At the market stall

One of our mission support groups will attend a popular market in our city this weekend. They will offer for sale the unique crafts made by the people group in one of our overseas mission areas.

We will have three or four people staffing the stall and the market, with its dozens of other stalls will attract probably thousands of people.

In my schema, this stall has a few purposes: encourage the people group that produces the craft good, cement their connection with the mission team, make Christian 'contact' with the general community, and provide a setting for conversations with un-believers about our faith and its foundation.

In the team's view, it is to make money for the producers, and perhaps represent the church's mission. I'm not sure if this is articulated into a strategy, though.

The people on the stall are 'front-line' missioners themselves. This is not a 'doddle' but a deployment at the point. These people are our crack 'special forces' people.

They need to be able to calmly conduct conversations that deal with our faith and its foundation, handle the 5 (or 7) main challenges to Christian faith that pagans make, and be able to discuss matters with people conversationally. They also need a cache of bibles, suitable booklets (not corny 'tracts') in a magazine format, to give away, and QR codes for a matching website. Maybe even trinkets they can hand out to all visitors to the stall. An explanatory leaflet given with each sale could be good too.

On LIturgy

In a YT video, the wonder of a liturgical service was discussed.

1.Scripture fills the service 

2.Heavenly service is liturgical 

3.Bond to ages before us 

4.Helps us not to base our faith on feelings, but to let feelings rest upon God’s Word and sacraments

5.Unites us with churches in all the world – and young and old Christians.

How do we disciple?

How did Yeshua disciple? How did any ancient teacher 'disciple'?

They spent time with their pupils.

How do we disciple today?

When I was young I was very involved in youth work at both parish and denominational levels. We met up occasionally, but nothing really structured. The director of youth for the denomination was a great and encouraging mentor (thanks RK), and I had great friends in the clergy who ran the wider youth ministry. But at the parish level, nada. I get the impression now that either youth work was considered taken care of because it was now being conducted by some volunteer (me), or no one had a clue as to the discipling opportunity.

More recently I convened a home study group for my peers. I was one of about a dozen such ministers (I use the word 'minister' for any formal serving role, volunteer or paid). I did this for 4 or 5 years. All of us met three times a year to discuss our groups and our own progress. Good but very loosely done. We as a group, nor I personally was never engaged by one of the several paid Christians at our church in a conscious discipling effort.

Do you run your business this way? (Perhaps the answer is 'yes', but you mustn't care about your business very much). If you were in the Army,  is this how you commanded your unit? No. If you did, it would not survive contact with the enemy.

Every day for a Christian is 'contact with the enemy'!

Here's how a church might do discipling.

Those with 'peak' ministry roles: ministry coordinators looking after functions with a group, or conducting a home study group, are the disciplining responsibility of the paid team (or person: the "Minister"). The whole cohort meets twice a year for training and review (I hate the word 'reflection'); Various skills courses are available and encouraged, whether in the parish, in the denomination regionally or outside the church.

Perhaps the whole cohort attends a 'focus'; maybe a whole day together to discuss the ministry programs being conducted, or a 'regroup' weekend, with some external input.

They are also met with pastorally perhaps bi-monthly in formal terms by the Minister. This would be for prayer, devotional reading of the scriptures together and conversation about their mission, the church and their own experience.

This group then 'disciples' those who are within each individuals service span: the volunteers they coordinate, those in the small group they convene. Perhaps with less intensity than they themselves are discipled, but with similar intentionality.

This is discipling on purpose.

Small Groups for Men?

The feller that operates YouTube has been sending me videos related to 'men's ministry' of late. Maybe because I read a book on it 18 months ago, and he's just caught up.

Here's one of the offerings: 

https://youtu.be/vBvyPVR4tZ4

So, what is a  'small group' for and why would a bloke want to join one; why would a church have a separate men's ministry?

Let's talk about the demand for yet another evening out from home.

Some men might want this: good break from routine, with another routine, maybe.

But if you need a men's small group, what is missing in the Sunday/Wednesday offering that your church provides?

I know, usually the Sunday offering is too feminine-oriented.

My preference would be for about three times a year a men's dinner, maybe a men's 'regroup' weekend away, and perhaps a monthly men's breakfast at the church centre, or maybe a cafe or the home of one of the men.

Men's dinner would be: mill around and chat with drinks and hor d'oeuvres, then a meal: first course, then a speaker, followed by desert. Desert could be at table, or in small clusters around the place for conversation.

We might end with prayer in these clusters, then off home.

This is the basis of getting to know each other and start to seed different ministry ideas.

The big issue is to get men into a service area that they are suited to, ranging from practical stuff, to mentoring younger men, discipling threesomes, or direct gospelling: 'gardening' as Greg Koukl calls it.

Manning community contact stalls at fairs, markets (selling crafts from mission areas) or in the main street, is an option as well.

Direct practical training is essential to men. The basics:

• the 'story' of the whole Bible, and how the different books fit in and are arranged.
• basic church history
• the gospel and how it works
• the 5 basic questions and their answers.

Some generic 'skills' training that is also beneficial in the workplace or socially can also be helpful.

Apart from that a monthly prayer breakfast is a good one, Bible reading groups: no hard intellectual slog, but just read and ask questions.

Most men don't want to 'study'. But converting it to topic based 'training' might be the way to do it.

Short period subjects might be also good for a small 'talking' group.

But above all, you need to have the 'why' worked out before anything else, then expect this to change as the men get engaged.