A 2011 Vision

Well, in the 19 years that I have served as senior pastor of this church, quite often I have done some kind of state of the church message or vision message at the beginning of the year. And that's what I intended to do a couple of weeks ago, and I think the Lord may have intended it to be for this morning. I hope that's the case. And so this morning I come to you with a vision message, focusing heavily on vision, including some of the state of the church and where we are now, but I want to talk with you about a vision for this year and the future beyond this year. Let me remind you of what vision is. Vision begins with a compelling conviction of purpose that then sets our direction. Vision involves that compelling conviction that there is a purpose that God has for us, and everything needs to focus toward that purpose and fulfilling that purpose. Now vision sees what could be and what should be and aims us toward that, but it always begins with a compelling conviction of purpose and where God has us headed, what He says the purpose of the church is. So I want to ask you this morning to think in terms of what do you believe the purpose of the church is. If I were to ask and to give each of us an opportunity to answer that question individually, I will not do that this morning, but if we were to do that, probably would get a number of responses. Some of you would say, well, our purpose is very clear. We have a purpose statement, don't we? The purpose of our church is to reach out to people at their point of need and train them to become fully committed and devoted followers of Christ. Isn't that our purpose? Hasn't that been our stated purpose for years? Some of you would probably respond that way and I would commend you for that. Some of you would say, well, our purpose really is worship, fellowship, the discipleship, evangelism, and ministry. The five purposes of the church found in Scripture that we've talked about a lot the last 12 years. Some of you would say, well, we have a slogan that we've used a lot. It's on our commercials. It's been at the top of our bulletin for years. This is a place to be loved, to grow, to serve. That's our purpose. Some of you might say, well, wait a second, our purpose is really outreach. We're to reach out to our community and to our world and seek to win as many people to Christ as possible. And some of you might say, well, in the wait a second, our purpose as a church is to better understand the word of God so that we might be more like Christ. Some of you might say that. I think we would have a variety of responses. I'm confident that we would, which probably serves to highlight the fact that we do not have a compelling sense of purpose. That everyone shares, that everyone knows that within six weeks of being here, someone would pick up on and know that that is our purpose. That's what we're here for. That's our DNA. That's our heartbeat. That's what we believe in. So this morning, I want to try to boil it all down what the Scriptures teach about the purpose of the church, give you a biblical rationale for that, and then describe what our leadership has been thinking in terms of how can we most effectively accomplish that? If I were to boil down the purpose of the church to a very simple statement, it would be to make disciples of Jesus Christ. I think in a nutshell, in a very brief, simple statement, that is the purpose of the church. I want to prove that biblically, and then I want to show us to lead us through this process of how we can best accomplish that purpose. So let's begin with the call to discipleship. What is the biblical purpose of the church? What is the call of Christ and the apostles, the writers of Scripture, for the church? I believe there is a biblical call for us, and that call is to make disciples. A disciple is a follower of Christ, and so let's talk about what the Bible says about that. If you would please look first of all at Matthew, chapter 28, where Jesus issues this clarion call for discipleship. He is meeting with his disciples. It is shortly before he will go back to heaven after his death, burial, resurrection. He's giving them their marching orders, if you will. This is often called the Great Commission. He is commissioning them. He's telling them what their job is, what they are to do. They are going to be the founders of the church in the book of Acts. What is it that they are to do? Jesus crystallizes it very clearly in this statement. In Matthew 28, verse 18, then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. That's a wonderful preface to what he's going to tell them to do. He's saying, I come to you with all the authority of heaven on this matter. This is from heaven. This is God's direction for the church. What are you to do? Verse 19, therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. If you look clearly and carefully at verse 19, you will find that there is one main verb and that is make disciples. Now I know in our English translations, it looks like go is a main verb, go and make disciples. Actually, that's a participle in the original language and the idea is in your going, I'm assuming you're going to be going, in your going, your mandate is to make disciples. That's what you're to do. You're to make disciples. As you go, make disciples. Part of that will be to baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and of the Holy Spirit, bringing them into the family of God, communication, community with other believers, and then part of that will be to teach them, but you're to make disciples. That's your mandate. Paul lays out also the mandate for the church in Ephesians chapter 4, where he says very clearly, verse 11, it was he, Christ, who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers. The apostles and prophets are those in the first century who laid the foundation of the church, received direct communication from God and established the