Reaching Hard Places – J.D. Greear

By / Jul 7

An FTC22 Sermon



The Gospel for the Nations – Jason Allen

By / Jul 7

An FTC22 Sermon



The Heart of Jesus – Jared Wilson

By / Jul 7

An FTC22 Sermon



Every Tongue, Tribe, and Nation – Tony Merida

By / Jul 7

An FTC22 Sermon



Practicing and Maintaining Healthy Group Multiplication

By / Jul 6

Over the last few articles, and in my short book Life-Giving Groups: How to Grow Healthy, Multiplying Community Groups, I’ve been trying to establish a biblical vision for healthy group multiplication and practical steps for carrying out that vision.

Here, I hope to describe some of the action steps that enable healthy group multiplication in the life of a church.

Throw a multiplication party.

When it’s finally time to multiply, gather everyone from the original group to throw a party. It should feel more like a graduation than a funeral. Gather in the backyard, cook a meal together, or host a movie night for the kids. Do something that celebrates the successful multiplication of one community of believers into two. You may even want to take time for members to share how the group was instrumental in their spiritual journey. Or you can just party.

Commission the new leaders publicly.

One of the best ways to honor and bless community groups leaders also generates excitement and exposure for groups in general. Bring your new leaders up front at a Sunday worship service, and commission them to their new ministry. You may bring up the sending leaders as well, or have all the elders up front to lay hands on them. You can give the new leaders a gift—a Bible and a journal or a bunch of pasta and sauce to make together as a group that week—and encourage the congregation to applaud the leaders’ sacrificial service to the church.

Set ground rules for the new group.

See the appendix: “The Five Rules of Community Group.” For the first few weeks, you may want to read these rules out loud, a la Fight Club. Once your group understands the rules, you won’t have to revisit them every week, but your members will be able to remind one another of simple rules like, “Hey, remember we Put Others First, so let’s give her a chance to speak.”

Start the new group with a renewed vision.

Once your new group starts—and both groups may want to do this—you may want to start a short series together to gain a renewed vision. A short study discussing the four discipleship rhythms would help set a vision and direction for the group. Maybe you want to spend six weeks on the six chapters of Ephesians and discuss how your group will seek to grow together and reach others.

Whatever your vision of group life is, it’s ideal to revisit that vision with each new group multiplication. If your groups are multiplying every one or two years, it becomes a helpful reminder for all leaders and members. You don’t want multiplications to feel like high school breakups. Each new group should be celebrated in a way that reminds both the new and the sending group of the biblical foundations for multiplication.

Jump quickly into mission as a new group.

Especially for a group meeting in a new location, there is no better time to start evangelistic efforts as a group. If the new group is meeting in an apartment or home for the first time, the group can spend one of the first gatherings going out and inviting people from the neighborhood. Consider setting a fun, family-style gathering about a month or two into the new group, and specifically invite neighbors to that low-pressure gathering.

Your neighbors’ first experience of your community group shouldn’t be the parking issues created! As soon as you start your group, reach out to them, share your vision for community with them, and invite them to join you!

So once you’ve started your new group, how do you maintain health over the long haul?

Maintaining Health After Group Multiplication

I’ve found a few final things to be helpful in maintaining health after group multiplication.

Gather two or three more times with both groups.

About a month after the multiplication, then maybe again in 3-6 months, gather both groups together for a meal or outdoor party. This is a great way to reconnect with one another, meet new visitors that have joined since the multiplication, and hear stories from the new groups.

These post-multiplication gatherings help remind us that multiplication can be done well, relationships don’t fall apart overnight, and new groups can create space for new people to experience Christ and community.

Form a coaching region where groups still share a common mission.

In an ideal situation, establish a geographically based coaching region for groups that have recently multiplied. For example, if you have a group meeting on the south side of town, and it multiplies into southwest and southeast neighborhoods, you can have one elder or coach oversee the region.

When you reach 12-15 groups, it’s ideal to have three or four regions of groups, each with its own pastoral or coaching oversight. At that point, three or four groups in the same region can gather for missional events and fellowship, helping the church to feel smaller while growing larger. This is also a strategic step in getting pastors and members working together to reach a very particular part of the city.

Give multiplication testimonies at new group leader training.

Once a church has more than a dozen groups, you’ll likely need to add a formal group leader training component (if not sooner). During these trainings, make sure to give examples of healthy multiplication. These testimonies can come from the leaders or even the group members. Let group leaders ask questions like “What worked best?”, “What was your timeline?”, and “What would you do differently?”

