kind of growth that is possible in Christ when they're connecting their faith with mission and when that happens like miraculous things can take place.
[SPEAKER_00]: Impossible things can take place.
[SPEAKER_00]: God starts to reveal himself in all kinds of new ways that you could only have ever dreamed or imagined previously.
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we connect what we do, when we gather together as believers to the rest of the world, that's how we begin to experience fullness of life in the kingdom because Jesus never intended for you to just experience Him here on a Sunday, but He wants you to experience Him in every context of your life.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we need each other in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to help each other in this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But again, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago when I was doing this kind of work in Vancouver, and we're seeing that happen here at one in all kinds of ways as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think church, the secret source as it were, to growth in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: is when we take up the challenge to go in the power of the Spirit and get involved in what Jesus is already doing in the world, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the great thing because if he has all authority and he is with us, it means he's already in the places where he's sending us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so all we have to do is be listening to the Holy Spirit and take some risks.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we'll find that God has already preparing the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's already there at work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're just joining in on what He's already doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the pressure is not on us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just joining ourselves to His mission, which He's already doing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the secret source, when we get involved in His mission in the world, something, you know, shifts powerfully.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we begin to learn how to move from just observers of the ministry of Jesus to active agents in the ministry of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in order for us to, for us, I mean, for one to be the kind of church where we're able to do this, we need to be really wrestling with Dallas Willard's point about how do we become a school of life, a place that's intentionally and actively equipping and modeling this for our whole community.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things, of course, we have to keep asking and wrestling with, is the question, how would Jesus live my life if he was me?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I want to challenge you a little on this for just a minute.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder what would happen if you prayed that prayer every day for a month.
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, teach me how to live my life as you would lead it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pray that every day for a month and start to write down what God might reveal to you or do through you in surprising ways as you pray that prayer.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you'll actually be amazed at what will happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: But how God will begin to show up in your ordinary daily life in ways that you had previously not imagined would be possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's all I want to challenge you on that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's all do that together over the next month.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's pray every morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus teach me today how to live my life if you, as you would, if you were me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'd love to hear some reports at the end of the month about what actually happens.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as I said last time, there are three key things that need to be happening in the church for this kind of equipping to take place.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we need to be a church where we're able to be with Jesus through the Spirit in the context of church and Christian community.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do all that pretty well.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to be studying scripture learning about Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would say with a particular focus on the studying the sermon on the Mount for example, which is, you know, Jesus' clearest teaching are how we're called to live in the world as his followers.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the third thing is we need to be learning to do what Jesus did through observation and practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's the thing, and you probably notice this right away.
[SPEAKER_00]: Generally, most churches are pretty good at doing the first two, but the last one is almost always tragically neglected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you say yes, does anyone hear what I'm saying this morning?
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you agree with me, anybody?
[SPEAKER_00]: That we talk a lot about how to be with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we worship Jesus and we spend time in prayer and we get into the spirit and we're in Christian community.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: We teach scripture, we learn about the life of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: We do that constantly and that's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the thing that we often don't do very well and I'm not just talking about one because I have some research I want to show you here in just a second.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are generally the church is then generally very poor about equipping people by observation and practice to then do what Jesus would do in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Connecting that to our discipleship in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I've been blessed over the years.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had many fantastic mentors who have helped me with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I feel like I, my experience has been exceptional.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the sense that I've been lucky or blessed that God has brought people into my life over the years who have helped me with this.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the thing is, that shouldn't be exceptional, and it shouldn't be rare, every Christian in the church should have people around them who are helping them and showing them how to live their lives as Jesus would through observation and practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: That should be what we do as the church, a with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: OK, maybe not.
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's some data on this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I know we love to tell good news stories here at one.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think what this data shows is that we and the whole church really across Australia have some wrestling to do around this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this research, which was shared with me by Dr Scott Morrison, not the past prime minister.
[SPEAKER_00]: a different one based on a number of churches around the country and what it shows is and I can't quite read that from back here but what it shows is that eight in ten people see the importance of faith in influencing their work.
