The Crisis of Discipleship
This article is an abridged message delivered to General Council employees during a weekly chapel service at the General Council of the Assemblies of God headquaters in Springfield, Missouri, August 15, 2006 by Charles T. Crabtree.
I wanted to talk to you about the crisis of discipleship. The symbol for crisis in the Chinese language is danger with opportunity. I believe there is a great danger in the Assemblies of God concerning discipleship, but with it, an attending opportunity to raise the level of this church. I want to talk about the causes for the crisis, and then the cure.
To put this into perspective, it is important to look at the church as the Lord sees it. After all, it is His church. What He thinks about it is more important than what we think, and what He knows about it is final. We need to look at the three-fold purpose of this Fellowship in the view of our Lord.
The Three-Fold Purpose of the Church
Our forefathers set before us a biblical mandate for the purpose of the Assemblies of God: evangelism, discipleship, and edification or worship. Allow me to address each of these areas with total honesty.
Evangelism
Overall, I believe the state of evangelism in the Assemblies of God is unremarkable. There are pockets of fervent evangelism, but as a rule, I am concerned about the state of evangelism. I do not see a remarkable influx of true conversions. In the last ten years (1996 through 2005), we had 5.3 million stated decisions for Christ. The growth of our Sunday a.m. service during that period was only 221,890. That is only 4.2 percent conversion growth.
Some will say to me, “Well, coming to Sunday morning worship is not proof of salvation.” I will tell you that if a baby is not in the care of the home, that baby is either dead, lost, or in deep trouble.
Some point out that many died during that period, and that is the reason for such small growth. If this were the death rate, the Assemblies of God would be the most dangerous entity in the world to join. The death rate would be 200 percent, more than the present Assemblies of God population of 2.8 million.
Others say that people are saved and then go to other churches. Praise the lord as long as they are serving Jesus. But we get about as many from other churches as we send. So, the statistics speak of unremarkable results in the area of evangelism in the American Assemblies of God.
Discipleship
Statistics also reveal a crisis in discipleship. In a general sense, discipleship in the Assemblies of God is ineffective. True discipleship begins with obedience and commitment. I sorry to tell you that only 1 person in 4 who decided for Christ last year followed the Lord in water baptism, and 1 in 5 received the baptism in the Holy Spirit. If we continue this trend, I project in 10 years we will have a small minority of Pentecostals in the Assemblies of God. So we must have a deep concern about Pentecostal discipleship.
Worship
I believe the state of worship in the Assemblies of God has become incidental rather than pervasive. What do I mean by that? To many, worship is a Sunday morning incident, not a lifestyle. For instance, music during a church service is just one small part of worship in the life of a believer. The greatest expression of worship should take place between Sundays. He is not only worthy to be praised in the house, but He is worthy to be honored in the marketplace and served in the home. Worship is to be constant, humble obedience to the Lord in all areas of life.
The Cause
I have deep concern about the state of the three-fold purpose of this Fellowship. What are the causes behind the data? We need to get to the cause so we can go to the cure. The first cause for ineffective evangelism and discipleship in the Assemblies of God and in the greater American church is the preaching of another gospel-good news for the ego. The Cross is not the central focus in a great deal of preaching.
A Nice Person, Not A New Person
It seems the American church says to those who pass through the doors, “You’re a good person, and the church can give you added value to the temporal life.” And it will. But this is not the primary reason the church exists. The church exists to get people ready for eternity, not for tomorrow. It is not a temporal gospel; it is an eternal gospel, and at the heart of that gospel is the Cross and true repentance.
What we have is a culture that says, “If you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, that is all we are going to ask. We are not asking for a behavioral change; we want a doctrinal change. We want you to believe the way we believe, but how you act is up to you. And when you come to this church, we promise we will not confront you with sin. We will not make you feel the least bit convicted.”
I see more and more. It is the philosophy of universalism: Confess Jesus, God will take care of the rest. Everybody is eventually going to heaven anyway. So, do not get excited. All you need to do is to be a nice person, not a new person.
In many parts of the world, you have to believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. You have to believe He is Lord, and that He is the ultimate authority. If you do not believe it in your heart, it would be stupid to confess it with your lips because in many countries you will be persecuted at best, or even martyred because of your faith in Christ.
