Not long ago I met with Henry*, a church missions leader from a church in Georgia. I initially met Henry when he was the missions pastor at a large multi-site megachurch in Atlanta. He and his wife decided that they wanted to become a part of a more community-driven and smaller church. So they’d made a move to a new church.
I always am eager to learn more broadly about the church than just its missions ministry. We started lunch by talking about discipleship at his church. He noted that recently the leaders of the church had determined that many fathers in the church seemed fairly passive in discipling their children. Many churches’ response would be to start a program or preach a sermon series.
This church verbally professes to believe that parents are the primary disciplers of children, and so took a different approach to the problem. Leaders began approaching fathers in the church, meeting with them one-on-one to learn what key hurdles were keeping them from proactively discipling their children. Was it an issue of not knowing how to disciple children? Was it an issue of being too busy? Apathy? Or another issue? They next determined a custom plan to help each man overcome personal obstacles keeping him from discipling his children.
This approach is applicable to many aspects of a church’s life. Why aren’t people involved in evangelism or missions? Why do they find it hard to pray or study the Bible? Rather than lament the problem and propose impersonal solutions, find out why there are problems, and help people remove hurdles.
But what this approach will require is elders who 1) are proactively shepherding and discipling people, and 2) are practically prepared to help root out many issues which are particular cultural idols to America, such as consumerism, individualism and materialism.
*not his real name.
Simple. Church. 