The long-term health of your community groups ministry depends significantly on the health of each group’s multiplications.

When you have set a vision and culture of healthy multiplication, when reasonable expectations have been set, when you have prepared well for each new group, and when you have maintained health long after each multiplication process, you will likely see a slow, steady increase of new groups.

*This article is Part 7 of an eight-part series on community groups and their importance that will run this summer. Read the full series here.



Episode 218: FTC Mailbag

By / Jul 5

It’s another Mailbag installment of the FTC Podcast, with Jared Wilson and Ross Ferguson answering listener-submitted questions and topics, including counseling baptism for children, pastoral recovery from pandemic burnout, and more. Due to technical difficulties, this episode’s recording was cut shorter than usual Mailbag episodes. We will make up for it in the next installment!



What Makes Baptist Political Theology?

By / Jul 3

The distinctive Baptist contribution to political theology is the doctrine of religious freedom and disestablishment. You will find some mention of religious freedom in almost every chapter of this book. But why? And what does religious freedom mean for the whole body of political theology? Is it the only thing we have to say about politics?

An inner logic connects adult baptism, conversion, religious freedom, and disestablishment. Baptism is a ritual that marks the entry of a penitent person into the church community by symbolizing the washing away of sin, the death of the old self and resurrection of the new self. Such a ritual has no meaning for infants or children who have no awareness or understanding of sin, repentance, or the gospel of Jesus Christ. No one can enter the kingdom of God apart from a conscious, inward, informed turning away from sin and toward Christ—a turning that we call repentance and faith. And if people cannot enter the kingdom, they should not be counted full members of the local church, which is an embassy of the kingdom. The church should strive to have a membership made entirely of regenerate Christians, baptized adults who have made a public profession of faith and covenanted together to hold one another accountable for walking in holiness.

By the same logic, no adult can be coerced into the kingdom—or the church—at the point of the sword. Our doctrine of baptism and the church is the seed from which grows an entire panoply of implications about the state. The state may coerce someone into attending the right church, uttering the right creed, and even comporting their behavior to the appearance of outward righteousness—none of which makes the least contribution to a person’s actual salvation. We call this the doctrine of “soul competency,” the idea that each person is accountable to God for himself or herself and no other authority is ultimately able to effect another’s salvation. It is pointless for the state to use its tools, which touch outward behavior, to try to compel inward belief.

Worse, it is dangerous. The state has an educative function. When it passes laws, it habituates people to believe, even if unconsciously, that those laws reflect standards of good and evil. When the state makes laws endorsing, establishing, or regulating religion, it teaches people to rely on the state’s judgment, rather than the church’s or the words of Scripture, for their salvation. Imagine a citizen goes to church and recites a creed because the state tells him to. That citizen is at grave risk of believing he is a Christian because he is performing the appropriate deeds—without any reference at all to the saving work of Christ on the cross. State-endorsed (and, much more so, state-mandated) religion always has strong tendencies toward a religion of works. And there are further dangers, including the long history of states hijacking religion to use as propaganda for whatever political purpose the ruler has in mind. State religion cheapens religion, turning religious authorities into cheerleaders and boosters of the status quo, with all its injustices, and of whomever exercises power, regardless of what that power is used for. State religion has no prophetic witness and no independent voice.

The idea of religious freedom and disestablishment is one of the most revolutionary ideas in world history. Virtually every state in history allied with a religion or, when they banned conventional religion, invented new ones (like communism). The Baptist doctrine of religious freedom amounts to a claim that every state in history got it wrong. It would be breathtaking in its audacity, except for subsequent history in which religious freedom spread worldwide and vindicated the belief that states and churches relate best when they are institutionally and jurisdictionally separate. Every state on earth has (at least on paper) agreed to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 18, which affirms that “everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”[1]

Does the Baptist political witness end there? Do we have anything else to say? In fact, religious freedom and disestablishment, as revolutionary ideas, cannot but have far-reaching consequences throughout the full range of cultural, social, and political issues. Most importantly, religious freedom and disestablishment mean the state has limited jurisdiction. There are matters over which it has no legitimate authority. Religious freedom and disestablishment are thus intrinsically opposed to totalitarianism and, at least, highly suspicious of softer forms of authoritarianism. Totalitarian government is sinful and anti-Christian by its very nature; authoritarian government with no check on its power is inherently dangerous and carries the potential for overstepping its bounds. Baptists should be the first to warn against the encroaching power of states that try to grow beyond their rightful boundaries.