church in the book of Acts. Then evangelists are those who take that message to unreach people groups and unreach parts of the world. Today we call them missionaries. Bible calls them evangelists, people who take the gospel to other people who are not reached. And then those who stay in one place to help build up the body are the pastors and teachers. One office. What are they supposed to be doing? What are we supposed to do as leaders of the church? Verse 12, here's our mandate to prepare God's people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until, okay, what are we shooting for? What's the purpose here? What's the goal? Until we all reach unity in the faith. In other words, we understand all of us are on the same page about what the Bible teaches, what the faith is, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature. Now, how does Paul define maturity? Attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. What he's saying is I'm going to make you, and what you're to do as pastors and teachers, is to make people disciples of Christ followers of Christ. Our goal is to attain to the full measure of Christ, to be like him. Now, Paul will in many places in the New Testament reinforce this as the thrust of his ministry. If we had time this morning and we do not, we would look at all these verses that I have written down here that I've put together to summarize Paul's philosophy of ministry. In Galatians 4.19, he says, for Eugullations, I labor like a woman in childbirth until Christ is formed in you. What's that? It's becoming like Christ. It's being more Christ like it's being a disciple of Jesus Christ. That was his heart's longing for the Galatians. To the Ephesians, he prayed for them in chapter 1 verses 15 through 19, that they would be strengthened in their spirit to understand the love of God and also to understand their need to be like him, to be like God, to be growing in their likeness to him. In Ephesians or in Philippians chapter 1 verses 9 through 11, he prays for the Philippians that same thing that they may have a life that is worthy of God in Galatians chapter 1 verses 9 and 10. He prays, this is my prayer for you. This is the will of God for you that you may be strengthened in him and be more like him. He says in words like that in 1st in Galatians 1, 28 and 29. He says, this is my ministry. This is the thrust of my ministry to present every man perfect in Christ. In other words, the goal is maturity to be like Jesus Christ and he says to that end, I labor, I strive with all the divine energy that works in me to the Thessalonians and 1st Thessalonians 2 verses 10 through 12. He says you know how general I was with you. It was like a mother with her child and he goes on to say that his whole purpose in that was that they might have a life that was worthy of God, worthy of holiness and godliness. You see Paul reverberates the same thrust all through his letters to the churches that he founded. It is my prayer for you. It is my goal for you. It is the thrust of my ministry that you will know him better and that you will be more like him. That is discipleship. And that leads me then to the two biblical elements of discipleship. The biblical elements of discipleship are clear in those passages but they are also clear in the word for discipleship. The word for disciple or follower of Christ in the New Testament is a Greek word which has two major ideas. One idea is that a disciple, a mothatase of disciple is a learner of Christ. A disciple is someone who learns from a teacher, is someone who learns from knowledge and understanding of the word of God. And as we grow in our knowledge and understanding of the Bible we become learners of Christ. We learn more about who he is and what he expects of our lives. But a disciple is not only a learner of Christ, a disciple is also a follower of Christ. And that is the other thrust of the word, a follower of Christ. One of those passages that I read, Paul wants us to be more like Jesus. He wants us to be worthy of God. He wants us to live a life that is worthy of the gospel. Our lives are to be transformed. So we are to be learning of Christ but we are also to be following him with a life that is transformed to be more like him. If that is what biblical discipleship is. And if that is the mandate of the church to develop people who are learning of Christ and following Christ then the question is how are we doing? How are we doing? For the last six months the pastors and deacons have been asking that question. And we've been going through a process of self-examination, self-evaluation. Helping us to do that we've been reading a book entitled Simple Church by Tom Reiner and Eric Geiger. Those two men in that book basically their subtitle is this, returning to God's process for making disciples. And in that book they have said every church needs a clear, simple, understandable process for doing what the Bible told us to do. Make disciples. In other words, how do you start? Where do you begin? What's the next step? How do I grow in Christ? How do I become a follower of his and a learner of his? How do I do that? That's the process of discipleship. We've been talking about that and we've been taking a good look at ourselves. It's been very healthy. And how to improve our process for making disciples. And what we have noted is we have four needs in discipleship. So let me address our needs in discipleship. There are four needs that the book points out for every church. And we have sensed we have needs in all four of these areas. First of all, there's a need for clarity. You know, most people in our community know Johnston Chapel as a church that has a lot going on. Lot of ministries, lot of involvement in the community. When I talk to people out in the community, they find out where I'm from or what I do, that's often a comment that I will hear. Oh, you've got a lot of things going on out there. We see