[SPEAKER_00]: 7.5 out of ten believe their church has a significant role in their work life but only one in three rated church at five or ten
[SPEAKER_00]: So, on the one person out of three in the churches that were surveyed, felt the church was actually helping them and showing them how to live their lives in their workplaces and were feeling valued in that 44% don't feel of their church understands the nature and impact of their work life and one in three rated the church at a five out of ten or below on practical support for faith integration.
[SPEAKER_00]: 60% of men have not been proactively engaged by a leader about their vocational calling and 70% of women.
[SPEAKER_00]: People gave their clergy an average of 4.4 out of 10 for practically erasing Sundays in the realities of their work life.
[SPEAKER_00]: 85% have not been visited by a pastor in their workplace, but 83% would welcome or at least consider it if it was offered.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when asked to write why people do or don't feel valued by clergy, of 240 responses, 65% when negative, in sentiment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I find that really challenging and quite confronting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the reasons for that is,
[SPEAKER_00]: If we are going to live our lives in the fullness of Christ, then one of the key challenges surely then has to be how we grapple with and create pathways and mentoring opportunities to help people connect their discipleship to their vocational lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Dallas Willard, who I've quoted a bit through the series,
[SPEAKER_00]: says this, he writes that let us become a specific as possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: Consider just your job, the work that you do to make a living.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, obviously, vocation means much more than just your job, what you do to pay the bills.
[SPEAKER_00]: Vocation is a word that means calling, and it can mean all kinds of different things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But just in terms of this, just think about the work you do to make a living.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is one of the clearest ways possible of focusing upon your apprenticeship to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be a disciple of Jesus is crucially to be learning from Jesus how to do your job as Jesus himself would do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: New Testament language for this is to do it in the name of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a long quote, sorry, but you can take photos of it and read it again later if you want to.
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you stop to think about it, you can see that not to find your job to be a primary place of discipleship is automatically to exclude a major part if not most of your waking hours from life with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is to assume to run one of the largest areas of your interest in
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is right where most professing Christians are left today, and that's what that research shows with the prevailing view that discipleship is a special calling, having to do chiefly with religious activities and full-time Christian service.
[SPEAKER_00]: But how exactly is one to make one's job a primary place of apprenticeship to Jesus?
[SPEAKER_00]: Not we quickly say by becoming the Christian nag in residence, the rigorous upholder of all propriety, and the dead eye critic of everyone else's behavior.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is abundantly clear from a study of Jesus and of his teachings in the sermon on the Mount and elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now what will I will go on to say, and I'm quickly running out of time, so I need to be very quick here.
[SPEAKER_00]: But just very briefly, there are three things that he goes on to say that are at least a beginning of a response to this, not the whole.
[SPEAKER_00]: The first is that we need to do our job to the highest level of excellence that we can, as an act of worship, that God is actually interested in what we do and wants to
[SPEAKER_00]: be with us in it and enable us to worship him through it, that our vocation, our work actually has value in and of itself, not just as a way of making money, but of a way of actually experiencing his life and presence in kingdom and offering worship to him, not just when we sing songs, but when you're in your workplaces well.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we want to do our work with the highest level of excellence and integrity that we can because it really matters to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Secondly, we should seek to be a presence of love and compassion for our colleagues and those we seek to serve.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're praying continually.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lord, help me to be your presence in this place.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, thirdly, we should be continually praying for God to give us opportunities to share our faith in Jesus with the people that we work alongside, to be looking for what the Scriptures call people of peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: People who might be open to a conversation about our faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we'd be praying about that and having our eyes open to that all the time.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the main point I want to emphasize is that the church has to be a place where we are talking about and equipping one another to do these things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And any version than a spiritual formation, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: Spiritual practices like prayer and Bible study and all of that that's disconnected from our actual lived vocation is then doomed to fail us, because as Willard says, that's where we spend a significant amount of our waking hours.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if we're not learning how to be a Christian there and experience Christ there, then our discipleship will always remain disconnected from the rest of our lives and we'll feel stuck.
