Discipleship-Centric: The Shepherd’s Church Distinctives (Part 7)
In this series, Pastor Kendall Lankford and Deacon Dan Hult elaborate on the distinctives of The Shepherd’s Church, so everyone who worships with us, visits us, or lands on our webpage will know who we are, how we are, what we are, why we are, and what they can expect.
As we dive into another installment in our distinctives series, it's important to mention that this blog is for anyone curious about our Church, whether you're a long-time member, a first-time visitor, or considering visiting The Shepherd's Church. In this series, we're laying everything out on the table, showing all our cards, and pulling back all the curtains so you can see clearly who we are, what we believe, and how we got there. May the Lord bless you as you learn more about us and your God!
In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus gives the Great Commission, a foundational passage for understanding the Church's mission:
"And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." - Matthew 28:18-20
CHURCHES AND “EVANGELISM-ONLYISM”
As a young man coming up in the seeker-sensitive and mega-church movement, everything was about evangelism. The fog machines were about evangelism. The women in skin-tight clothing shaking their hips on stage was about evangelism. And the watered-down, pop-psychological, piss-poor excuses for a sermon were all about evangelism. Or so I was told.
The clattering mantra was echoed every week: "The church is for unbelievers." Apparently, the goal of the Church was not to worship God in Spirit and Truth (John 4:24), it wasn't to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Ephesians 4:12), or to help all of God's people reach full maturity (Ephesians 4:13), by making disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:19). Apparently, the Scriptures were wrong. Our job, I was constantly reminded, was to throw larger and larger events that pagans would love to come to so that eventually, they would see our great parties and then turn from their sin and become Christians. The idea was simple, if MTV, Nickelodeon, Disney, and Hollywood could throw billions and billions of dollars at people, woo them with professionally excellent media, then a church should be able to cobble together a much less impressive budget, worship set, and theatrics, and pagans would convert in droves, right?
The cold, hard truth I eventually discovered was no. This is wrong. And not only is it wrong, it is a prostituting of His wife. To do worship in these ways is to dress Jesus' beloved bride up like a whore so that carnal men will clap and shout. I can think of nothing more repulsive or repugnant to our sovereign Lord than this. And, I can think of no slave more deserving of the Master's beating than the pastor who parades the Church around this way.
The Church does not exist for the unbeliever. We do not pattern our worship practices after the carnal desires of pagans. The unbeliever may surely come, and we hope that they do. But when they come, we want them to see us obedient to God's vision for the Church, not compromising it by making mud pies in the slums or something like that.
This begs the question, why does the Church exist? She primarily exists to glorify God and lead God's people into covenant renewal worship with Him. We are weekly called out of the world and into His presence. We are stripped of our sins and corporately pardoned, reclothed in His royal robes, invited to dine with our King at His table, and then sent out as His royal ambassadors into the nations. In this sense, the Church exists primarily for God and secondarily to lead God's people into a deeper and more satisfying relationship with Him. When that occurs, God's people will be joyfully commissioned out unto the nations as the ones who are evangelizing and bringing new believers to the Church to be discipled.
A DISCIPLESHIP-CENTRIC APPROACH
After the resurrection of Jesus, the first commandment He gave to the apostolic community was to go and make disciples of all the nations (Matthew 28:18-20). Jesus could have given any commission He wanted. He could have told us to go and make converts, throw large circus events with laser light shows, and win the world to Jesus one twenty-thousand-person arena at a time. But He did not. The commission He gave was for us to make disciples, which means that discipleship is central to the identity and responsibility of the local Church.
This is also an ecclesiocentric command, which simply means that it is the work of the Church to baptize and disciple the world. I say that because this commission was not given to every Christian indiscriminately, as some people may claim. Still, it was given to the apostles—the same apostles who had already been told that they were to establish the Church on earth (Matthew 16:18) with Christ as its cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20). They were the ones given the authority to bind and loose the world for Jesus (Matthew 16:19), forgive and withhold forgiveness (John 20:23), bring His discipline and order into the ecclesial sphere (Matthew 18:15-20), and to do everything under His Lordship and authority (Matthew 28:18). From this it is clear, the Church was founded upon the bedrock of discipleship.
After Jesus' ascension, and as the early Church struggled to stay afloat under the persecutorial hardships of that tumultuous first century, she was not commanded to follow church growth strategies and clever marketing campaigns. She was commanded to devote herself to the apostles' teaching (who were to be focused on discipleship), to the breaking of bread (sacramental fellowship), and to the prayers (Acts 2:42-47). This discipleship-centric focus not only nurtured the young fledgling early Church and made her strong but is the only reason she eventually toppled the Roman Empire. Think about it, had that first-century Church been filled with effeminate worship leaders with man buns, the whole project called Christianity would have died in the fetal position the first moment they had no access to their morning soy latte.