in the newspaper, your grief share, your divorce care, your whatever, your outreach to the community. We see the articles in the paper about your DNA trips and all. You know, you do a lot of stuff out there. You're very busy, very active. That's fine. That's good. I think people in the community sometimes recognize that we are a church that endeavors to teach the word of God. I think we're fairly well known in the community for that. But if you were to ask the average person, in fact, if you were to ask us here today, is there a very clear process for becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ? What's the first step in that process? What would be the first thing I would need to do to grow in Christ? What would be the next thing I would need to do? What's the next thing? Is there a clear process? I think we would struggle to identify that. And so we need some clarity. We need some clarity. We need to develop an institute, a process for discipleship that is clear, that is easily communicated, easily illustrated, that is embraced, internalized, grasped by all of us as Johnston Chapel, that becomes the very DNA of our church so that when someone asks us, what are you all about? What do you all try to do? And everyone of us would be able to say the same thing. We know exactly with clear focus, this is our purpose, and this is how we're going to go about accomplishing it. So we felt the need for clarity. Secondly, we saw a need for movement, a need for movement. And what I mean by that is sequential steps in the process of discipleship. In other words, how do people move to greater and higher levels of commitment to Christ in this discipling process? If people start at one point, but we are to be growing, then how are the steps? What are the steps? How do we move people through a process of growth? Do we just expect them to come to church and get it on their own? Or are there going to be intentional movement, intentional steps that we encourage people to take to become more like Christ? We saw a need for movement. Thirdly, we saw a need for alignment. Alignment. And by that I mean that every ministry in the church is doing the same thing. Following the same purpose. Proceeding toward the same goal of making disciples and following the same process and doing that. Student ministries are involved in the same process that adult ministries are. And that every staff member is working toward the same goal of making disciples in the same process. We needed alignment. We needed to all be together, not fractured or splintered in any way. And then fourthly, we saw the need for focus. If really the biblical mandate is discipleship and if there is a clear process as to how to do it, then we need to focus on the time, our energies, our resources on that process on what helps us make disciples. And there may be many other good things that we could do, but we will choose not to focus on. We will choose not to put much energy and resources toward because they're not a part of the process of making disciples. We need a clear, razor-like, sharp focus on what it means to make disciples. And so that's the process we've been grappling with and evaluating ourselves by. If the first step in becoming a real disciple making focused on that church is clarity about what we're trying to do, then we've got to be clear first of all on what a disciple is. We've already talked about a biblical definition. Let's talk a little bit about our profile of a disciple. What do we believe a disciple is at Johnston Chapel? What does it mean to make a disciple? Well, we believe there are three clear biblical teachings about what a disciple is. Number one, a disciple, a follower of Christ is one who loves Christ, first of all. Number one who loves Christ. When Jesus, and again, we won't take the time to turn to all these passages for sake of time, but jot them down. Please look at them later. I certainly want this to be infused with and covered with the word of God. When Jesus was asked in Matthew chapter 22, this was a trick question, or these it was intended to be that way. When Jesus was asked, tell us, teacher, what's the most important commandment in the law? In other words, is there one thing that you would say stands out above everything else that God expects of us? And Jesus basically said this, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. He was summarizing what God expects of us in that command that he went on to say, love your neighbor or love others as yourself. That's the second command. But the first focus is to love God. That's where we start in this process of discipleship. Jesus is asked to summarize what it means to please God. Start there. Love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. In Matthew 28, when he gathered disciples on that mountain to give them the great commission, their marching orders, that discipleship mandate, the first thing they did in verse 17 was the fall of his feet and worship him. That time of gathering, that time of instruction began with expressing their love to him. And that command to disciple came out of the context of loving the Savior. In John chapter 14, Jesus would say, in verse 15, if you love me, you will obey my commandments. In verse 21, he will say, the one who loves me obeys my commandments. And my father will love him. And I will love him. You see that priority of a love relationship with our God as we love him, and he loves us, and we love him because he first loved us. When Jesus, after his resurrection in John chapter 21, was on the shore, and seven of his disciples had decided to go fishing, whether or not they were abandoning the ministry as a matter of interpretation, but it could well be Peter and his co-disciples may have been deciding we are going to quit this discipling business, we are not sure what lies ahead. And Jesus makes breakfast for them on the shore, and he begins to restore Peter and letting know that