[SPEAKER_00]: in just the kind of religious activities as those of the places where we really experience the presence and power of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think Willard's absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_00]: This has to be the main thing that the church is for, to equip one another for works of service so that we can all be engaged together in the work of the Great Commission.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we're not just here to preach awesome sermons to create incredible worship experiences, to be a caring and loving community, all of those things are good and helpful, but there's actually only one thing Jesus commanded us in regards to the work of the whole church, and that is to make disciples.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that doesn't just mean evangelism,
[SPEAKER_00]: course, that's part of it, but let's just go back to the great commission.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's four elements to it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's the going, the sending, and that includes your vocation, where you live your life is where Christ is sent you.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you need to go into those places in the power of the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to be baptizing, so that's as I've mentioned experiencing the dynamic life of the Trinity as well as doing water baptism.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to be teaching, and so learning what it looks like, what it means to follow Jesus as he teaches us himself, life in the kingdom of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But then there's also the obeying, which needs to involve modeling and mentoring, so that we can see how other
[SPEAKER_00]: more mature perhaps Christians and I don't just mean older Christians but I mean those who are further along in the journey than us who have figured out some ways of learning how to bring the life of Christ into their daily lives, observing them, learning from them and then trying to do what they do because as Paul said, imitate me as I imitate Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need people in our lives who are further along the road than us who can show us how to take the next few steps.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does that make sense?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, experiencing the presence of God, learning about Jesus in Scripture, observing how to live like Him with others, and then that takes us back to the going, putting it into practice in our daily life.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we're called to.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's not super complicated and it's easily reproducible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that we're wanting to do here at one is work out how we can put those things into practice across all of our ministry areas.
[SPEAKER_00]: Are we doing this perfectly?
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course we're not.
[SPEAKER_00]: But one thing I can tell you is that the staff and the elders
[SPEAKER_00]: And ministry leaders and I are constantly talking about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are always wrestling with how we are going to become more and more effective in this work and assessing what we do on this basis.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we know that there are some huge gaps that we need to address in our own church, especially in terms of evangelism training, like if the opportunity arises, how do you share your faith with someone?
[SPEAKER_00]: And then also, in terms of connecting vocation and discipleship, as the research I just showed you suggests, and actually this came up in our church survey, which we're going to look at next week.
[SPEAKER_00]: This became an area that was quite obvious to us that there's a disconnect for many people, particularly in their kind of mid-career stage of life.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a big disconnect between the faith that they experience on Sunday and what they're living Monday to Friday.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to address that, we have to address that if we're going to be effective at helping people live their lives as Christ would in all the places that he has sent you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are trying to do one area where we are trying to do this, and I've really run out of time, so I'll have to come back to this another time in the future, but one area where we are trying to really do this and which I've been engaged in now for over 15 or plus years or so is in our leadership institute.
[SPEAKER_00]: which is a program that I started back in Vancouver.
[SPEAKER_00]: In those early days, I talked about a couple of weeks ago, and we were really trying to work out, how can we be effective at making disciples?
[SPEAKER_00]: We started the, what is now what we call here at one, the leadership institute, but now is being led under the incredible leadership of Robin and Bruce Armstrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what it basically looks like is we invite a group of young adults, and the reason we're focusing on young adults is because they're at a stage of life where they're really wrestling with their calling and their vocation and how am I going to live my life as I move forward into all that God has for me, but so we invite 12 or so people to join with us for a year.
