The Elephant Tied To A Rope Pt 4

Equipping and Decentralization Can Get Us Unstuck

This is the last in a series of posts. You can also read part 1, part 2, and part 3 to get a fuller picture of the main ideas.

“We educate our converts to think, as we, accustomed to a long-established and highly-organized church, naturally think, that none but duly appointed ministers may preach. We dread the possible mistakes of missionary zeal. The result is that our converts hesitate to speak of religion to others. They throw the responsibility upon the licensed evangelist and ‘the mission’. They do not feel any responsibility themselves to evangelize the world. Their mouths are closed. Here and there, of course, we find a man so full of the Spirit of the Lord that he cannot hold his peace, but he is a comparatively rare exception” (Allen 94)

It was 1997. I had just broken up with my girlfriend. Just finished paying off a speeding ticket by working an extra job in telemarketing. But it was one of the most joyous times of my life. I had just found Jesus. A better way to put it is, Jesus found me.

After some years during high school and a little after graduating of choosing to follow the ways of the world, a string of events brought me to my knees and drew me to acknowledge Jesus as Lord of everything and specifically Lord of my life. This produced immediate change. The world was different.

Everything just clicked and made sense. And the big thing was I couldn’t keep it to myself. So what did I do? I told the people around me who I cared about the most. It was natural.

So, almost every day, I would head over to the house on our block where everybody hung out. The air was filled with the palpable scent of marijuana smoke. Sometimes I felt like I came home high off the contact, and I’m sure my mom was questioning the aroma I brought back into the house.

Still, the fruit of these visits is that this group of young guys would question me and my new life in Christ. That made the weed smell worth it. Over several months, we debated and discussed and questioned the scriptures and the realities of life. If Mars Hill in Acts 17 could be transported to the ghetto, this was its nearest equivalent.

I prayed for those guys, and sometimes I doubted whether anything I was doing was making a dent. Then one morning, I got a knock on the door. Two of my friends were looking spooked and a little excited. They began to tell me the story of what happened to them the night before. Late-night televangelism had worked its magic, and the Holy Spirit took over and convicted them of their sins. They wanted to follow Christ.

Then they asked me to teach them. Wait what? I couldn’t teach them. I wasn’t trained to teach. So I told them, just come to church. The pastors and leaders could teach them. They refused. “No, we want you to teach us.” I hadn’t realized it, but all those days of hanging out and sitting in front of our friend’s house had given me credibility to speak into their lives. They saw me as the spiritual leader and influence who could disciple them (they wouldn’t have said it this way, but that’s how I see it in the rear view mirror).

So eventually, I told them to go to a church. They didn’t go. Never stepped foot in the door of a church. And their faith withered. It’s a sad story, but it’s also the story of an elephant tied to a rope.

Somewhere along the way, I believed that I was limited in what I could do as far as ministry. I hadn’t grasped the concept of the priesthood of believers. So what could have potentially been a revival and movement among our friend group fizzled into nothing.

This memory always serves as a reminder to me of what happens when the priesthood of believers is downplayed. Disciples are not equipped to be disciplemakers, and stories are not told.

In the previous installments, we talked about the enthronement of pastors into this exalted position where they become the center of attention. This is not a jab at pastors. Faithful pastors are necessary. But when pastors are held as a different class of people while the rest of the church sits on the sidelines, then full-time ministry gets restricted to the pulpit.

This is not what Christ commanded. There’s a big difference between being “a Christian who can tell stories from a pulpit and a Christian who has stories to tell from the streets” (Jones 87). The former is anemic and docile. The latter is powerful and dangerous to the gates of hell.

So, where is the gap? What’s keeping the people of God in spiritual prison? I say prison intentionally because, as David Watson says, “Jails are designed to isolate from society those who would harm it. Many churches now seem designed to isolate Christians from society so they can transform it. (Watson 53).

The gap is in the equipping of the saints and the decentralization of ministry. This is the missing link. Just like the situation many years ago with my friends, I was ill-equipped, and my idea of ministry centered on a central building where we all gathered. This is not how the movement Jesus started spread over the whole known world.

As far as equipping, we have no idea what tools to equip people with. Instead, we saddle them down with 10 weeks, learning facts about Jesus instead of walking in his footsteps. When it comes to equipping, it’s about giving people the right tools. If you ask any construction worker or mechanic, they will tell you it’s all about the tools. With the right tools in their hands, Christians will be ecstatic as Tim the Toolman yelling, “More power!”

We need to give people tools for their context. Whether it’s discovery bible study, a gospel presentation like the 3 circles, or even just a lost and saved list, the tools we give can open the door for people to do ministry themselves. No more spectators.

Most people won’t dig into Greek grammar or the fine points and nuances of the hypostatic union, but they can learn simple, reproducible tools. Most people want to make disciples. They just don’t know how. They can overcome this hurdle with the right tools. This is the difference between a stagnant church and a mobilized church.

Another thing people need is coaching. A coaching model that is widely used is MAWL. MAWL equals Model, Assist, Watch, and Launch. You model how to use the tool or navigate the situation. They assist and help you. Then you watch them do it and give them advice, encouragement, and correction. Lastly, you need to launch them out on their own with the encouragement to pass what they’ve learned on to someone else.

This whole thing can happen in a day, an hour, some months, or some years, depending on the complexity of what people are learning. This is what Jesus did with the disciples. You can do it with others. It’s our privilege and our birthright.

The barrier to all of this is centralization. It’s the opposite of what Jesus intended. Nothing in the gospel shows Jesus amassing people and resources. Instead, he sends them out.

The centralized gathering has become the pinnacle of our spirituality. It is the sacred cow that needs to be tipped over. I know I have you clutching your pearls now. But I’m not calling for an end to gathering. The keyword is centralized.

Here’s a question to ponder:

“What if Sundays were about awakening something that lay dormant within us? What if Sunday mornings were about hitting the streets? What if our times together were about making an impact?” (Jones 97).

Asking this question can lead you to the obvious answers, or it can free you to imagine a whole different way of gathering. If the end goal is going out then it doesn’t matter how polished the sermon and the music are? That’s irrelevant to the main goal. The main goal is equipping them and launching them out.

If it’s decentralized, then as a leader, I’m going to add more weight to whether or not the rest of the church can do what I can do. It won’t be a pristine show. It will be about practicing and investing in reproducible training. It won’t be about my sermon. It will be a huddle before the team takes the field.

This is what turns the church into an army: the expectation of obedience and the equipping to obey. This doesn’t happen on Sunday for an hour and a half. It happens in the nooks and crannies of everyday life. That’s what 12 guys were sent out with, and they turned the world upside down. That’s the mindset that helped Wesley’s Methodists transform England and America. That’s what thousands in Asia and Africa are finding as they start disciple-making movements.

All we have to do is equip them and launch them out!

I’ll leave you with this quote:

“Throughout church history, pew sitters have turned gospel jockeys, and the trajectory of kingdom growth has skyrocketed as a result. Following suit, the solution for the church’s plight will come from an activation of pew sitters, not a mandate from the pulpit. When the gifts in people are activated and unleashed, the church becomes God’s witnesses in power.” (Jones 149)

Works Cited:

Allen, Roland. Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s Or Ours? Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 1962.

Jones, Peyton. Reaching the Unreached: Becoming Raiders of the Lost Art. Zondervan, 2017.

Watson, David, et al. Contagious Disciple Making: Leading Others on a Journey of Discovery. 2014.