Why You Might Want to Reconsider Your Fall Programming

I was in the local church for almost a decade, and one of my favorite times of the church calendar is preparing for the fall. When the kids go back to school, people come back from vacation, and there just seems to be a general desire to seek the Lord. People are hungry! 

Oftentimes I would gather with my staff-team and begin to talk about what we would do as the local church to help facilitate the reintegration of the community back to the local church. 

And then three years ago I realized something:

We won’t ever program our way to making deep disciples. 

The goal of the church is to make disciples, who can make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20). Our staff (like many others) worked hard to create activities that led people to a closer relationship with the Lord. We tried book studies, all church prayer events, and even some neighborhood outreach as a way to reach the unchurched. We thought we could program our way to discipleship. While these things are all good, ultimately this is not the way Jesus made disciples. I have had incredible life-change because of good church programming. Dave Ramey’s Financial Peace University shifted my theology on stewardship. I’m forever thankful, but it is important to distinguish that it is not Jesus-style disciple-making. 

The more I read about the life of Christ the more I realized Jesus-style disciple making isn’t a program, it is a relationship. 

Programming in the local church is super important. It is useful for connection, education, and it's often where people begin to understand their gifts and calling in Jesus.. However, in the realm of Jesus-style disciple making programming often shortcuts the most important aspect of the process of making disciples - relationship. 

Relationships are messy, non-linear, and because they involve humans they never go the way they planned. 

Jesus illustrates this point for us in Matthew 4:18-20, “As Jesus was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and his brother Andrew. They were casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. ‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people.’ At once they left their nets and followed him.”

Notice the pattern that Jesus models for us in this text. First, it starts with an invitation (come follow me), then it leads to the vision (I will send you out to fish for people) and of course it ends with actual movement (Peter and Andrew left their nets). 

Notice what was absent from this invitation; times, dates, and what they were going to be studying. 

In the majority of our churches we invite people to follow Jesus through a book study rather than modeling our own relationship with Jesus. If we want to bring people closer to Christ I am convinced we must show them what that looks like in our life. Life-on-life disciple making. No timetable, no set class time, no idea what is going to happen other than two people walking together and being dependent on the Lord. 

In our ministry we often say that good disciple making is intentional, relational, and reproducible. 

While a good program may help the conversation, the only way to get to those three traits (intentional, relational, reproducible), is if we decide to walk with someone on their journey of faith - wherever the path may lead! 

Let's talk about what it would look like to have the people of your church sharing their relationship with Jesus with someone who has never had that experience before! Imagine what it might look like if this fall your entire community went out and showed one person who Christ is in their life. 

I think that church just might change the world.