In America, it is popular to confess Jesus with the lips, but it is not popular to live a holy life. We must have a move of the Holy Spirit that will bring divine revelation concerning the power of the Cross along with the resurrected Jesus, so people will say, “The pearl of great price is worth all the junk, all the stuff, all material riches. God is worthy.”
We do not lay these material things down crying; we lay them down praising, worshiping, and thanking God. Jesus loved us so much, He said, “I want to change your life, give you a new life, and I want you to start over. The old one is a mess, and you cannot make it better by yourself.” I believe the reason for unremarkable evangelism is a lack of insistence on repentance in the heart as well as confession from the mouth.
Count The Cost Before Carrying Your Cross
The second cause for a crisis in discipleship is found in Luke 14: 26, 27: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (KJV).
What is your cross? Your cross is living in a hostile world and standing up to the filth, rottenness, and sin in homes, families, and workplaces, and saying, “No, sir, I am a Christian; I am a follower of Christ.” The only way you can do this is to love Him more than your life, more than self. Verse 28 gives a stunning requirement of discipleship: Do not begin until you count the cost.
I believe the Assemblies of God needs to send out this message: “The High Cost of Serving Jesus.” Do you know what will happen? People will come by the millions to a cause that is bigger than their own lives. If we soft-soap the gospel and get by with lackadaisical discipleship, our young people are not going to be interested in something that is not challenging.
It is time to confront; it is time to challenge and offer an alternative lifestyle-a life of surrender to Christ-in such a way that people will realize it is a joy to follow Him. If we will lose our lives for His sake, we will experience a life full of miracles.
Repentance is not a negative concept. It opens the door to living a new life full of divine power and blessing, but for a reason-to live the Christian life, not just to hear about it. The reason people are so desperately apathetic in church is because they do not plan to do one thing about what they hear in church. They do not understand discipleship.
Holy Spirit Empowered Discipleship
Too many Christians come to a building to hear people try to motivate them to live the Christian life-to give them spiritual tools. But if they are not going to use these tools, why would they be interested in looking at them? In other words, if they are not planning on witnessing, praying, reaching the lost, or laying hands on the sick, why would they need the baptism in the Holy Spirit? There would be no purpose in it.
Would you hire a bodybuilder to do your exercising? In a sense, many do that every Sunday. They are asking professionals to do their discipleship. The reason the church is not bigger in America today is because the professionals are doing the work of the ministry that is supposed to be done between Sundays by Spirit-filled portable temples. They have put Jesus under house arrest in buildings and time capsules. It is not entirely the fault of the laity. Too many spiritual leaders have said to Christ’s disciples, “You win in here, you worship in here, and you serve in here. Don’t worry about having any effect out there.” That kind of thinking must change.
It is time for the church to gird itself on Sunday night to rise up Monday morning, and say, “We are going to be a strong, healthy church, and we are going to change this world through our faithfulness to God and our obedience to the Lord.” The only way we will affect America today is to have a discipleship that is powerful in the Holy Spirit outside the walls of a building between Sundays.
Revival Means Healthy Productivity
The answer to our dilemma is revival. My thinking on revival is much different from what most think.
Some time ago I was at an airport hurrying to board a plane. I heard a tremendous commotion and saw a large man on the floor. They had ripped his shirt open and had the paddles out trying to revive him. I breathed a prayer as I went by, but as I went down the jet way, the Spirit of the Lord spoke to me, and said, Consider this. If they bring back, everyone will rejoice. If he is brain impaired, there will be joy with a great sense of sorrow. If they bring him back and he is well, there will be wonderful joy. But if he says, “Now that I’m healed, I don’t need to do anything,” there will be terrible frustration.
Revival is bringing the church back to healthy productivity. We do not have revival to be blessed; we have revival to become a blessing.
You would be shocked at how little I become excited about emotional responses. Most revival is pre-Pentecostal-getting people ready to be Pentecostal. And then we stop at praise rather than moving on into discipleship. Think about that. We are saying being healed or being saved is enough; but the Lord wants the healthy Pentecostal church to be in constant revival-in constant productivity in evangelism, discipleship, and worship.
