Week 9: Direct Hit
Like many if not most American kids, I played baseball in my youth. I enjoyed many things about the game: the smell of my glove, the dirt in my cleats, sliding into second base, the mud hole near third base, and so on.
But most of all, I cherished a few split seconds each game. These moments were small in the scheme of the game, yet they are the moments I remember first.
Every game, there were opportunities to hit the ball just right--on the fat of the bat--as we called it. When the ball is hit correctly it doesn't hurt or sting the hands. Rather, the hit resonates with mighty force. The swing is smooth and not jerky; it seems to generates more power than effort would dictate.
Crack! A great sound.
I was a slower base runner than the rest of my team mates. I stayed that extra split second in the batter's box just to cherish the hit.
Crack! A great feeling.
My coach wouldn't let me stay at home plate too long. After all, the purpose of the game was score as many runs as possible. The purpose was not to simply hit the ball.
Still, I celebrate those moments. The sound, the feeling, the reality within the game.
Church, Batter's Up
As those in ministry, we have days when we feel as if we hit the ball well--we have all made direct connections--they were solid, powerful, and smooth. They created more momentum then we could have imagined.
Of course, in ministry, there are also days when we do not hit the ball as we would have liked. Sometimes we can only tip the ball. On other days we foul the ball off the stain-glass windows or into the peanut gallery of fellowship hall or city hall.
Strike Three
When I first became a pastor in the Canton area, I had an elder who wanted to experiment with a ministry similar to Alpha. It was a professional curriculum, with movies, questions, and discussion groups. We gathered friends, colleagues, and neighbors to join the weekly celebration.
We prayed for weeks in small groups and large groups. We prayed for leaders, for participants, and for servants.
We prepared, prepped, organized, and promoted the ministry.
In the end, there were some great results of this particular journey; however, the ministry just did not feel right.
Some gatherings seemed to be a strike-out. The next week may have seemed like a foul ball, and the following week like I was hit by the pitch.
Batter, take your base.
While I loved the truth and realities that were expressed each week, the ministry lacked something. God did not seem to be present in the same way I had experienced in previous ministries. Jesus did not seem to be in charge of the gathering. The Spirit did not seem to move over, through, and in us.
Slow Motion
In baseball, like golf, players analyze their swing in slow-motion--frame by frame. Doing so, players find both major issues and small nuisances that need to be corrected. Now, more informed about their current efforts, the players head back to the field or the greens and swing with more enlightenment.
After our ministry season concluded, like other churches who are walking into a growing exile, we sat down, debriefed, and looked at the ministry in slow motion--frame by frame. What did we do correctly? What could be done better? Where did we fall short? Where did we miss the mark?
Where Are We Standing?
In retrospect, I have realized one thing that has revolutionized how I think about and practice my faith.
We may have identified issues of concern in the high-definition analysis. However, our mutual swing as a church wasn't the major problem with our efforts. Therefore, a slow motion review would never be as productive as we would have liked it to be.
There was something much larger at play--something so large that we would never see it as we reviewed the tapes in close and grueling detail.
The power of God did not seem to be present because we were not swinging from the batter's box. In fact, we were not even on the field.
Instead of playing in the context of life, we were swinging our bats from the bleachers behind right field. The ministry did not enter in to the immediate lives of those who came, and therefore, no matter how beautiful our swings may have (or not) have been, we would never hit the ball. The ministry had no context to bring the well prepared and beautiful curriculum alive.
In those days, I learned that we can not stand on curriculum. Instead, we must stand next to home plate.
Discipleship at its core is not curriculum based. Flowing from God's person-hood and work, discipleship is essentially people based and relational. Discipleship best takes place when Jesus meets people as and where they are as they participate in Jesus' work within the world.
Leaving the Bleachers
Like Europe before us, the long-standing American church is in decline. We feel, experience, and know the reality of this growing exile. In an attempt to manage this decline, we have tried to hit the ball as best as we can and run around the bases--often to no avail.
I imagine like me that you and your teams have struggled in this way. Ministry can be a difficult and trying existence when we work hard, especially when we do not seem to be near the ball or the bases.
So, how can we hit the ball? How can we win if we are in the ballpark, but not on the field?
If we want to play baseball we first have to leave the bleachers and carry our bats, balls, and gloves down onto the field. We need to feel the ground beneath our cleats and we have to rub our hands in the dirt. So let's go.
Life on the Field
Below and in future posts, I will provide a description of how we can live forward into ministry during a time of exile.
Working with our current baseball theme, I ask one simple and basic question: What does it look like to be on the field? What does it look like to disciple ourselves, one another, and our communities? How do we educate ourselves? How do we seek and arrive at a greater level of maturity as Jesus followers?
Traditionally, like my ministry experience mentioned above, we as the church have answered this/these question(s) through the lens of a program for people to attend, a curriculum for people to follow, a devotional book to read, or a discussion to share.
There are great resources out there and I make use of resources on fairly regular basis. Resources can be helpful in the growth of individuals and groups. Yet, resources and internal gatherings can no longer function as our primary means of disciplining ourselves. For the exilic church, like Jesus, there is a different approach appearing--one that will most likely frighten a majority of church-goers.
