Christian Pastors, Train the Local Church to Make Disciples of Jesus

How the mission, message, and man of the gospel transforms pastoral ministry and leadership.

Mr. Nate Gunter

• Publisher: TGJS Publishing
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780578720647
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

What is the primary goal of being a pastor, the local church, or any Christian? How does that goal impact the world? Learn how the primary goal of pastoral ministry transforms and guides people to be disciples of Christ, forming communities of people and living on gospel-centered mission in real life. Discover the cohesive connection between making and training (equipping) Christians, revealing God's plan for all generations. Imagine local churches as people on mission to follow Christ in their real lives and lifestyles loving the world around them, including care of their pastors and international missionaries. Learn to follow the chief shepherd (pastor) into pastoral training and ministry to make and train disciples of the mission, message, and man of the gospel.

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

 

What is the primary goal for a pastor in the local church? Is the goal to be the “one-man ministry”¹ doing all of the ministry work such as hospital visits, preaching, evangelism, funerals, weddings, study, small groups or even Sunday school? Or is it to multiply pastors to spread the help? Or is to emphasize preaching in an effort to “feed” God’s people truth?² Or is it to run a non-profit, volunteer organization? Or is it to do something else besides “secular work?” Or is it to create a brand and trend or even keep old traditions? These options form a mere few of countless options pastors find themselves in when entering and continuing in pastoral ministry. Often these options arise to prominent pastoral goals that create a pastoral goal pendulum.

A pastor living by the one-man ministry principle may burnout³ sooner than later and even fail the church being incapable of fulfilling all the responsibilities. Pastors living by the multi-pastor pattern can fall prey to strength and authority in numbers that often leverage accountability as means of control or power struggles. A pastor living by the emphasis on preaching may fall into the trap of not fulfilling other pastoral duties and even leading the flock to be merely eaters of knowledge than exercising. These goals among others lead the local church to become passive in their responsibilities and exercising spiritual gifts or overtly trained to become “churchy” or “religious.” Often the “church” is known as a property, address, website, and group of people to govern and lead versus people that form community along with people within the vicinity, including personal vicinity of the pastor(s). Does God see things or people?

The one-man ministry attempts to complete all of the ministry responsibilities, leaving the members nothing to do as if they are on vacation. The multi-pastor attracts similarity or diversity to the current group to be the entrance into governance which creates awkwardly forming leadership groups that have nothing to do with scripture but comfortability or cultural definitions. The emphasis on preaching leads the members to be like fattened sheep with no exercise, lending many times to an arrogant attitude towards others, especially to skinnier sheep. The focus on trendy trains people’s attention to be on the present time and culture. The tradition training keeps focus on all things in the past. The organizational entity training builds a behemoth of tasks, often unrelated to real life claiming “real life impact” like “look how much good we are doing in the community.” These approaches to the pastorate is reflected through the church’s culture as in “attitudes, customs, and beliefs that distinguish one group of people from another.”⁴

What do we want people to be following? Merely one pastor, several pastors, an organizational entity, a trend, a tradition, or even themselves through selfish ambitions? What do we want these people to become? Passive, bloated on Bible knowledge, concerned for image, controlled by culture, controlled by tradition, or even misdirected talent? What do we want out of their lives? Focused on a weekly 1-3 hours of church life or of what God wants for the entirety of their life?

These questions dig into the primary task of pastors to be either guiding and training people to be followers of something else or of Jesus. We have two thousand years worth of evidence of both failure and success of what it means to be a pastor, and more so, a Christian. For the American church, we have at least 50-75 years of examples and evidence of how people have been trained to follow Christ. Often Christianity seems to be focused on so much beyond what’s in the name, “Christ.” Determining the pastor’s goal in the church is essential for properly influencing and directing anyone, especially the Christian church to live in obedience to Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ in the Great Commission left his disciples and all subsequent believers one primary command⁵ to obey, which is to “make disciples.”⁶ Making disciples was not a foreign concept during Jesus’ time and a task that Jesus modeled. Making disciples refers to “calling individuals to absolute commitment to the person of Jesus as one’s sole Master and Lord.”⁷ Jesus called people to follow him through his teaching and example. All who Jesus is, said, and did called people to become disciples. These disciples make disciples by imitating Jesus in calling people through what they say and do. A disciple is a follower and a follower is a believer.⁸ Since all believers make up the church⁹ and are commanded by Jesus, making disciples is to permeate the church’s culture. “What will our churches and ministries be like if we live out the message that the expectations of discipleship found in the Gospels are expectations for all Christians…?”¹⁰

To ensure that the church (people) lives out Jesus’ message of making disciples, Jesus “gave” the church pastors “to equip the saints for the work of ministry.”¹¹ “Equip” is used synonymously to train,¹² and “ministry” belonging to all believers encompasses Jesus’ primary command of making disciples. The pastor’s¹³ primary goal is to follow Christ, which then is to make that clear as a primary command to all believers a reality through training them. This training actively sets making disciples into the DNA of the church. Training is communicating what to believe (teaching) and demonstrating how to apply teaching (example) for believers to follow in order to accomplish the ministry.