[SPEAKER_00]: We gather for about three or so hours, we eat, we worship, there's teaching and the teaching is an overview of Scripture that enables people to kind of see how Scripture calls them into the story of God and then in the second semester what we do is we basically do this kind of school of life thing we get people in Many from across our own church to come and talk about how they live as followers of Jesus in their workplaces
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we've had folks from all kinds of different vocations come and share with our students, with our participants around this, and it's incredibly helpful.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some personal storytelling, we do some prayer ministry, experiencing the power and presence of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the key element, one of the key elements, is then every participant is connected to a mentor who can then help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pray with and guide them in terms of what they're learning and experiencing and they're there for encouraged to put that into practice in their service, you know, in their workplace, whatever it is the God is doing with them to actually live it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a bit of homework that's involved too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now,
[SPEAKER_00]: This has been so powerful over the years doing something just like this, which is pretty simple, but the key thing that is included in this, which is not included in many other courses like this, is that there is an intentional process to help people connect what they're experiencing in the course, into their daily vocational lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's through both teaching and mentoring.
[SPEAKER_00]: And what I'm really, why I'm using this as an example is because I feel like what we're doing in the ally has been incredibly powerful, but it's a shame that it's only restricted to those who are doing heli, although it is a specific intensive experience, but I'd love to be able to do things like this across the whole church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the cool things about the ally is that we've trained some 30 or so mentors from within this community who are now walking with young adults and helping them put this into practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a multi-generational experience and that is surely church.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is surely what it's supposed to look like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Older, mature Christians, those who've been through a few things, helping guide and instruct and teach and walk alongside younger Christians who are just trying to figure this out and get going in that life in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely that's what it should look like, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is what Paul said in 2 Timothy 2, the things you've heard me say in the presence of many witnesses in trust to reliable people who'll be able to be qualified to teach others.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's three generations of Christians involved in that one verse.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the church would look like.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can I get an amen to that?
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wonder how, just give me a show of hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wonder how many of you have felt that you've had an experience like that in your own life as you have grown as a discipling Christ, just a show of hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So a few of us, but nowhere near enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's a tragedy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And how many of you then would love to experience something like this or be part of something like this?
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of walk alongside other younger Christians as they rest with child hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: So most of us, one of the awesome things, I have so out of time now, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the awesome things about,
[SPEAKER_00]: being able to focus in on mission and discipleship through our one-care mission month.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you look at all of the different partners that were engaged in, the awesome thing is that for those in our community who are really wrestling with the Lord over these questions, how can I connect my, you know, Sunday experience to the rest of my life?
[SPEAKER_00]: We have so many partners that we're involved in who are doing that in the real world, in difficult contexts, both here and in other nations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's plenty of opportunity for you if you want to step into some of this in ways that may look a little different from your daily life, but at the same time I want to
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to I'm saying it here publicly now so you can hold me accountable to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to make sure that in the next few months and over the next few years we are really wrestling with this question and making sure that we can put some pathways in place that how do we actually connect what we do on a Sunday into the rest of people's daily lives.
[SPEAKER_00]: and particularly in your vocational calling, where God has sent you to go and be his person in those places.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what we want to be about.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I had more to say, I'm going to stop now.
[SPEAKER_00]: Please stand with me as we pray.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's just close our eyes and maybe open your hands if you're comfortable doing that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And let's just pray as we come to the end of this one-care mission month and we've been able to celebrate in here stories of what God is doing here and around the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't just want this to be something that is done by others who as Dallas will had said, have a calling to full-time Christian service.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, we want this to be something that connects with all of us where we're all called to full-time Christian service in the places where the Lord has sent us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the awesome thing is that there's a variety of gifts and ministries of the Spirit, so it doesn't have to look the same for all of us, but we do pray now, Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: That you will take us all on a journey, a whole church and each of us individually.
[SPEAKER_00]: To learn how to be people who live deeply into your kingdom and carry your kingdom life,
[SPEAKER_00]: into all the spaces where you have sent us.
[SPEAKER_00]: In our school, in our university, in our workplace, in our families, among our friends, in our sporting clubs, whatever it is, wherever you have placed us, Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: How can we live our lives as you would in those places?
[SPEAKER_00]: Come Holy Spirit, I pray you to empower us and encourage us, give us wisdom and understanding and insight, revelation, because we know that you know how we can do this, and we just need to learn from you as we walk together as a church community into the incredible calling
[SPEAKER_00]: and we thank you for all this in your precious and powerful name or Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.