That means Baptists are naturally sympathetic to forms of government that recognize their own limits, have checks on their power, and respect the religious rights of their people. That natural sympathy is reinforced by Baptists’ own practice of congregational autonomy and self-government. Baptists practice self-government among themselves, which habituates them to its rhythms in society at large. That is why, in practice and in history, Baptists are almost exclusively republicans and democrats (with a small r and a small d) who believe in some version of representative government and in civil and political rights. That is not quite the same as saying that Baptists believe the Bible mandates democracy. We respect the authority of the Bible enough to reserve our strongest conclusions for what is explicit and clear in Scripture. But for Baptists, the logic linking biblical revelation to religious freedom and congregational autonomy and, thence, to free government is simpler and stronger than for any other Christian tradition. We have always thrown in our lot with free government. Most Christian traditions in the modern era support basic civil and political rights and find biblical support for them in the idea that all humans bear God’s image and have coequal moral worth. But Baptists add our distinctive doctrine of religious freedom and disestablishment, an additional bulwark against authoritarianism and a cornerstone of free government.

This is an especially needful truth to revive today. We live amidst an upsurge in nationalist sentiment and rising authoritarian powers, which bring twin dangers to the right relationship of church and state. On the one hand, nationalism has historically almost always come tinged with religious rhetoric, religious symbolism, and even religious demagoguery. Statesmen know the power of religion, and if they can tap into that power and redirect it to themselves, they will. On the other hand, in reaction, nationalists’ opponents often blame religious institutions and religious leaders, equate religion with the political agenda they oppose, and seek to shrink, ban, or silence religion in the public square. That means religion is in danger of hijacking by one side and proscription on the other; of being used and manipulated; and of being ignored, sidelined, and neglected.

In this context the Baptist political witness is crucial. More than any other Christian tradition, we can insist on the importance of disestablishment and warn of the dangers of being co-opted by those in power—at the same time and with the same framework that we insist on the vital necessity of religious freedom and a robust and vocal Christian presence in the public square. Christians must advocate for justice, peace, and flourishing—our Lord commands it of us—which means we must be active, present, and free to believe and speak. We must also insist on the state’s limitation and the church’s independence, which means our presence in the public square is never an effort to take it over in the name of serving it.

We have traveled a great distance from the seemingly small matter of believer’s baptism. But that is the legacy of revolutionary ideas. They work their way through the architecture of ideas and recenter relationships in new ways. And the Baptist revolution in religious freedom and disestablishment—in free government and republicanism—is not done yet.

 

[1] United Nations, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, article 18, un.org, accessed October 27, 2022, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights.

 

Editor’s Note: This article is taken from Baptist Political Theology and used by permission of B&H Academic. The book is now available everywhere Christian books are sold.



Preparing for Healthy Small Group Multiplication

By / Jun 29

Most of the Scriptures come to us in the form of stories.

There are two essential marks of a great story: A great story draws you in—into the character and the plot. And a great story sends you out—you immediately want to retell it.

But it’s not just common life to be “drawn in” to a deeply significant experience and then to be “sent out” to tell others about it. It’s a beautiful pattern woven into the fabric of the great biblical Story of God making a new people.

Foundation: The Pattern of Mission

In Genesis 12, God speaks to Abram, draws him into an experience of his presence, and promises to make him a blessing to all the nations. Then the moment Abram has been drawn in, he is sent out. God says, “Go, leave your country and your people and go to the land I will show you.”

In Exodus 3, Moses is a murderer running for his life when God appears to him in a burning bush. Moses falls on his face in worship. The Lord tells him, “I have heard the cry of my people… Now go: I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt.”

In Acts 13, as the church in Antioch is praying, fasting and worshiping one evening, God gives them a powerful experience of his presence. He draws them in and speaks by his Spirit: “Set apart Paul and Barnabas for me to go to where I have called you.”

Over and over again! This is the pattern of mission: He draws us in and sends us out. He draws us in to know him, and he sends us out to make him known. The gospel comes to us in order to go through us.

In the call of Abram, the pattern is clear: We are Blessed to Be a Blessing. Why does God reveal himself to us? Why does he draw us into his presence and move us to worship? Why does he surround us with loving community—as in Acts 13? God always blesses us so that we might be a blessing to others.