The apostolic community understood that their role was not to entertain the goats but to equip the saints for the work of ministry, building up the body of Christ until all attained unity and maturity in faith (Ephesians 4:11-13). They were to proclaim Christ, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so they might present everyone to God mature in Christ (Colossians 1:28-29). As Paul instructed Timothy, this multi-generational discipleship strategy was to entrust Christ's teachings to faithful men (elders and pastors) who would teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2), ensuring continuity and growth for the Church over decades, centuries, and millennia-strong. The Church did not grow strong by making a bunch of watered-down converts. The Church grew strong by making a congregation full of disciples who knew, loved, and obeyed everything Jesus commanded.
According to God, the Church was never meant to be a nightclub attracting seedy seekers, but was a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, meant to proclaim the excellencies of Him who called them out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9). The Scriptural identity and mission of the local Church is to make disciples, who proclaim God's truth to the world, which means that evangelism flows out of faithful discipleship and not the other way around. You rarely gain disciples if you make a church full of converts. But if you disciple a church, you will almost always see conversions. This is God's order. Evangelism flows out of discipleship because discipleship is at the core of the Church's mission. And any church worth her salt will put down her pom poms and slashing guitar solos and prioritize the long and steady work of making disciples.
Now, with all of this talk about discipleship and how it is central to the Church's mission, let us define what discipleship is.
WHAT DISCIPLESHIP IS
Discipleship is the Christ-commissioned global process by which the Church teaches baptized men, women, and children, under the authority of and in the presence of Jesus Christ, how to obey everything Jesus commanded them. Notice how Matthew 28:18-20 follows this definition.
"And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." - Matthew 28:18-20
THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE DISCIPLES
The first step in making a disciple is to acknowledge the authority structure underpinning it. Discipleship is not based on our opinion or authority but His. The authority to make disciples is vested in the Church by our supreme Lord, who has all authority in heaven and on earth. This authority was gained in victory over the grave and applied to the local Church through apostolic succession. To say it succinctly, a church that does not prioritize discipleship is at odds with the only person in the cosmos with limitless authority to judge you.
THE SCOPE AND COMMAND TO MAKE DISCIPLES
The second step in making a disciple is understanding the command's extent. The Church is commanded to keep making disciples until every person on earth has been discipled. We are not called to goat gather; we are commissioned to make fully orbed disciples until no one persists in their rebellion against King Jesus. Until that job is complete, discipleship will be forever central to the mission of the Church on earth.
THE SACRAMENTAL ENTRY TO DISCIPLE-MAKING
The third step in making a disciple is to understand where discipleship begins. It does not start with an altar call or filling out a connect card. It also does not begin with discipleship classes and ensuring someone who is theologically intelligent, loyal, and holy enough to be baptized. On the contrary, it starts with baptism, which is the sign a person has entered into the visible covenant community of God. Baptism is the sacramental initiation of all believers and their children into the visible Church. It is the first and most necessary step in the Church's work of making a disciple.
THE PEDAGOGICAL PURPOSE OF DISCIPLE-MAKING
The fourth step in making a disciple is teaching. And by teaching, we do not merely teach doctrine, although that is undoubtedly a part of it. The kind of teaching Jesus describes is obedience. The Church is commanded to teach the world how to obey Jesus, not just a few commands, but every command He has given. This includes all of the imperatival statements given in the Gospels. But it also consists of the entire Bible, since He is what all of Scripture points to (Luke 24:27) and Scripture's ultimate author (2 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 1:1-2).
THE POWER UNDERPINNING DISCIPLE-MAKING
Once a church has baptized a person and is working on teaching that person how to obey everything Jesus commanded, that Church will be called upon to trust that the Lord has given His power and blessing to this paradigm. They must reject the notion that other activities would be more necessary. For there is only one work that Lord has specifically promised to give the weight of His presence in support of, and that is discipleship. It is commanded and empowered by Him, which means we honor Him when we do it diligently.
THE SHEPHERD'S CHURCH'S DISCIPLESHIP DISTINCTIVES
At The Shepherd's Church, we understand that discipleship is the most important work we can do, and we seek to make disciples who match the Biblical vision. Below are some (not all) of the ways we are seeking to do that through our worship on Sunday and other activities we are doing throughout the week.
