In an age of global warming, Kyoto debate, and environmental policy, many Christians find themselves unsure how to respond. Who is telling the truth about the effect of carbon emissions, deforestation, and so on? What is the environmental responsibility of a disciple of Jesus?

Authentic Christian faith requires ecological obedience.

Ecological Obedience

Steven Bouma-Prediger tackles this topic in For the Beauty of the Earth: a Christian vision for creation care. His central thesis is that authentic Christian faith requires ecological obedience. What is our ecology? Working through various words (environment, nature, creation), he settles on the term “earth” to designate the realm that God has created and that man is responsible for.

We care for only what we love. We love only what we know. We truly know only what we experience.

We Love What We Know

He explores various spheres of earthly responsibility–lakes, mountains, forests–noting in striking detail the sheer creativity of God. The Blue Creek National Park in Belize contains over 3,300 different species of birds! In Costa Rica alone there are 550 species of butterflies. Lavish! But do we care? He notes: “We care for only what we love. We love only what we know. We truly know only what we experience.” So true. So here’s some knowledge for you:

• Deforestation rates equal the elimination of one state of Indiana a year.
• The hungry of our world fit 18 times around the equator.
• 11% of birds and mammals are threatened by extinction.
• Only 53% of the global population has potable water.
• The hottest 14 years of recent history have been since 1980.

Scientific debate is not over whether or not the earth is warming up, but how much and how fast it will accelerate and what the consequences will be. Add to this population boom, waste production, loss of biodiversity, energy misuse, and water scarcity and we have a problem. The earth is not being cared for adequately. It is groaning.

Joe Thorn was kind enough to interview me on the topic of discipleship. I’ve included an excerpt from one of the questions below.

What is the biggest mistake the church is making when working to make disciples?

I can’t answer that question definitively. However, the dearth of suffering, the absence of hope, the trivialization of the Spirit, and the lack of mission among disciples of Jesus is terribly concerning. We have tried to minimize suffering through convenience, eliminate hope through self-made retirement, reduce Jesus to redeemer of the past, and surrendered any sense of discipleship as a call to die to ourselves that others may live. Instead, discipleship has been reduced to having a good marriage, handling finances well, raising good children, securing a future, and knowing your Bible. Our mission is very different than Jesus’ mission, our lives very different than Jesus’ life. This should scare us.

Read the rest of the Interview

Check out the new website: www.gospelcentereddiscipleship.com!

This is just the beginning of a discipleship resource site. We will be adding new books and resources this year. It currently features Fight Clubs, a way to promote grace-driven discipleship in your life and church. Some of the current features include:

• Blog, Twitter, and Resources page that include articles, audio, & video.
• An IN CHURCHES page that links to examples of other churches implementing Fight Clubs.
• Preview the Book, order a Sign, or check out the FAQ.

I’m reminded this morning that repentance is always good news. It is the reminder of Christ’s profound love for us, that God has accepted and forgiven otherwise unacceptable and unforgivable sinners. Jesus said to the church at Laodicea: “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent.”(Rev 3:19) Repentance is good news because it draws us away from unfaithful lovers to sweep us back into the arms of our one, true Love.

Love Doesn’t Lead us to Neutral

In repentance, God’s loving leads to our turning. Turning from sin is turning to Christ. It’s not a hollow confession in the neutral zone of a no man’s land, where we are left drifting, unguarded only to drift back into the same sinful fray all over again. Love doesn’t lead us into neutral. It doesn’t overlook sin and leave us stranded in no man’s land. It confronts, calling us to the better land. To not settle for slums when there is a paradise to be had. This is the love of Christ—reproof and discipline—pouring out upon us, the church.

