3 ms·

Not sure if you needed the sarcasm tag, but the one-on-one discipleship, accountability group, and small group study have been part of Christianity since Jesus

by msg 16y ago

Not sure if you needed the sarcasm tag, but the one-on-one discipleship, accountability group, and small group study have been part of Christianity since Jesus gathered his fishermen. Some religions, like LDS, make these issues official in the sense you are talking about. Eg, a bishop must judge your purity and sign a form before you can do certain religious rites at the temple. I have not seen this in my Protestant experience, and I would be sad to hear about it. I attend a somewhat large church. I hesitate to call it a megachurch, because it is not focused on production values and the prosperity gospel. But there are four services every week. There is a problem for every large church in how to shrink the church you regularly interact with to an appropriate size. My church tends to stratify classes and outside groups by stage of life (think the seven ages of man) and geographical barea. There are still opportunities to mix, but the main point is to give church more continuity.

jtbigwoo 16y ago
I worry that one-on-one discipleship and small group study can become the be-all and end-all. I don't recall anything in the bible that says, "Get yourself together before you help others," but it seems like that's the main focus of many churches. I guess it's a matter of order... Do you believe you can improve your members and in doing so change the world? Or do you work to change the world and in doing so improve your members?
- msg 16y ago
  There is a fair amount of stuff in Paul's first letter to Timothy that talks about who should be leaders in the church, as in deacons or elders. They should be people above reproach and so on. You can interpret this directive or similar to mean that only the oh-so-holy are the public face of the church. The forgiveness of Peter at the end of John's gospel might be another case. I don't think it's a good interpretation, but it's not so far from the truth. It could really depend on the group and the church. At least for me, the two things most likely to launch me into ministry (used broadly) are discipleship and small groups. And it could depend on the church's stance toward the culture and the world. There are many possible positions, as in Niebuhr's "Christ and Culture". If you believe the pop culture is full of filth and you are called to be outside of it, you will get a very different sense of the church's mission toward non-Christian people, or even toward Christians who are closer to the pop culture. (edit: took an extra h out of Niebuhr)

by msg 16y ago

jtbigwoo 16y ago

I worry that one-on-one discipleship and small group study can become the be-all and end-all. I don't recall anything in the bible that says, "Get yourself together before you help others," but it seems like that's the main focus of many churches. I guess it's a matter of order... Do you believe you can improve your members and in doing so change the world? Or do you work to change the world and in doing so improve your members?

msg 16y ago
There is a fair amount of stuff in Paul's first letter to Timothy that talks about who should be leaders in the church, as in deacons or elders. They should be people above reproach and so on. You can interpret this directive or similar to mean that only the oh-so-holy are the public face of the church. The forgiveness of Peter at the end of John's gospel might be another case. I don't think it's a good interpretation, but it's not so far from the truth. It could really depend on the group and the church. At least for me, the two things most likely to launch me into ministry (used broadly) are discipleship and small groups. And it could depend on the church's stance toward the culture and the world. There are many possible positions, as in Niebuhr's "Christ and Culture". If you believe the pop culture is full of filth and you are called to be outside of it, you will get a very different sense of the church's mission toward non-Christian people, or even toward Christians who are closer to the pop culture. (edit: took an extra h out of Niebuhr)