JEFFERSON CITY – More than 150 gathered for an intense two days of teaching on becoming disciples, living missionally and developing leaders at the CORE Conference at Concord Baptist Church here March 19-20.
The event revolved around those three core values of the Missouri Baptist Convention (MBC) that relate to fulfilling the Great Commission.
Missional living
J.D. Payne and Mark Snowden addressed living a missional life. Payne is director of the Center for North American Missions and Church Planting at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Ky. The author of several books, he began by asserting that “missional” living is not rocket science.
“Missional living occurs when Kingdom citizens live according to the Kingdom ethic in the world,” Payne said. “The ethic by our King transcends a standard different than any other.”
Payne said the ethic impacts lives in three intertwined ways: proper relationship with God (Matt. 16:13-19), proper relationship with other Christians (Matt. 18:15-20), and proper relationship with outsiders/non-Christians (Matt. 28:18-20).
“It’s not crazy complicated,” he said. “Missional living in the word requires two things: actions and words. In every given context, there will be those two. If you lack a spirit-filled life, have fear that paralyzes, complex lifestyles that isolate us from others, or are blind to the reality of Missouri without Christ, you will have barriers to those actions and words and barriers to a missional life.”
Mark Snowden followed up with a discussion of “storying” and “orality” and how it works into a missional life. Snowden is the author of Truth That Sticks.
Snowden said there are four reasons people learn orally in the United States: low literacy levels, education level, availability of Bibles, and preference. Oral Bible storying helps truth “stick in a Teflon world.”
“When I was overseas, I found out Bible storying worked really well,” he said. “When I got stateside, I thought it would be more traditional. But half of everyone in the United States struggles with literacy. One in seven are ‘below basic’ reading ability. Our churches are geared toward the upper end of those on the literacy spectrum.”
God wired us to be tuned to listening to stories. We are living in a world that is three-dimensional. By comparison, our churches seem pretty flat. One of those reasons is a one-way communication stream. Ink on paper is great, but the Bible also says “faith comes by hearing.”
Snowden said orality and storying turns reading the Bible into a two-way communication in world that might know about the Bible, but not actually know the Bible.
“It’s the difference between a hook and club,” he said. “With a club we lecture, inform and tell. With a hook, we have questions, dialogue and discovery, which is the Holy Spirit at work.
“We so many times skip the stories in the Bible and just pick out Scripture. With the Holy Spirit, oral learners walk around and ‘live in the story.’ If you tell a Bible story, it’s easier for disciple-makers to reproduce it in their life at work, at soccer practice or at a PTA meeting. It’s getting at the heart, not just the head.”
Making disciples
Aaron Couch, from Real Life Discipleship Ministries, a rapidly growing church in Post Falls, Idaho, focused on breaking down the barriers that keep Christians from making disciples.
“Truth is truth,” he said. “It’s true for all people, all places all time. But if it doesn’t get the right delivery system, it doesn’t work. I think the church has adopted the wrong delivery system.”
Couch said the way people present Jesus can be a barrier to people accepting Him, including forsaking relationship building, failing to keep Jesus as both Lord and Savior, living in fear, and pretending to be perfect.
“How do we present Him in a way that actually makes people want to accept Him,” he said. “Take a good long look at your own heart and see where you and your church need to change to deliver truth,” he said.
Developing leaders
David Kinnaman and Reggie McNeal focused on what it will take to develop the next generation of leaders.
Kinnaman, president of Barna Group, presented a demographer’s context on difficult realities the church is facing. He is the author of the best-selling book, unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity, and the Barna Report.
“All of the best of human inventions are right in our pockets,” he said. “These are remarkable cultural changes and it’s more complicated for the next generation with extended adolescences and delayed adulthood.”
Kinnaman said Barna’s research shows that of 18- to 29-year-olds who grew up in the church: 59 percent will fall out at one point and become “nomads,” 38 percent have doubted their faith, and 32 percent felt they have rejected their parents’ faith. They often see the church as over protective, repressive on sex, anti-science, exclusive, doubtless, not a safe place to admit struggles, shallow and rigid.
“If we live in a world where they have more choice and complexity than ever before, then these are the primary negative perceptions of the church,” he said. “It’s everything but the kind of deep theological challenge the gospel offers to them. In a world of complexity, it seems paper thin. We’ve given young people just enough Jesus to be bored, but not enough to be transformed.
“We have to change the way we think and deal with ministry. Not just to be relevant or cool, but to understand the times and respond appropriately and effectively.”
He offered four steps the church can take to be more effective with upcoming generations: reconnect Monday through Friday’s vocation and discipleship, enlisting them to influence their peers, preparing them to live out their faith in exile, like Daniel did in Babylon, and taking a personal, “apprenticeship” style of interest in their lives.
McNeal wrapped up the conference on the second day by focusing on developing leaders. He is the missional leadership specialist for Leadership Network based in Dallas and has written several books on leadership including Revolution in Leadership, as well as A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders, and Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church.
“Christianity is the fastest-growing religion in the world,” he said. “The Great Commission is growing like it never has. We just have to get from a church-centric point of view to a Kingdom-centric point of view. Churches don’t produce churches, disciples produce churches. We tend to think if we plant enough churches, we’ll have a movement, but we’ve got it backwards. Get out of the church business and into the Kingdom business.”