Recovering the Mission
Recovery group might be a curious analogy to the kingdom of God. However, just like addiction doesn’t discriminate, all are welcome to experience faith in community and the present availability of the kingdom of Heaven on earth. Like salvation, recovery begins with a not-so-easy confession that there's a problem and a person is powerless to overcome it on their own. The genius of recovery isn’t its inclusivity. Nor is it in working the Steps. Those are vital elements of the process of finding new life. The genius of recovery is Step 12: Sponsorship. Even though a person completes the Steps, there's still room to grow. There’s still temptation, trials, and triggers to face. You learn a need for community. But the way one works out their sobriety is by sponsoring another.
If every Christian approached faith this way, it would transform our faith experience and revolutionize the Church! If salvation is a Christian's sobriety, we need a vision to be similarly invested in one another's spiritual growth for their sake as much as our own! The good news isn’t merely God offering forgiveness. God seeks to restore and redeem a creation as the dwelling place. Disciple-making is the means in which we work out our salvation as citizens of heaven on earth.
Have you ever noticed how every relational environment has an organizing identity?
In a family, we might carry the identity as son, daughter, sibling or parent where we negotiate responsibilities, respect, sacrificial love and loyalty depending on our role.
In education, we identify as a student needing to learn or a teacher responsible for development.
In business, we operate as an employee, manager, or owner that each comes with expectations of effort and achievement.
In each role, our identity informs how we act. When it comes to the Church (which can be argued as it’s greatest dilemma) is that Christian identity is too often reduced to titles like believer, member, small group leader, children’s volunteer, board member, or even pastor. We can be any of these things and still never make a disciple. The reality is we live/think/act whatever identity we take on! We’re not simply sinners saved by grace. God already sees us as righteous in Christ. Belonging means we bear His likeness regardless of vocation and reproducing the life of Christ in the most relational and intentional ways. We’re not called to be just to be Christ-like. That quickly can devolve into a performative Christianity. The incarnation implies that we are to be little Christs. And Jesus' entire mission was given to making disciples. So, the definition of a disciple is one who makes other disciples.
Jesus invites us to uncover latent potential of our salvation. Small-Batch Disciplemaking helps you identify the people who God has already prepared in advance. Disciple-making is not arriving at the point of knowing enough, being holy enough, or endured enough to still feel loved by God. It’s reframing our identity as children of God to reproduce the image of God. Our identity as sons and daughters animates Jesus, knowing full well we still have further to grow. It provides practical diagnostics to identify the Spirit’s work in your own heart while also finding the words and qualitative means to sponsor faith in others.
