Ogden asks: Is your church
making Christians or disciples?
By Edward Terry , The Layman , October 8, 2009
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN, Tenn. – In five sessions over three days, all focusing on The Great Commission, pastor and author Greg Ogden challenged participants of the sixth New Wineskins Association of Churches Convocation Oct. 4-6 to stop producing Christians and to start making disciples of Jesus.
Greg Ogden speaks to participants of the New Wineskins Convocation Oct. 5.
SERMON SERIES VIDEO
To watch the five-part series by Greg Ogden on making disciples, click here.
Reminding the group that the word “disciple” appears in the Bible 268 times, while the word “Christian” appears only twice, Ogden said that the heresy of today is the belief that one can be a Christian without being a disciple. He also said many Christians are guilty of seeking the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven.
“I prayed the prayer, I invited Christ into my life, I’ve asked for forgiveness of my sins, my ticket is punched for eternal life and that is the way I want it,” Ogden said of a woman who told him she wanted to be a Christian, but not a disciple. “I would say we have made peace with that distinction.”
Identity crisis
Speaking during a morning session from the mission field – at a coffee house-worship center in the center of the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga campus – Ogden outlined why Christianity is showing signs of collapse and offered some ideas for slowing the decay.
The Church finds itself today in a reformulation period asking questions such as “Who are we?” and “What is our mission?,” he said. The signs of collapse include: Society losing the memory of Christianity, the church being moved to the margins of society, discarding traditional convictions and values, and the emergence of a post-modern worldview. Because the word “evangelical” is now a political term that turns people off, Ogden said he describes himself as a follower of Jesus because it evokes a positive response; it builds bridges.
“The age of ‘build it and they will come’ is dead,” he said. “Unless we move out into the community we’re a part of, locally and globally, and engage ourselves with the police department, fire department, the schools, community centers, the basic needs of our society and say this is where we are going to be, don’t expect people to be flocking to us.
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Read The Layman’s review of Ogden’s ‘Transforming Discipleship’ book
“We need to be a community of blessing and to be a part of things, that’s the context we’re in.”
Pushing Jesus away
One of Ogden’s sermons at Signal Mountain Presbyterian Church, which hosted the event, was on “The Confounding Christ” and how people are drawn to Jesus but at the same time pushing Him away.
Ogden told the story from Luke 5 when Peter, after witnessing a tremendous catch, said “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Yet Peter left everything behind to follow Jesus. Ogden described a balance between fear and the message, and a similar attraction-rejection relationship for today’s believers.
“At the same time we are magnetically drawn to Jesus because He’s irresistible, we want push Him away because we know He’s going to show us things that we don’t want to see,” Ogden said. “Following Jesus means He’ll keep messing with us.”
Throughout the series, Ogden quoted from and shared video of a sermon by John Ortberg, pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in San Francisco. Quoting Ortberg, Ogden said that “we can’t be disciples of Jesus because we think we should – we have to want to.”
Ogden also blames the superficiality of ministry, including a focus on pastoral care rather than equipping, offering programs rather than relationships, an unwillingness to call people to discipleship and people not receiving the call to discipleship. The key is investing in individuals and walking alongside them, rather than leading them, through the process of discipleship, he said.
‘Think small’
Looking at Mark 3:13-14, when the 12 were chosen from among a multitude of followers, Ogden urged the group to “have enough vision to think small” and to mirror Jesus’ method of making disciples.
“His form of investment was life on life, and that’s what I’m trying to share with you,” Ogden said. “We need to get back to that kind of approach to the way people are formed and shaped.”
In his final presentation, one of several workshops offered at the New Wineskins event, Ogden concluded his call to action and offered some advice for those who accept the challenge.
“You don’t become a disciple sitting in an audience – you don’t become a disciple sitting listening to a sermon on Sunday morning,” he said. “It’s only when you get up out of the crowd, onto the journey, invested in relationships that the process of discipleship starts.”
‘Programs’ don’t make disciples
Rejecting the idea that disciples can be mass produced, Ogden outlined his strategy. As explained in his new book, Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time, Ogden starts by forming groups of three or four that is more relational than programmatic. A group meets for 90 minutes every week over the course of a year or so. The goal is to have a transformational experience that offers intimacy, mutual participation, customization and life-change accountability.
“Our ‘programs’ assume we all grow the same,” he said, stressing that the two current groups in which he’s currently participating have a variety of ages, faith experience and backgrounds. “The reason I like groups of three or four is you can get down to a real personal level. … Everyone has to engage.”
During the process, the participants are asked to begin forming their own discipleship groups by inviting two or three new participants. By the end, they’re ready to take the lead in a new group that will in turn create more disciples and future group leaders. The workshop included questions from the audience, most of which focused on practical applications and additional details on Ogden’s current groups.
“This is not the silver bullet for everything in the life of the church,” he said. “The missional aspect of this – it certainly does influence how somebody lives out their life in all aspects of their life.
“We’re talking about the means here, but we have to keep the vision in mind.”
For a reminder of the vision, read Matthew 28:18-20.
Greg Ogden is the executive pastor of discipleship at Christ Church in Oak Brook, Ill., former director of the Doctor of Ministry program and associate professor of lay equipping and discipleship at Fuller Theological Seminary and an author.