Now think of your own story: How has God revealed himself to you over your Christian life? How has he invited you into deeper life with him through this church? How has this community group provided life-giving friendships in Christ? Certainly, we are a blessed people!

Too often in our community groups, we want the blessing to reach us but not move through us. Our members want to each be the last ones to join a group. No one wants to be excluded from a group, but once we are in, we want to close it off. As a result, we as community group leaders need to put the biblical vision of multiplication before our people regularly.1

Setting Expectations for Multiplication

Having discovered a biblical foundation for healthy group multiplication, we can now get to the practical steps involved in multiplying healthy, life-giving community groups.

Let’s seek to answer these questions: How do we ensure that the multiplication process is healthy? And: How do we set proper expectations for multiplication?

I recommend explicitly setting expectations for a community group’s multiplication.

1. Prioritize the spiritual and relational health of the members.

Remember, our overall goal of community life is not the total number of groups we can launch and sustain over a period of time. The goal is the formation of disciples in the image of Christ.

Thus, if we neglect our members’ spiritual and relational health—which we have been investing in for months or years prior to multiplication—during the process, we’ll win the battle and lose the war.

2. Remember: Multiplication furthers our members’ spiritual and relational health.

Teaching the three biblical foundations for multiplication is a great place to start. My “Creating Space: A Guide to Healthy Group Multiplication” appendix is a four-week discussion guide based on these foundations and includes discussion questions, guided prayers, and worksheets for your group.

3. Set a multiplication expectation at the first gathering.

This goal must be explicitly taught by the community group leaders, and it must be established from the beginning of the group—not just before a needed multiplication. For example, when launching your first group, or as soon as a new group begins, the leaders need to give a vision for multiplication and a general timeline.

The leaders could say something like, “As we start this group, we want to remember that we are seeking our own spiritual growth and the spiritual growth of others. So we’ll continue to invite people to this group, and when it reaches about 16 adults, and when new leaders are ready, we’ll slowly multiply into two groups—we expect this will happen in about 12-24 months.” You may even want to do this weekly or monthly when you review the rules of your community group.

I remember when one of our groups I worked with had been together for three or four years without multiplying. There were more than 20 adult members and maybe a dozen kids, and more groups were needed across the congregation. But the leader had never brought up multiplication before this, and when he brought it up for the first time, there was much fear and confusion and many tears. It took more than a year for this group to become ready—spiritually and relationally—to multiply.

4. Keep the mission before the people.

Group leaders should be continually reminding the members of our missionary identity in Christ. We should be frequently seeing new people joining the group—both from the church and through relationships in the community. So members will feel the growth and know multiplication is an evidence of their growth in godliness and necessary to continue to create space for new people.

5. Multiply when leaders are ready, not when you have too many people.

I’m frequently asked, “At what number of people should we multiply?” But it’s not the best metric to use for a multiplication timeline. A number of factors will determine how many adults and kids a group can have while remaining healthy and open to visitors. Some of our members’ houses can accommodate 12 adults; others can handle 30 adults. Some of our groups will need to multiply once there are about eight kids coming regularly; others can have 20 or more kids and not run into too much trouble.

But still, the number of people should not be the determining factor in when you multiply. Nothing is more important than your leaders’ readiness.

A group can be too big or too small, but with the right leaders, it will remain healthy and growing. As soon as new leaders are identified, trained, and ready, a new group can be deployed. Typically, six adults are enough to start a new group—a leader couple and four other adults.

6. Let members choose their group.

In the past, one of the mistakes I’ve made as a leader is to try to figure out which people should go with which group, and try to steer people in those directions. Instead, I think it’s a much better practice to set two options in front of your members and let them choose. Do they want to go with the new group or stay with the sending group? The church is a voluntary organization, and we should be quick to empower our people to make their own decisions—especially in terms of where they’ll spend this important discipleship time each week.

In the next article, we’ll look at how to practice and sustain healthy group multiplication over the long haul.

1. See Tim Keller’s sermon, “The Cost of Mission,” on Genesis 12.

*This article is Part 6 of an eight-part series on community groups and their importance that will run this summer. Read the full series here.



What is Incomprehensibility?

