AAEVS - Practicing Discipleship (Part 2)

Mentorship

Mentorship is a neglected ministry; probably because our culture glorifies the self-sufficient person, the one who follows his own path alone and learns from his own effort with little assistance from others. Sadly this notion has gotten into the church to the point that Titus 2 mentorship is just unheard of today. This is sad because people usually do not discover by themselves how to think and act godly. Reviving mentorship is going to take study and mortification.

Titus 2 is a familiar passage, especially with those who are interested in gender roles. It gives instruction on exhorting four natural groups of people in the church: not-so-young men, not-so-young women, young women, and young men. From the structure of the passage, the older folks should mentor the younger.

By God's wisdom, He made male and female to bear His likeness on creation. They had distinct, defined roles and at the same time were both equally "Adam" in the persons of man and woman, reflecting the Trinity. But they sinned, bringing chaos into the created order and distorted in many ways the roles they were made to perform to His glory.

AAEVS - Practicing Discipleship (Part 1)

"Our vision is to be a community of discipleship. We will practice discipleship primarily through older men teaching younger men and older women teaching younger women how to fulfill their callings. We desire to support parents as they raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We will seek to serve God’s people within our community and in the kingdom of God at large with the spiritual gifts God has given us. We want to be known for our warm and hospitable fellowship, both as a church and as families. We will seek to be a community who can disagree with one another on non-essentials (meaning things that do not define one as a Christian) without dividing. Our vision is multi-generational. We realize that the advancement of God’s kingdom is a long-term process, therefore we desire to be examples of faithfulness that future generations would desire to follow." ~ Community Paragraph 3

"Let all things be done decently and in order." ~ 1 Corinthians 14:40

"This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men." ~ Titus 3:8

Practicing Discipleship, you could say, is like Part 2 of the previous section. What's different is that I'm placing the emphasis on the system of Church Community rather than the spiritual foundation. How does a Church Community function? The answer that our pastors provided is a system of discipleship.

AAEVS - Putting Together a Christ-centered Community (Part 8 & Conclusion)

(Prepare for another long read!)

Prayer

Our bodies need daily nourishment. Tasks such as problem solving and physical activity become difficult when the body is lacking nutrients. Likewise our souls need daily nourishment from spiritual disciplines such as prayer, Bible reading and study, etc. We can still worship and serve without them, but it will be dry and tedious. Spiritual disciplines, when used properly, bring us to fellowship with God and with one another.

So why is it hard to commit to doing these things regularly and proficiently? One reason is that they are in the group what Alex and Brett Harris calls "small hard things," things that are repetitive and do not get open recognition. We consider them to be chores that appear to have no perceptive benefit so we neglect them. Another reason is that they do not give us chemical stimulation like video games, television, and the Internet do. We demand in our hearts the holy and awesome God to be as entertaining as an inanimate electronics machine so we despise Him and His means of displaying Himself to us.

This boils down to priorities, what is most important? The Kingdom of God or our little sand castles that we build with things like education, jobs, comfort, security, family, (looking at it in isolation) church attendance and service, entertainment, community service, and health? Nothing wrong with these things but when they become more important to us than Jesus Himself then they are idols and they need to be put in their proper place in the Kingdom.