BIBLICAL AND PRAYER-SATURATED SERVICE
Our worship services are saturated with the Word and prayer (Acts 6:4) because we believe God's Word is what the triune God infused with His power (Romans 1:16), not our silly machinations. Every aspect of the service, from the Bible verses we cite to whole chapters of Psalms we sing to the old and new covenant scripture readings and prayer, all aim to center our hearts and minds on Christ and lay a foundation for discipleship. We know that if we are going to teach people how to obey everything Jesus commanded, we will need to saturate them with the commands of God found in Holy Scripture.
FAITHFUL SINGING (PSALMS, HYMNS, AND SPIRITUAL SONGS)
We engage in faithful singing, employing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs as the Word of God commands (Colossians 3:16). This practice edifies the congregation and plants the Word of God in our hearts, where it will grow and produce fruit.
FAITHFUL APPLICATION OF THE LAW
Our services include an exposition of the law and how it faithfully applies to the Christian. We lead the congregation to understand what God has commanded us to do, learn what Biblical obedience looks like (which is the definition of discipleship), and understand how we have fallen short of that through confession of sins, repentance, and the acceptance of Jesus' pardon offered to us in the Gospel.
CREEDS, CATECHISMS, AND CONFESSIONS
In addition to having a Biblically saturated service, we regularly affirm the faithful creeds, catechisms, and confessions of Church history, understanding and learning from our forbears in the faith. These declarations are a constant reminder of the truths we are called to uphold and share and give us a picture of Biblical discipleship.
FAITHFUL, THEOLOGICAL, AND RELATABLE PREACHING
Our preaching strives to be faithfully expositional, rigorously theological, highly accessible, and joyfully delivered. We aim to expose the Word so that men, women, and children grasp the gravity of the Word and the beauty and excellencies of Christ and are held captive by a Biblical vision of God, the Gospel, and Christian living.
FEASTING AT THE LORD'S TABLE
We observe the Lord's Supper every week in accordance with Scripture. In fact, communion with our risen Lord is the high point and climax of the Christian service since Christ Himself meets us at His table and feeds us with His own body and blood. If we want to be a church that makes disciples, then withholding the table of our Lord from the saints of God is not an option, except under cases of church discipline.
COMMISSIONING
Every service concludes with a commissioning, where we send our members out into the world as Christ's ambassadors. They are to go remembering who Jesus is, what He has done for them, and how they may shine as lights amid our crooked and twisted generation. We believe evangelism flows out of discipleship, so we are saturated and equipped in the Word, prayer, and sacraments before we are commissioned to the nations.
MEN'S BIBLE STUDY
In addition to our Sunday morning services, we offer a Men's Bible study that incorporates rigorous fellowship and theological development for our men. We understand that a man has been tasked with leading his family as the spiritual leader of his home so we invest time and energy to make sure he is developed as a disciple to be well-equipped for that role.
WOMEN'S FELLOWSHIP
Women's fellowship offers support, encouragement, and teaching for women, helping them grow in their faith and role as godly women. Our women's fellowship is growing and seeking to equip women to be godly feminine examples of Christ in a world that hates Biblical womanhood and cannot even define what a woman actually is.
SUNDAY SCHOOL
Sunday School classes provide systematic teaching of the Bible and theology for all ages, ensuring that our members are well-grounded in their faith and equipped to articulate it.
FEASTS
Our Church also prioritizes fellowship, food, and feasting. We understand that Jesus made disciples in a variety of ways. He taught and preached sermons to larger crowds. He got along with His disciples in small group settings. He had individual conversations. He also prioritized life around the table, with food and wine, understanding that humans build trust and culture around food. Since Jesus did this, we do this.
PASTORAL HOME VISITS
While pastoral home visits could seem like a foreign concept to many or an artifact of the past, we believe that pastors being engaged in the life of the congregation is good and right and will help us accomplish discipleship. These home visits (done yearly) help us stay connected to the congregation, hear what needs exist, and position us to encourage spiritual and whole-life development in the home.
CONCLUSION
The vision for The Shepherd's Church is clear: we are committed to making disciples who are baptized into the Lord's Church, understand and obey the Lord's commands, and are commissioned to the nations to see them converted and brought into the Lord's Church. Our Church is not a marketplace of trendy programs or a circus for entertainment but a covenant community where God is glorified, His Word is proclaimed, and His people are built up in holiness and truth.
Whether you're a member, visitor, or simply curious about who we are, that is the Biblical vision we are operating with, and we pray you will be blessed as you come up under it. May the Lord richly bless you as you grow in knowledge and love of Him.