he still has work for him to do. Peter has denied the Lord three times, and so where does the Lord start with restoring Peter and setting him about what he is supposed to do? He starts with a question that he repeats three times. Do you love me? Peter, do you love me? Do you love me? That's where you start, that's the first step. So a disciple is one who, first of all, loves Christ, but secondly, a disciple is one who grows in Christ, who grows in Christ. I've talked a lot about Paul and his teachings and his epistles. Peter is right with him in his epistles on the focus on discipleship. Peter seems to focus, however, on this growth stage of discipleship, this growth description. But the disciple is one who grows in Christ. Peter will say in first Peter chapter 2 and verse 2, like newborn babies, crave spiritual milk, a term for the word of God, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. It's not enough just to be saved. If we're going to be a follower of Christ, we need to be growing in him, growing up in our salvation. And then Peter will flesh that out a little bit in second Peter chapter 1 and verse 3, where he talks about his divine power, has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these, he's given us very great and precious promises, so that by them you might participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. He's given us everything we need to grow to be all that he wants us to be. So Peter says, for this very reason, make every effort we've got to put forth the diligence to add to your faith. This is a growth process. When you trust Jesus as your Savior, it's not enough just to know him and have faith in him, you're going to have him good. Got that checked off for this. I can move on to other things in life. We're to grow. We're to add things to that and he talks about a number of character qualities we add. And he says, if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, in other words, if you keep growing in these character qualities, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Once again, a disciple is one who is a follower, but a learner of Christ. And if you're going to know him, you've got to be growing in him. If you're going to be a disciple of his, you've got to be growing in Christ. Peter will end his two epistles with this statement, 2 Peter 3-18. But grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Again, the twofold thrust of discipleship. Grow in knowledge of him. We have to be a learner of Christ, but grow in grace also. The likeness to Christ being a learner follower of his, where we're growing in the likeness to him and character. So if a disciple is one who loves Christ, a disciple is also one who grows in Christ. But thirdly, the Bible places an emphasis on a disciple is one who also serves Christ. When Jesus was speaking to his disciples near the end of his life and he had impressed this on them all through his ministry, and they hadn't really gotten it yet deep in their hearts, this idea of servanthood. The end of his ministry, they're still bickering about who's going to be secretary of state and secretary of defense and his cabinet. Who's going to sit on his right? Who's going to sit on his left? And Jesus says, that's the way the Gentiles run stuff. That's not the way my kingdom works. Matthew 2028, Mark 1045, both accounting the same scene. Say this, for the Son of Man, came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. You want to be like Jesus Christ, you've got to be one who serves. Have to take a servant spirit, a servant attitude. Jesus will exhibit that, demonstrate that to his disciples that night in the upper room when he does the job of a servant takes a towel, washes their feet. And he says, if you've seen what I did, you go do the same for each other, serve each other, take that place of humble service and serve one another. Paul will emphasize that in Philippians 2, to a church that evidently had some unity problems. He said, be like mine, to be of one spirit, put one another's interest before each other, serve one another, have this same attitude in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. And he talks about how Christ gave up the glories of heaven to become a servant to be made in the likeness of man and become the form of a servant and give his life for us on the cross. Jesus was a servant and if we're going to be followers of his, we must know to serve him. So a disciple is one who loves Christ, who grows in Christ and who serves Christ. That is a biblical description of a disciple, how it looks, how it must be lived out. So I would like to recommend that we adopt this as our purpose statement. If the purpose of the church is to make disciples, and if a disciple is one who loves Christ and grows in Christ and serves Christ, then this ought to be our purpose as a church. To develop disciples of Christ who love him, grow in him and serve him. That's got to be our purpose. I believe in order to fulfill the biblical mandate and do it in the way the Bible describes it, that's got to be our ruling purpose, our overarching purpose for everything we do to make disciples to develop disciples, learners and followers of Christ, who love him, who grow in him and who serve him. Now, if that is our purpose, how are we going to do it? Now, this is where we get very practical. This is where we get to the chart type stuff. Okay? So let's talk about our process in discipleship for a few moments. What is this going to look like at Johnston Chapel? If it's a biblical mandate, and if a disciple is one who loves Christ, grows in him and serves him, how are we going to do that? What's it look like? Well, we believe there are some steps and key ministries that will enable us to fulfill that process. So let's talk about those, the steps and the key ministries. We're going to put a chart of pyramid up on the screen. Now, we live in a state of mountains. We have a