{"id":32248,"date":"2022-09-10T16:02:09","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/follow-me-younger-pastors-prioritize-discipleship-despite-a-lack-of-experience\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T16:02:09","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:02:09","slug":"follow-me-younger-pastors-prioritize-discipleship-despite-a-lack-of-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/follow-me-younger-pastors-prioritize-discipleship-despite-a-lack-of-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Follow Me? Younger Pastors Prioritize Discipleship Despite a Lack of Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Ben White photo – Unsplash<\/div>\n

By Aaron Earls<\/em><\/p>\n

For Samuel Tunnell, discipleship dominates the way he thinks about his church and the conversations he has with other younger pastors. The only problem\u2014no one ever discipled Tunnell himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cMillennial pastors came into their own reading David Platt\u2019s Radical<\/em> and Francis Chan\u2019s Forgotten God<\/em>. We listened to podcasts from Matt Chandler. We built this ideal of intense, radical Christians that we weren\u2019t seeing in our church contexts,\u201d says Tunnell, the pastor of Red Tree Church in Ballwin, Missouri.<\/p>\n

Whether it was actually true or not, Tunnell said he didn\u2019t believe the older Christians in their church were willing or able to disciple his generation of believers. Now Tunnell looks at his church and feels like a lost guide trying to find a path he was never shown. And he\u2019s not alone.<\/p>\n

In Facts & Trends<\/em>\u2019 Future of the Church study, Lifeway Research asked pastors their top concerns. Younger pastors, those 18 to 44 years old, are more likely than any other age group to say discipleship is the chief concern.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the main conversation I have with other pastors in their 20\u2019s and 30\u2019s,\u201d says Tunnell. \u201cThis is the main conversation happening at Red Tree right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That resonates with Joe Martin, pastor at The Cross at Clay Baptist Church in Clay, Alabama. Growing up in a small, Southern town, he says Christianity was a cultural label and not a way of life.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had events, Sunday school, Bible studies, but there was no discernible process or passion for making disciples who made disciples,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite being in church virtually my whole life, I can count on one hand the number of spiritual mentors I have in the faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having not been discipled themselves, these young pastors find themselves shepherding a flock without the experience to lead them down the right path.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 10 years later and we\u2019re realizing that we\u2019re the pastors and we\u2019re supposed to be doing this for the next generation,\u201d Tunnell says. \u201cA lot of my peers often feel like we\u2019re reinventing the wheel with discipleship.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to not having discipleship modeled for them, Steve Bang Lee, college and teaching pastor at Living Hope Community Church in Brea, California, says the modern-day information overload has led some young pastors to question themselves and their methods.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe deluge of content and information has forced younger pastors to go back to the drawing board, not just for their church, but personally,\u201d<\/p>\n

So how are these pastors approaching discipleship at their church? In many ways they\u2019re getting back to basics with five aspects of helping believers grow into maturity.<\/p>\n

1. Pre-discipleship<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Jordan Rice, lead pastor of Renaissance Church in New York City, says he feels a need to take a step back and do \u201cpre-discipleship\u201d with the young adults to whom he ministers.<\/p>\n

\u201cMillennials have significantly less trust in the authority of Scripture and firm beliefs in truth,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Because of this, he says they have to work to instill the concepts of truth and authority before they can move on to helping people trust the Bible as true and accept it as an authority over their life.<\/p>\n

2. Make the Bible central<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As the pre-discipleship is established, Rice says they concentrate on getting people into Scripture and small groups because they aren\u2019t sure how long they\u2019ll be around.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are more transient and don\u2019t spend as much time in the any city as before,\u201d he says. So, they have constructed their community groups to go through more Scripture together and are planning even smaller groups to meet regularly for even more accountability.<\/p>\n

Lee agrees with the emphasis on going through the Bible together. \u201cThis may sound simple and basic,\u201d he says, \u201cbut I truly believe that faithfully and clearly teaching through books in the Bible is one of the most humble and effective ways to make disciples.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says it\u2019s a way to admit, \u201cHonestly, I\u2019m not that smart. I don\u2019t know what great series to go through next, but if I open this book and teach what God is saying, I have a feeling He knows what to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Write a \u201cministry key\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Lee says their college groups\u2019 ministry has developed what they call a \u201cministry key,\u201d a vision and strategy document that \u201ccrystalizes our discipleship purpose, philosophy, and process, while connecting it to the actual ministry structure, calendar, and practices.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It can be easy to simply add events to the calendar or pick up another new project, he says, but having the ministry key lets you evaluate whether those additions fit the discipleship paradigm you\u2019ve established.<\/p>\n

A defining document \u201cforces leadership to put a clear discipleship why and how to whatever element we introduce,\u201d says Lee.<\/p>\n

4. Change the culture<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Tunnell says their entire staff read Simple Church<\/em> and are testing a comprehensive discipleship process for the whole church. They\u2019ve also reoriented the role of the other full-time pastor at the church toward discipleship.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur current goal is to frame our small groups around the idea of discipleship, with the goal of pushing people into one-one-one or one-on-two discipleship relationships,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Instead of making a big announcement, Tunnell says they are trying to establish it all \u201cquietly and slowly so that our people grow into discipleship as the primary culture of our church rather than trying to get them all excited and launch a new program.\u201d<\/p>\n

5. Empower others<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Martin says The Cross at Clay Baptist doesn\u2019t have the manpower to put many programs or ministries into place, so he is concentrating on \u201clife-on-life discipleship with a handful of men.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Martin, \u201cthe goal is to disciple them and then release them for ministry to replicate our process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lee says he has intentionally cultivated that type of discipleship ministry at Living Hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve realized one of the best ways to address discipleship is by de-centering and de-powering myself to not be the center hub of the church,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn other words, training and equipping others in a way where through their combined efforts, my presence becomes unnecessary\u2014training others so that I\u2019m out of a job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cautiously hopeful<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Discipleship isn\u2019t the only worry on the minds of young pastors. Many are anxious about leading a congregation filled with older Christians. They also say they\u2019re concerned about the impact of the cultural divides on the church.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have several dozen believers in their retirement years who have decades of life and faith to share with the younger folks of our church, but there are such fundamental differences in their polarized worldviews that it makes it hard for them to connect across these lines,\u201d Tunnell says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the 30-year-olds and 70-year-olds see others\u2019 Facebook posts, they are in such different places that they don\u2019t necessarily want to connect over coffee to study Colossians.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tunnell admits, \u201cI have real concerns for the generations to come together under the unifying banner of Jesus in light of how divided they are elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin says the \u201cover-politicization of the church\u201d is a concern for him as well. \u201cI feel it is and it will cause irreparable damage to our witness among non-believers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re becoming obsolete in many people\u2019s eyes,\u201d Rice says because young adults aren\u2019t seeing the church addressing what concerns their generation.<\/p>\n

Yet most younger pastors remain hopefully and see discipleship as part of the key.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t get a good example of it from the generation before us,\u201d says Tunnell, \u201cbut if we could figure out that piece [discipleship], our churches would grow,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And Tunnell says Red Tree is growing.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are finding a real community where they can reveal the depths of their hearts and be loved and invited in. People are finding freedom from idols and sin by the power of Jesus and lives are being changed,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had four baptisms just a few weeks ago and two of them were stories of freedom from life-dominating addictions.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Lee, there\u2019s hope because of what he sees among other leaders in his generation and who\u2019s ultimately in control.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am hopeful for the church in America because I see many faithful younger pastors and leaders; and ultimately because Jesus said He will build His church.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Aaron Earls<\/h2>\n

@WardrobeDoor<\/p>\n

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Aaron is a writer for LifewayResearch.com.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n