Repentance Includes Resolve

So this morning, Lord, I receive your good news and I repent of wandering eyes and turn to fix my eyes on the beauty and glory of Christ. I repent of impatience with my children and turn to the great patience of the Father with me, his son, that I might extend an enduring love to my own children. I leave behind the false lovers of lust and self importance. I zealously repent this morning, turning to your open arms, unfailing love and never-ending importance. I refuse to fake repent, to enter the no man’s land of hollow confession and habitual sin. I will push into the promised land with zeal and flee the slums of sinful indifference. I cry out for the help of the Father to strengthen his helpless son. I resolve to so trust you that I live more dependently and obediently. And I do so, not despairingly but with hope…

Repentance Leads to Feasting

For your call of loving repentance comes with a promise: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the do0r, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.” Repentance is good news because, as I close the door on sin, I open the door to Christ. Notice that this is a call to the church. When we respond to his rap-a-tap-tap upon our hearts, he meets us, not with a disapproving frown, or impatient scolding but with a warm embrace, an embrace that moves us from slums to paradise, from lovers to one, true Love, from disobedience to obedience. He waits, lovingly to feast with us. He will dine with me and I will dine with him. True repentance leads to feasting, feasting with the King!

LuLu is running a new coupon for $100 off an order of 100 copies of Fight Clubs: Gospel-centered Discipleship.

On that note, check out the new beta version of the www.gospelcentereddiscipleship.com website!

At the Acts 29 Denver Bootcamp, Jeff Vanderstelt exhorted church planters and pastors to cultivate a disciple-making culture in their churches. He lists five simple, intuitive but rarely practices ways to informally make disciples:

1. Encourage a disciple-making culture.

2. Make your life visible and accessible to others.

3. Live with your leaders in community.

4. Live as servants together

5. Make sure your leaders live on Mission

Read the whole post.

I’m getting rocked on discipleship these days. From my positive experiences in the pub, in the projects or in God’s presence to a deepening desire for more disciples, more discipleship, more life sharing on mission. God is using the Hirsch’s book to call me into deeper missional discipleship—making disciples while on mission.

As I share in Fight Clubs: gospel-centered discipleship, for years I approached discipleship as a program, as a meeting, and as a professional/novice relationship. Progress has been made. I moved from the top of the stairs to floor of the living room, where I can sit in the circle of my City Group, staff, or neighborhood friends. I am grateful that I have been inconvenienced by actually sharing my life instead of simply sharing my insight.

I’m also on mission. I’m trying, very imperfectly, to share my life, my struggles, my hopes, and my dreams with those around me. I’m also trying to listen to others struggles, hopes, and dreams so we can all make progress together, some of in the faith, others toward the faith. Dinner with the neighbors. Outings with the City Group. Breakfast with leaders. Evenings in the projects and pubs. A lot has changed in my life, but not enough.

If missional defines our being sent out into the world, then incarnational must define the way in which we engage the world.

The Hirsch’s put a point on mission when the say: “If missional defines our being sent out into the world, then incarnational must define the way in which we engage the world” (Untamed, 234). The proof of our mission is our incarnation of Jesus into un-Christian communities and lives. It doesn’t matter how much you know about culture, missiology, or urbanism if you aren’t actually engaging real people in context (I want names!).

So many church planters ask me what to do in the “Core Team Phase”. They ask: “How do I build my core?” I ask them: “Do you know your neighbors? Have you had them all for dinner or a party?” Inevitably the answer is “No” or “Wow.” Church planters, disciples of Jesus, if we aren’t circumscribed into others’ lives, we are not on mission. Stop waving the flag and join the race. Jump in with people now. This was Jesus’ whole agenda. Let’s make it our agenda–incarnating the hope of the gospel in relationship.

1. Feelings can be misleading.

2. We have trouble seeing incremental growth.

3. Spiritual growth is relative but real.

4. Our church family doesn’t encourage one another enough.

5. God is using trial and temptation to grow us.

Read the whole article here.

Godly Leadership among the people of God is critical. If a man cannot lead himself or his family well, how is he to lead others well? Unfortunately, disciplining yourself for godliness isn’t popular (1 Tim 4:7). Many opt out. Some to their own eternal loss (Heb 12:14). But fortunately, godliness is actually real gain (1 Tim 4:8; 6:6). To live a godly life is to enter into God’s blessing, and that blessing has a way of cascading into others’ lives. Here are some resources to help you cultivate the blessing of a godly life:

Discipleship

• The Walk: Steps for New & Renewed Followers of Jesus – great place to start in disciplining yourself for godliness
• Future Grace / Battling Unbelief – combination of theology and practice, these books remind us that what God demands he supplies through his promise of future grace
• You Can Change – eminently practical and gospel-centered approach to real godly change
• Counterfeit Gods: – insightful, stirring, and penetrating look at how we fall pray to worshipping false gods
• The Holiness of God – Holiness 101
• Fight Clubs: Gospel-centered Discipleship – 60 page intro to fighting the fight of faith in community
• Gospel-centred Family – excellent, practical, short, and grace-saturated
• Resources for Biblical Womanhood
• Resources for Biblical Manhood

Deacons

• When People are Big and God is Small – good for people who struggle with the approval of others
• The New Testament Deacon – good biblical introduction to the office of deacon
• Ministries of Mercy – excellent for understanding the Christian call to mercy, littered with wisdom
• “Deacons in the Church” – sermon that covers the what, how, and why of deacon service
• David: Man of God, Man of Prayer - stirring book on godliness through reflections on the life of David
• The Godly Man’s Picture – a Puritan sketch of godliness, littered with gospel truths
• Gospel-centred Family – excellent, practical, short, and grace-saturated

Elders

• The Shepherd Leader – easy to read, hard to apply, biblical call to leading others as an elder
• Biblical Eldership – good biblical intro to elders
• Mortification of Sin – classic work on putting sin to death and embracing life in Christ
• “Men in the Church” – sermon that covers the what, how, and why of eldering
• Gospel-centred Family – excellent, practical, short, and grace-saturated

Growing in godliness is hard, rewarding work. If you’re striving to live a life of obedience to Christ, be encouraged that he has given you his Spirit to fulfill your desires for godliness. The challenge is to surrender to the desires of the Spirit, not succumb to the desires of the flesh. God stirs up the desires of the Spirit through his Word, worship, and prayer. Throw yourself into these graces and reap the reward of godliness. As you do, you’ll become a blessing to your family, your church, and your city.

Almost finished with my review of the Hirsch’s very fine book Untamed: Reactivating Missional for  of Discipleship. See Part 1, Part 2. If you’ve been tracking with me, I’ve had very good things to say about this new work. It combines the theological and the practical in a very creative, helpful way. I will offer some constructive criticism in my next and final post.

Spirit-led Discipleship (most of us don’t experience it)

As someone who aspires to a robust trinitarian faith, I gravitate to good treatments of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 3 offers us just that, not in a work of pure theology or exegesis, but as a compelling, creative, and culturally savvy reflection on the person and work of the Spirit in the missional church. The Hirsches write: “Discipleship is birthed in the Spirit, but it is also very much maintained in the Spirit.”

Unfortunately, there are theological camps that cut him right out of spiritual life. Even some of the circles I run in, I find a serious neglect of the Spirit, as if “the gospel” substitutes for the Spirit. The gospel is not the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is the Gospel of God, a trinitarian God–Father, Son and Spirit. I have addressed this at length in Spirit-led Ecclesiology: Following the Spirit through Church Planting (new article on this forthcoming). But perhaps the more threatening aspect of missional church to Spirit-led discipleship is our reliance on models, methods, and books. In a word, “technique,” which is a terrible substitute for God, the Spirit. The Spirit does much more that regenerate.

The Creative Holy Spirit

“The Holy Spirit is the most creative person in the universe.”

This quote has stuck with me for weeks. It prods me to write more, dream more, create more, rely on the Spirit more. On Sunday I was praying that the Spirit would stretch his wings over our congregation and flap new life and healing into our people. He did it in the beginning (Gen 1); he did it with Israel (Deut 32); he did and continues to do it with the Church (Acts 2).

The Hirsch’s point out that the “Holy” Spirit is set on making more than our morality holy. The Spirit wants to release powerful, creative waves of mission through disciples of Jesus, but before he can, we must repent of our sinful dependence on comfort, convenience, and technique. Once we do, the Spirit can release a “sanctified imagination” that envisions and enacts an entirely new way of living that brings hope in all places to all people. The Spirit produces “lots of little Jesuses” that bring hope and renewal into our present world.

Let’s repent for neglecting and assuming the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Let’s turn to his creative, sanctifying power to envision new neighborhoods and cities, wonderfully transformed by the Spirit of God through the disciples of Christ.