tourist information center, almost a stone's throw from here that looks like an Egyptian tourist information center. It's really supposed to represent mountains. So we know all about pyramids and mountains and that kind of shape. So we're, we're, we're fitting our culture here by drawing this pyramid, but there's more to it than that. We believe this pyramid will help us to understand these three parts of what a disciple looks like to love Christ, to grow in Christ, to serve Christ. And notice there is a progression upward in the pyramid. There's also a narrowing of the spaces in that pyramid. We, we recognize realistically that there will be more people at this stage than there will be at this stage. There will be more people at this stage than there are at that stage. And we would like for that pyramid to eventually become a square. We would love that and that's going to be our goal. But the pyramid does show progression, growth, reaching a height, making progress. And those are the three elements of what it means to be a disciple. Now, let's add the key ministries into that. What's going to help us get there? What are we going to expect of you by way of being involved in ministry? What's the first step? What's the next step? What's the third step? What are we going to ask you to do to become a mature disciple of Christ? Number one, if you're going to love Christ, we're going to start right here with our AM service. Our morning service is the key ministry of this church that focuses on helping us love Christ. How? Well, first of all, we demonstrate our love in worship. As we, as we praise him, as we give ourselves to him, we're expressing our love. Remember what Jesus said? If you love me, you will obey my commandments. So we also develop our love for him. We're not only expressing in worship, we develop our love for Christ by the teaching of the Word of God so that we know what we're to obey to express our love to him. So the Sunday morning service is the primary instrument, the primary ministry that communicates that really expresses what it means to love Christ. If you want to know, where do I begin in the process of discipleship? Where do I begin to understand what it means to love Christ and how to express that? Start right here in this Sunday morning service. If you're not here this morning, this is where you need to begin. Somebody over here that don't see the. This is where you need to start. Okay? Second key ministry, if you are to grow in Christ, we want you to become involved in a. Growth group. Now that's a little bit of a different name, but we're going to have a couple of categories there. A growth group is a smaller group of believers who are studying the word of God, doing the disciplines of spiritual growth, studying the Bible together, praying together, caring for one another, sharing the word. And sharing for one another, sharing their lives with each other, genuine biblical fellowship. That's the soil, the context in which growth best happens. And so we believe that we must move from here into a smaller group that is enabling us to grow together. Now there are two ways that growth groups will look at Johnston Chapel. Let's go to the next slide. Adult Bible fellowships are one way that we do growth groups. A second way will be we're not doing these now. This is one of our major thrusts for this year is to begin small groups. Now I know that that term raises some anxiety for some of you. I know that I began in this church 50 years ago this June. I got say 50 years ago this June. And I started in Johnston Chapel then. I have a long history with this church. Even the 20 years I was gone, my family was here. I had preacher Jimmy for three revival meetings and churches I was in. I came back here and preached two revival meetings. Never lost touch with this church. I have a 50 year history with this church. I understand some of the cautions and concerns that some of you have about small groups. So I want to take a whole message to develop this further next week. Don't go home at this point and say small groups we're going to split. We're going to have false teaching all over the place. This is dangerous. Don't start that yet. Wait till after next week to start that. I am going to flesh out more next week what small groups will look like, what we're talking about there. This has been something that many people in our church have longed for for years. We are going to say what you need to do is get in some group that helps you to grow in the context of fellowship and caring Bible teaching and prayer. And it may be an adult Bible fellowship. We're keeping those. We're going to try to strengthen them. We're going to be all that they can be and have a little bit more of a relational emphasis that will help in the growth process. But we will also introduce the opportunity for small groups and we will ask you to choose one. We're not asking you to do 10 small groups and be in two Bible fellowships a two-dirt of an hour. We're going to say get in a group. One group. Get in a group that will help you to grow. And that will enable you to fulfill that growth process. The growth class is kind of stuck in here. Really it's not one of the two things. That's there basically to show this is going to become our leadership training emphasis for those who are leading any kind of group. We will trust and hope that you can be in leadership training which will help you develop theologically and biblically. There are other growth elements and Bible teaching groups in our church as well but this is a major one. So this is a group. A growth group. This is a growth group. Both of them. We expect everybody to be in some kind of growth group. Whether it's an adult Bible fellowship or a small group as a part of your growth to be like a disciple. That's key. Okay. Third element of growth. Serving Christ. Let's go back to the next one. We want you to be involved in a ministry team. A