By / Jun 28

Editor’s Note: The Theology in the Everyday series seeks to introduce and explain theological concepts in 500 words or less, with a 200-word section helping explain the doctrine to kids. At For The Church, we believe that theology should not be designated to the academy alone but lived out by faith in everyday life. We hope this series will present theology in such a way as to make it enjoyable, connecting theological ideas to everyday experience and encouraging believers to study theology for the glory of God and the good of the Church. This week, incomprehensibility.

Our finite human minds, apart from divine grace, are utterly incapable of knowing God as He is in Himself. Yes, God has manifested his “invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature… in the things that have been made,” such that all people “clearly perceive” His existence and cosmic creativity (Rom 1:20); and yet, “Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” (Rom 11:34). The rhetorical response to Paul’s famous question is clearly, “No one.”

The Creator God dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim 6:16). His ways and His thoughts are infinitely beyond our own (Is 55:8-9). No one has ever seen Him or can see Him (John 1:18). His form, or His essence, is eternally beyond the sight of all human eyes (John 5:37). No one, apart from God Himself, is able to comprehend His thoughts (1 Cor 2:11). Thus, our agnostic friends are not entirely wrong to say that God, apart from divine self-disclosure or self-revelation, remains utterly unknowable to human minds, which brings us to the beauty and grace of both Scripture and the Gospel.

In His words (Scripture) and Word (Son), the Creator God has done the unthinkable: He has graciously condescended to the confines of finite understanding, not only in the words and images of Scripture, but in the Word that became flesh and was born for us and our salvation–the man from Nazareth, Jesus Christ [John 1:14; Heb 1:1-3]. As John says, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (1:17). Thus, as Bavinck says, “our knowledge of God does not arise from our own investigations and reflection, but because God on his part revealed himself to us in nature and history, in prophecy and miracle, by ordinary and extraordinary means.”

All of this has the effect of making the light of divine revelation shine all the brighter, for, in His words and Word, the incomprehensible God has made Himself known to us. Moreover, He has done this, not only to be grasped by human minds, but to be crucified by human hands (see Mt 27:1-50; Mk 15:1-39; Lk 23:1-39; John 19:30). Thus, the most incomprehensible thing about God—that He would send His only Son to be crucified and punished for us—is found in the Gospel itself.

For the Kids (A Conversation)

“Hey dad! Can I ask you a question about God?” “Absolutely, kiddo. What’s on your mind?”

“Well… I’m just wondering… How is it possible for us to know God? I mean, today at school we learned about stars and planets and how the universe is so big that we can’t even imagine it! My teacher even told us that the Sun is just 1 star among millions and millions of stars! And it got me thinking… If I’ve got a hard time understanding that, then how in the world am I going to wrap my head around the God who created it all? It just seems like too much to understand.”

“Well, son, first things first: that’s a really good question, and you’re actually not the first person to ask it–even among Christians!”

“Haha… that makes me feel a little better. I’m not alone after all!”

“No, son, you’re not. And remember: your God is big enough for your questions–including that one! So let me give it a shot… The reason you feel that you can’t understand God—especially if God is infinitely bigger than the universe itself—is because we actually can’t understand God on our own. Which means that if you’re having a hard time understanding God, then you’re actually onto something! He really is that big and that beautiful.”

“Wait… So does that mean we can’t ever know who God is?”

“Well, that’s where we get to the even more amazing part! You see, because God is so big, and because we are so small, God has chosen to reveal Himself to us. Which means that, instead of us climbing our way up to God, God has climbed His way down to us!”

“So… If God has climbed down to us, then where can I find Him?”

“You can find Him in the Bible and in his Son, Jesus Christ. In fact, let me read you a Bible verse that helps us better understand it all. It comes from Romans 10 and Deuteronomy 30. “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down) or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does [God’s Word] say? ‘The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Rom 10:6-9).

I know that’s a lot, son, but here’s the thing you can remember: at the end of the day, you and I don’t have to climb up to heaven or dig under the earth to find God, that’s because God has come to us!”

“Wow. I hadn’t thought about it like that before.” “Neither had I, before I read the Bible!” “Thanks, dad. Now I’ve got some thinking to do!”

“Haha, you’re welcome son. Think away, just never forget to take those thoughts to God Himself!



Episode 217: Bible Teacher Pet Peeves

By / Jun 28

On this episode of the FTC Podcast, Jared Wilson and Ross Ferguson return to a listener favorite segment — “peeves” — and share some ways small group leaders, Sunday School teachers, and other Bible study teachers can improve.