My prayer is, “God, bring the Assemblies of God back to a consciousness of the Lord as Lord, not as a source of entitlement for a temporal life but as a tool to use to change the world.”
“If ye continue…”
The third cause behind ineffective discipleship is a disregard for a basic requirement of discipleship found in John 8:31: “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed” (KJV). This is why I believe most revivals are pre-Pentecostal.
Often people experience the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, receive the Baptism (their Upper Room experience), then go back to the Cross and receive another blessing, but are never productive. Why? Because they do not continue in His Word. It is imperative they continue in His authority.
After Pentecost, the New Testament church was effective because they continued. They continued in prayer, evangelism, fellowship, service, and servanthood, and in the Apostle’s Doctrine.
The task before us is challenging, but I am comforted because I know what we are going to do is right. It is right to raise up a Pentecostal discipleship in the Assemblies of God. Because of that, God will help us.
The Cure
So, what is the cure? The cure is to set the church up systematically for a new discipleship. When a church is prepared for revival, they have faith to prepare people for an influx. I preach in some churches, and when I give an alter call, to my dismay, there is nobody to help around the altars. It is because they do not plan to welcome new life into the church.
I believe you must have enough faith to plan. I believe the Assemblies of God needs to plan for a new day in discipleship. Consequently, we are dissolving the old Sunday School Agency and the old Commission on Discipleship, and we are putting them together under one commission-a Commission on Christian Education and Discipleship.
We will set up model churches around the country that are doing small groups within the guidelines of a Pentecostal church. We will promote our own small-group models. We will say to people, “Go to these various models around the county, and learn from them.”
We will train pastors. Christian education directors, and small-group leaders to be ready to receive those interested in starting and sustaining a small-group ministry. Through this strategy, people will be given hands-on training from practitioners.
Sunday School will continue to be the fundamental discipleship ministry in the Assemblies of God. I am a fervent believer that Sunday School, when used properly, is the most effective discipleship tool in the American culture. Small groups and Sunday School will feed off each other.
Churches will express discipleship in many different ways and forms as the Spirit of God leads. With the Lord’s help, we will move from an ineffective discipleship to a powerful ministry that will take people from the altar to the throne. We will take babes in Christ and disciple them into productive spiritual adults.
A Love That Never Fails
We must start with the care and keeping of babes in Christ. Babies can be a problem, but they are worth it if you love them.
My friend, Jim Hall, gives a haunting example. When a new baby is at a family gathering, everyone owns the baby. They pass he baby from one to the other. But when it is time to feed the baby, the mother will say, “Where is the baby? I’m responsible.”
I want to ask everyone, “Would you be open to loving a new convert? Could your church prepare spiritual moms and dads so when someone asks, ‘Where’s the baby?’ you can say, ‘He’s in good hands.’
Will there be someone who understands where these babies are, love them, befriend them, and make sure they are safe in the arms of the church’s love?”
You do not know what to do in discipleship? Love them. That is the answer. And do not go by your schedule; go by theirs. It may not be convenient, but they are babies. They are dependent. They need someone to understand them. We would call it criminal for parents to say because the baby cannot come to the table, let them starve. But new converts are often told, “If you can’t hold to our schedule and eat when and what we eat, you can die.”
Baby Christians are dying by the thousands at the doorsteps of uncaring, unloving churches. What I am saying to you is that the greatest qualification is love-love for Jesus, love for the lost, and love for new converts. Love will teach us what to do. “Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:8).
If we will love through Jesus, we can conquer the problems and inconveniences. We can even enjoy the ride. If we resent the babies, it will never work; but if we love them, we will see miracles not only in their lives but also in ours.
And so, in the Assemblies of God, I want to see every convert loved by someone, not just everyone. Let’s start with one because that is where Jesus started-with you.
Conclusion
With God’s help, we will change our world through a church filled with strong, Spirit-filled disciples who will love souls enough to change nonproductive programs, self-centered traditions, and meaningless activity to an exciting ministry of love for Jesus translated into a disciplined life of eternal purpose and spiritual productivity.
Charles T. Crabtree has served as The Assistant General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God and is currently the President of Zion Bible College
Used by Permission of Charles T. Crabtree
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