ministry team. If a disciple really serves Christ then you need to be in a ministry team. Now that may look like any number of things or lots of opportunities for serving. But we want eventually everybody who wants to grow in Christ to be involved in a servant team. A ministry team of some kind. Two kinds of ministry teams. Next slide. There are servant teams. These are teams that operate within the context of our church. And there are lots of opportunities you have to serve within our church. You can serve in children's ministries like a wana or the children's church that's meeting right now or you can serve in the nursery. You can serve in student ministries. Kevin has a number of leadership opportunities for people that are already serving in those ministries or Bible fellowship or you can serve in the nursery. You can serve in a target ministry. Lead a divorce care or a greasier or some other kind of target ministry. Many of you are involved in that or you can serve in the nursery. You can serve in a technical ministry like help run the equipment in the back and help with our website or so what or you can serve in the nursery. You get the point. Okay. Sign up. Lots of opportunities. Prayer ministry. There are some people meeting right now praying during this service for this service. Standing in the Gat ministry is what it's called. It's a behind the scenes ministry. A lot of you don't even know about it. You can be involved in a prayer ministry like that. You can be involved in a Friday morning men's prayer group, the prayer chain or lots of different ways to be involved in prayer ministry. And each of these has subcategories. You can be involved in but be sure to get in the nursery or you can serve outside our church. There are some ways you can serve inside the church but then the next slide talks about go teams. These are people that go outside the church and we would encourage you to be involved in community outreach. Some people serve with able center. Some people serve with union mission or heaven sent or some other wonderful community ministry. And then there's global outreach mission trips. There's the Philippian ministry, the jail ministry. Everybody can do this one. Lifestyle evangelism. Looking for opportunities as a part of your lifestyle to share the gospel, the grace of God, with other people. Get involved in a servant team. Be involved in serving in some ways an important part of your growth in Christ. So let's go back to the pyramid. Next slide. See the arrows. These are the steps. At Johnson Chapel, if a disciple looks like one, if a disciple is one who loves Christ, grows in Christ and serves Christ, this is what we're saying you need to do. To be growing and you're following and learning of Jesus Christ, the disciple of him get involved in the morning service and come not just to be here, come to pour out your heart to him and adoration and worship. To give of yourself to him, to learn from the word of God as it's preached so that you can understand what commands you want you to obey to show your love for him and then get in a growth group, get in a Bible fellowship or as later in the year we develop small groups if that's your choice, but get involved in a growth group so that you can begin to share your life with others and then get in a ministry team. You will be loving, growing and serving and you will be growing in your likeness to Christ. You'll be becoming a disciple. Do any of us ever reach that? No. We all keep growing. Remember Peter said if you keep increasing in these things, then you won't be unfruitful or unproductive in your knowledge of Christ. You've got to keep growing in all three of these things, but all three of them are important. It doesn't stop here, my friend. It doesn't stop there. You will not grow to your full potentials of the disciple until you take some other steps, get in a growth group and a ministry team. That's what the discipleship process will look like at Johnston Chapel. I will preach that and we will promote that and we will publicize that and we will print that and we will do everything we can to start with the P to make sure that you know that that's going to be done. That's going to be our discipleship program at Johnston Chapel. Now, one other thing we haven't said much about target ministries. Let me just throw these in there real quick. We have a lot of target ministries that are very important as a means of outreach in our church. They target particular needs in the community, reach out to try to meet those needs and introduce people through those ministries to Christ. They're very important. Here's how we see them looking in this process. Next slide. That is down here, target ministries are one way people are brought to our church, introduced to Johnston Chapel and to Christ, not everybody who comes to the chapel starts in a target ministry. I mean, we're not going to start going to people and say, oh, good, you want to come to Johnston Chapel, get divorced and come to the worst care. We're not going to do that. But some people do start in a target ministry and so we believe this is kind of one side door approach to getting people right here. But this is where the discipleship process starts with the morning service, loving Christ and then growing in him and serving him. Now, the process in student and children's ministries bear with me for just a few more moments. The process in student children's ministries is going to look the same process. And I know Kevin and Brian would love to give more time to this, but look at this next pyramid. This is what the student ministries look like. Loving Christ, the first step is the Wednesday night youth group. That is the largest number of unchurched teens and students that come to our church is on Wednesday night, not Sunday morning. And so that's the place where that's the beginning point, that's the entry point, that's the love Christ, understand what