It is time to rub your hands in the dirt and pick up the bat.
Hey! Are you still there? Please do not run back to the bleaches just yet. The fun is just about to begin. You can handle this. In fact, once you experience it, you will beg for more!
The Jesus Way
I have studied the scriptures since I was a boy, and more recently, ancient church history. In doing I have yet to find an ancient account where Jesus brought curriculum to use as the primary means to disciple others. In fact, from Jeremiah to Jonah, from Peter to Paul, and from Ignatius of Antioch to Polycarp, I can not find a single moment in our ancient history when a tract of the Roman's Road or a published Prophet or Rabbi was implemented as a system to disciple the church and world.
Instead, according to our earliest history, discipleship was centered around the lives of individuals and small gatherings as God's people were in the world together. Maturing disciples were discipled by other growing disciples as they walked in the world and engaged the world together with the Good News.
The pattern is simple: Jesus lead ministry and discipled his closest friends along the way. The disciples were developed by Jesus and set loose to imitate Jesus in his life-time and after his resurrection. Others were developed to do the same by Jesus' first disciples.
It is my contention that in the exilic church the process of discipleship (and our thought patterns about it) will look significantly different than what we have practiced for decades. It is more likely that our views and practice of maturing disciples will be rooted in the Biblical and ancient historical models.
Perhaps the Jesus' methodology was implied or expected as we have spent so much time and energy in formal discipleship settings. However, the Jesus Way is not a vibrant, clear, or even regularly visible practice in our tribe. In truth, as leaders, we enter into this mode of ministry. Yet, we have not created broad systems or a mutual culture for this form of ministry to be the norm.
Pastors are not the only ones who are called to disciple the church and the world. The whole church is called to actively disciple and be discipled. As leaders, we must be ready to spread the platform and change our culture.
No longer will we have mission committees and education/discipleship teams. Rather, in the exilic church, as communities we will learn to walk in the Jesus Way of discipleship--in the context of external ministry.
Jesus Thinking
Here you will find three ways to think about the basic reality that Jesus primarily discipled his followers during informal settings and through conversations.
The first way to think about the Jesus Way is that Jesus actively, regularly, and frequently discipled people along the way. Recall the gospel stories. Jesus guided, corrected, rebuked, and refined his closest friends as they were journeying through life and larger ministry together. As Jesus made his way around the region, and as we make our way around our communities and world, we will no longer primarily "disciple" one another in small gatherings or training sessions. No!
We will mature one another and our communities as we drive in cars, ride buses, and stop at rest-stops as we have been meeting and engaging with people in the world.
It is only as we are on the field of life--in our communities--in larger ministry that we have a context for discipleship.
A second way to think about the Jesus way, is that Jesus(in the words of Reggie McNeal) is concerned with people development--not programs. Programs are great for basic information, but lack the intimacy of being tied to one another in mutual ministry. There is nothing like four people squeezing into the back of a cab after serving the homeless that enables discipleship within us and among us.
A third way to think about Jesus' mode of ministry is see one, do one, teach one. While common in the medical world and other fields, this motto is not at all common in our mutual life. Instead, we often promote systems like: study, study, study, study, study, study study, study, study...try.
The Final Pitch
Like Paul, I can go on and on about that which I am passionate. So please make sure that you are not reading this while sitting in a window.
Let's go back to the baseball field so that I can offer you one final pitch for you to hit directly.
As a church, we spend more time preparing one another and less time actually building one another up in the context of world/community ministry than we should.
With the no exceptions, discipleship does no require a Ph.D to get started. Ministry isn't as complicated as esoteric quantum physics or organic chemistry. According to our ancient roots, the basic ministry of the church was powerfully lead by the high-school drop outs of their day--the fisherman.
We certainly need to be informed people. Yet, it is also imperative that we move from books to the world--there finding Jesus in our midst and in our hearts while he is asking us to grow deeper in faith and truer to his Lordship.
Ministry and discipleship are indispensable components--like two sides to a coin. One necessitates the other. Ministry requires discipleship and discipleship can not truly take place without participation in a larger ministry.
My long standing axiom--We can not grow unless we go--is appropriate here.
It doesn't matter where we go in ministry. God can use us there.
If we seek guidance, it doesn't even matter who we go with in ministry. We don't need the first string players. God can invite us into mutual discipleship along the way if we are ready and attentive.
So let's intentionally get on the field with our whole worshiping community. Let's go and grow.
The alternative is to sit in the bleachers and spit on the field when there is a bad play. Of course, sitting and spitting don't make us better ball players. Rather, resting in the bleachers just means that we are fans watching the game pass us by.
Crack! I love that sound. I can feel it in my hands. Can you?
Peace,
Matt Skolnik
Holy Habit
-To start off easy: take a group of 3-6 people and engage in a pre-established community ministry.
-On the way, while you are there, and on the way home, look for opportunities to disciple and be discipled. Act on the opportunities.
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