The Church Question
2008
December
01
Churches play 2 main roles. Everything that all churches do encompasses these things.
Every Sunday when I lead worship I have these two different things tugging at me. Which one should I focus on? At various points you can’t just “do” both, sometimes it has to be one or the other.
What are they?
Discipleship and evangelism.
So my question to you…
What is most important for churches today: discipleship or evangelism?
(And no, saying both isn’t an answer)
I’ll share some thoughts tomorrow.
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Tyler Braun.
Cop out alert!
Evangelism IS discipleship. You can’t (effectively) have one without the other. The Great Commission is “GO FORTH and make DISCIPLES of all nations…” Discipleship is not constant feeding of those who will not work. Discipleship is PREPARATION for the work. If no one is doing the work, the church is not discipling effectivly.
Likewise, the church needs people to disciple. All the church fathers – from Christ through the entire New Testament – would take poeple in, prepare them, then send them out. This is the pattern of the early church, and sadly, what a lot of modern churches are missing. Especially the last part. In an ideal world, no one would be in a church who is not new, because everyone else would have gone out. That’s unrealistic, of course, but the concept holds. The vision of the church should always be outward, but the vision is achieved by looking inward.
I agree with Mike in that I believe they go hand in hand……..but if we don’t evangelize we have no one to disciple. If we don’t disciple we have no one to do the evangelization except church leaders. One feeds the other, although I think most churches “err” on one side or the other……
I will say this. For the first 8 years of our church’s life we focused more on evangelism. We had less issues during this time and more excitement. We did however, not have enough leaders. Striking a balance is not easy. I fear that in our present situation we will swing back to “focusing on discipleship” and not challenge people to get out in the world and lead others to Christ.
You would think discipleship would help our hearts be more aligned with God’s purposes and thus naturally lead to evangelism…….I’ve not always seen it work that way though so I don’t know.
Wow 2 cop outs. This isn’t to say both aren’t extremely vital. It is just a question. Can it really be that hard to answer? Because when you really get down to it they are both very different in how a church operates.
No cop out here. Discipleship. The church is for the edification of Christians. The Christians should then do the evangelism. But we don’t, so the church does it, so it doesn’t disciple, so we don’t evangelize…rinse and repeat.
The Great Commission is the call to go and make disciples. Evangelism is one very small part in the discipleship process. We often forget that Jesus spent three years with 12 people working intimately with their spiritual formation before he ever gave that call.
Of course BOTH is the answer. Really. That is what I focus on each Sunday–helping people take steps closer in their walk with God, even if it is their first step.
I believe that the worship leader is part of the discipleship process, or should see his role as such. Part of that process is favoring the newly initiated. 2 Corinthians 14 warns of making worship too churchy so as to not relate to unbelievers. BOTH buddy.
Cop out huh? Actually Rich’s answer reminded me of something I heard once that has impressed me – “We help people take the next step in their journey with Christ”. I don’t know who said it. Maybe it was Rich! haha
So I guess that’s my point. One leads to the other. Yes I agree that churches generally do one or the other more. We’ve usually erred on the side of evangelism……..
I still don’t have an answer. IT’s like asking “What came first, the chicken or the egg?” (obviously I’d say the chicken but you can see the point)
I guess I can’t answer because they seem very intertwined to me.
Evangelism.
Paul said the Church is the body and blood of Jesus today. So to me its pretty simple; Jesus left Heaven for us and then told us to go find His lost sheep.
Both… I’d elaborate, but I am currently enjoying some Panda Express and it might get cold.
Ugh…all you “both” people are driving me crazy
I know it is both. All churches do both. All Christians do both to some degree.
BUT no church does both evenly because it is impossible to know what “even” is.
The point is you have to choose one that is a priority, while the other one is still KEY.
I want to say discipleship first, then evangelism.
You know your stuff first, then go out and share.
Jim Collins has a book that has a good chapter on the “both and” principle. You could say the value is to make MORE and BETTER disciples. That might connect them better.
The first problem is making a dichotomy where perhaps there is none in values.
Now, I do think strategy is another question. If you are asking about strategy of a particular worship service, I would say the “strategy” I employ is to favor (like I said with more brevity above) the uninitiated. This is not necessarily evangelism, but focusing on the earlier steps of belonging and believing in discipleship.
What looks like discipleship to some is focusing on the churched and experienced Christian. That is not necessarily discipleship.
Great point Rich. That is something I’ll touch on in my post tomorrow.
I think it’s already been touched on a bit. But first and most important, is to come to agreement with what Discipleship and Evangelism are. I think we all may have slightly different views.
Which leads to my main thoughts. Our different views are probably based on what our method or focus is. I believe that both are essential, but I don’t believe that all churches(organizations) are setup/gifted to do this. However all churches(organism)are. So it is important to understand both and pursue both. But from an organizational perspective, one or the other may have more focus.
I think leadership at church need to be sure to take stock in what they see is their focus, but not lose sight of both elements. To find those within to train and lead both aspects, while continuing with their specific focus.
i agree w/ most of the statements here, you cannot effectively have one w/o the other, though people try. i think your question is actually an unfair one, b/c of this very point. sure there are going to be churches that will seem to be more evangelistic but are dead if they are not developing that evangelism which is, by the way, discipleship. and there will be others that seemingly focus on discipleship, but will die w/o going out to the world w/ the good word they’ve received. pastors, teachers, prophets, evangelists, apostles are considered the 5 biggest functions in formatting a church –if you will…notice none of them say…”disciple-r?” that’s b/c it is the role of all and all of us.
A long time ago, Erwin McManus came and did the summer conference. He told a story about how he had been invited to a different church that wanted to focus on evangelism. The pastor and board talked for a long time about their evangelism program, and how it wasn’t very effective, and wanted to know what Erwin thought about it.
Erwin asked back, “Are you making disciples?”
The pastor was a little confused, “Well, yes of course, but we have this real problem trying to get them to do evangelism. How do you handle that? What programs do you put in place?”
Erwin asked back, “Are you making disciples?”
Obviously, the conversation stuck in my head. What kind of disciples are we if we don’t do evangelism as part of our every day routine? I think our job is to help people become so excited about Jesus that we can’t stop them from doing evangelism, whether it’s at the coffee shop, in a community outreach, or whereever.