Since following Christ is the primary goal of a Christian and a command for any peoples of the world, then making disciples becomes intrinsically and inextricably connected to all believers. Pastors are to already be personally in the process of doing just that, making disciples, which includes the relational engagement and interaction of unbelievers or non-Christians. Training merely includes others to observe and participate in making disciples to be able to do on their own. Jesus, being the chief shepherd¹⁴ (pastor), is and acts as the greatest example and reason for a pastor’s primary goal of personally following Christ and training the local church to make disciples.

People within the local church see, hear, and know a pastor, especially what he represents. A pastor is to represent Jesus, full of grace and truth, who denied himself, took up his cross, followed God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit which inevitably and purposely made disciples to do likewise. When the pastor does so and faithfully trains others (and assuming people receive the training), the church’s culture transforms from sterile, hypocritical, judgmental, isolated, dissatisfied, divisive, heretical, or heartless to genuinely unified in following Jesus Christ by Christ himself being the epicenter of our hearts, history, and humanity.

The following chapters outline chief pastor Jesus’ teaching, example, and redemption in order to validate the reason behind a pastor’s primary goal in following Christ and secondarily training the local church to make disciples. The particular writing style aims to be readable for an average lay leader and pastor.

Grammatical and exegetical work of passages is reflected through certain uses of English composition posed in each chapter (forms, tenses, etc.) to simplify reading and understanding of the texts. Various sources are referenced to best assist the reader to further develop and understand an outside perspective. What seems to be an overwhelming use of scriptures is important to reveal the immense, complex, but also simple understanding that the Bible clearly states the reason for pastors to train the local church to make disciples.

 

CHAPTER 2
TRAINING TO MAKE DISCIPLES BECAUSE OF JESUS’ TEACHING

Jesus, being the master teacher, is the centerpiece and epicenter of wisdom¹⁵ for training the local church to make disciples. Jesus stated, “when everyone is fully trained he will be like his teacher.”¹⁶ What part of Jesus’ teaching trained his followers? Was it witty one-liners, parables, timing, personality, schedule, energy, or content? Yes, as it was not merely one thing but all of who he is. It was his person, mission, and message that trained his followers. The following reveals Jesus, the chief pastor, for pastors to trust and also imitate: (1) Jesus Teaching as the God-Man; (2) Jesus Teaching because of the Mission; and (3) Jesus Teaching by the Message.

Jesus Teaching as the God-Man

Throughout history, the Bible’s teaching that Jesus Christ is both God and man has led many to confusion but also many to salvation. If Jesus is not both God and man, then he is not Jesus Christ of the Bible, nor is he a teacher for a pastor to follow. By not establishing Jesus’ identity, character, and personality, whether ignorantly or purposely, one inevitably removes trust in him and his teaching.

Gnosticism, beginning in the early 1^st century, established Jesus as merely a spiritual being, existing in a physical façade of a body. Gnostics denied Jesus to be God and human, which trained people to follow a false Jesus. Gnostics believed Jesus became a figurehead or teacher sent to the earth to proclaim salvific knowledge, revealing humans were once spiritually existing before earth in a different universe.¹⁷ Astute pastors will conclude that Gnostics attempted to remove Jesus’ divinity and humanity, thereby, removing his truthful message and misdirecting from the actual person and work of Jesus. Therefore, the pastor must establish who Jesus is to rightly believe, follow, and train.

Jesus proclaimed himself to be the promised one, the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one, the elect one, the redeemer, the savior, and divinely the God of the Old Testament,¹⁸ affirmed by John in describing Jesus divine as is God the Father and the Holy Spirit – 3 persons in 1 divine existence.¹⁹ Though this may initially come across confusing to m...

Table of contents

• Dedication
• Preface
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Training to Make Disciples Because of Jesus’ Teaching
• Chapter 3: Training to Make Disciples Because of Jesus’ Example
• Chapter 4: Training to Make Disciples Because of Jesus’ Redemption
• Chapter 5: Conclusion
• Bibliography
• About The Author