Life To Life Relationships

About 15 years ago, I heard a series of sermons that changed how I viewed my life as a Christ follower. John Poortenga, at New Life Church in Abbotsford, did a series that has stuck with me all this time. It was about being a disciplemaker. The idea is that Jesus made disciples and then told them to go make disciples themselves using the methodology and message He gave. Robert Coleman's book, "The Master Plan of Evangelism" was the text. It was a popular topic at the time. Swindoll did some teaching on it, Bill Hull wrote some books on it, and many of us tried to live it out. But the Christian voice has been quiet on the topic since.

At Heartland, we have picked up the topic again. It has brought us back to the some of the values that Heartland was founded on - primarily the value of individual responsibility of living out the life Jesus calls us to. It's not the job of a team, a denominational agency, or the pastor, it's all of our responsibilities. You can't defer it to a program, a committe, or another person - it's up to you. We are all invited to live this life that Jesus laid out for us.

As foundational as this is, in the past we have programmed many of the things that Jesus asked us to be about. Helping another person grow in their faith, challenging a person to step forward in giving his life further to Jesus, caring for a person in a broken time of her life, helping a person develop their unique gift and talent, keeping us focused on relationships rather than building empires. These priorities have been programmed in the local church and it's a good day when we look each other in the eye and speak to each other's heart's when we say, it's up to us to live this life that Jesus calls us to. We won't stand by when an administrator overfunctions by creating another program that attempts to do in a program what was intended for your or my life. Jesus intended it to be about one life to another life. Let's get on with this.

(rant off)