You might respond by saying that the church is made up of individuals. Therefore, what is true of the church is also true of the individual. But that is a leap in logic. Individuals can (and do) grow when the church around them is stagnant. Likewise, the church can (and does) grow spiritual even when some of the body chooses to remain carnal (fleshy).

It should also be noted that whatever it is that causes Christian growth must be true of all believers at all times. If this weren’t true, we would be saying that God placed some into the body but didn’t give them what they needed to grow spiritually. By this standard, must of what we think is necessary really isn’t.

For example, I believe that God uses his Word to help the individual believer to grow. But what of the believer in the middle ages who was illiterate and didn’t have a copy of the Scriptures. Was he condemned to immaturity?

Or what of of the slave on a sugar plantation in the Virgin Islands? There was no opportunity for solitude or “quite time.” Every aspect of his life was ordered and controlled. Only as he lay on his bed exhausted and sick at night could he come close to solitude.

The only avenue of growth that has been available to all believers at all times is the indwelling Holy Spirit and communion with the Godhead through prayer. This is very individual. While I praise God for the church, the visible bride of Christ gets blamed for much that isn’t her fault.

God will judge each of us individually. I doubt he will accept as an excuse that “your visible body made me do it.” Growth is aided by the church in the best of circumstances, but growth remains an individual responsibility.

The first model, in particular, is a straw man. It is not a given that people will be “in your face” unless perhaps you are in open sin, which should be confronted. Neither is it a given that all things are black and white (read Romans 14) or that sinful behavior is the result of “insufficient information.” Most of the time we sin simply because we are sinful.

What is lacking in both of these models is a commitment to the clarity of the Scriptures. This doesn’t mean that all passages are equally clear, nor that there cannot be disagreements between fellow believers of good faith. What it does mean is that the main idea that a passage is presenting is clear enough for everyone to understand. I might not know who the Sons of God are in Gen 6 or what the Nephilim were, but I do know that the world was filled with violence and God’s heart was filled with pain. That’s why he decided to destroy the world.

Ultimately, the two choices above shift the responsibility of individual growth from the individual to the “leader” and neither takes into account the work of God the Holy Spirit through his (clear) Word.

I wonder whether our renewed discovery of the little shorthand.. Christology -> mission -> ecclesiology is actually hindering us. I suspect that when we drop this piece into our western context we read it through a Cartesian lens. So.. Christ is one, formation is into Christ, therefore formation is an individual enterprise and an individual outcome. I'm convinced we need to begin with a explicit Trinitarian foundation, as Newbigin above (which was page 70 "The Open Secret.")

“Interpersonal relatedness belongs to the very being of God. Therefore there can be no salvation for human beings except in relatedness…

“The biblical insistence that God’s universal purpose of salvation is accomplished through the choosing of particular people arises from this fundamental insight concerning human nature. If each human being is to be ultimately understood as an independent spiritual monad, then salvation could only be through an action directed impartially to each and all. But if the truly human is the shared reality of mutual and collective responsibility that the Bible envisages, then salvation must be an action that binds us together and restores for us the true mutual relation to each other and to the world of nature. This means that the gift of salvation would be bound up with our openness to each other… ”

It seems as if the leaders all come to the table seeing that path ‘A’ is not the way to go. Therefore path ‘B’ is a good alternative to try. But when folks come along without already being at that same place there is a disconnect because they are asking questions that the leaders didn’t because they started further down the road. What do you do?

Have you tried as you described in “Another Way” to 1) mutually discern the spirit without any predetermined outcome, 2) preach the Word of God on the theme of discipleship/(leadership too), and 3) engage in dialogue to see where each other is coming from.

Either that or draw a dividing line saying we are taking path B at some level and then directing that this is the way it is, get on board… vision, right belief, in your face, and all that stuff.

Ecclesiology is messy… good luck!

This exercise, before it was posted on Fitch’s blog, grew out of a concern for us to articulate who we are, how we see maturity and growth happen, and how we do so together in a way that the people we want to reach could actually hear it! And not hear what we weren’t saying. So at its heart, what started as a 10 minute “jot down some things to help us communicate who we are better” and matriculated to a blog post…at its heart, this document is meant to increase our missional faithfulness – not to be 100% accurate or fair or even non-biased.

The issue that served as catalyst for this was talking past one another…and, as i track this post as it makes its way around the internet, that is STILL the issue…

thanks for all your feedback and comments -

Matt Tebbe

Make disciples = clear repeatable systematic process

Baptizing them = initiation into a new trinitarian community

Teaching them to obey = training (not just knowledge teaching!)

Everything I have commanded you = comprehensive

So what if we tried this – creating a clear, systematic, repeatable, comprehensive discipleship training process that happens in the context of authentic community?

I’ve served in 7 churches and have NEVER seen this tried or even heard about a group doing this. They always seem to leave large essential elements out. We’ve been applying this for 2 years now and its consistently changing lives like nothing I’ve ever been apart of.

Maybe the answer was sitting there in front of us all along.