it means to love him stage. And then student Bible fellowships provide growth. That is the major means on Sunday morning of providing a smaller group where you can begin to grow and then the mission trips and local outreach are ways that you can serve. Same process, love, grow, serve, Kevin is doing the same thing that adults are doing, little different settings, but the same thing. Here's the way it looks with children's ministries. Children's ministries, loving Christ, the first step kids club. That's what we call children's church. It's taking place right now. And there are a couple of younger groups, junior churches that are also meeting right now. That's the Sunday morning, large group of children, sometimes 70, 80 kids in those two, three groups. And then the growth stage is through a wana on Wednesday night or a Bible fellowship or a small group experience on a Sunday night, but all of those are provided because we have ministries church services at that time. We have to provide something for the children. So those are all growth areas for the kids. And then the crew ministry team serving on Sunday nights, the children who are involved in training to learn how to serve the Lord in the Sunday morning. Children's church or learning to serve the Lord through a children's mission trip or other areas they may serve the Lord. Same process though, love, grow, serve. We're going to follow that same process and be aligned with all ministries. Now, very quickly, and I'm just going to mention these. Our requirements for discipleship, what is this going to require of us? We'll give attention to all three areas. Love, grow, serve, but the grow areas, the one we've got to get the most attention to this year. And so five things we will attempt to do this year. Number one, strengthening of Bible fellowships. I thank God for every Bible fellowship, for every teacher, every leader, everyone is doing such a wonderful job. Lots of things that are happening there that are wonderful and are helping people to grow. We want to simply sharpen the focus to promote fellowship time, to promote continued good Bible teaching time, to promote discussion and sharing and prayer times where lives will interact with each other. And we have some suggestions we'll be talking with adult Bible fellowship leaders about to help strengthen Bible fellowships to accomplish all the four areas of growth that we want to see happen. Secondly, starting of small groups. Again, I'm going to wait to say more about that till next week, but I will try to describe next week what a small group is. Why? It's needed how they function, what they will do and offer that choice to people in our church. Number three, training and oversight of leadership. We believe that in order to really focus on this, both ABS and small groups need trained leadership. That's initial training to understand the process, to understand what it means to be helping people grow in Christ and then ongoing training and oversight and leadership that's going to be required. As has often been said by many writers in the corporate world, people do not do what you expect, they do what you inspect. And we've failed to provide the kind of oversight and accountability to our leaders that would help them to really enable the growth process to happen. That's something we will address this year. Number four, a more intentional movement between steps. We're not just going to expect you to get it on your own now. We have some very specific things we're going to start doing to help move you out of the pew into a growth group. And moving you from a growth group to a servant team so that as many people as possible understand as now going to be a disciple of Christ, it includes all three, not just one. It's got to be all three. And we've got some intentional steps. We're going to try to move people along in this process and the number five staffing changes to lead this focus. We recognize we're moving to a whole new level of training and oversight, especially when it comes to small groups. And I'll say more about that next week, but we may need some staffing changes to do this. We don't know what it looks like yet. We just know that in order to pull this off, we've got to provide the right oversight. Now, the final slide is once again, our purpose and our strategy and our vision and our focus. And this is we want people who want to be followers and learners of Christ. We want you to love him, to grow in him and to serve him. So we're asking of you be faithful and involved in the Sunday morning service. Get into a growth group and be a part of a ministry team and keep doing those things faithfully so that your growth in Christ can be enhanced. That's what we're going to be asking. That's what we're going to be looking for. So we're going to be preaching and promoting. This is our vision, our purpose, our strategy, our mission. If anybody says to you what's Johnson Chapel about, say we are a place that's seeking to develop disciples that love Christ, that are growing in him and that serve him. I hope with all of my heart, I hope this becomes the DNA of our church. It will mark us forever. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for the clear mandate you've given us in Scripture to make disciples. And I pray, oh God, that you will help us to continually evaluate and examine ourselves to see if we're doing it as well as we could and where we find weaknesses, help us to serve you better, to shore up those weaknesses, to become stronger in ways that will enable us to fulfill your mandate in a way that's pleasing to you. Lord, I don't want to stand before you someday and just say, well, I did church. I did church. But I want to stand before you someday and have this church commended by you, believers in this church, commended by you, for having been serious about your mandate to go and make disciples. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.