The Missed Mission of The Great Commission A First Century Discipleship Paradigm for the 21st Century

By George Eberly

The Missed Mission of the Great Commission is discipleship, or as Jesus puts it: "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:20). Thousands upon thousands of people have come to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ over the last four decades. Yet during the same period of time, the influence of Christianity on the American society has greatly diminished. There have been many converts but far fewer have become disciples whose lives testify the presence of Jesus. As Pastor Eberly shares about his years of ministry, he calls the church back to a New Testament paradigm of discipleship. He focuses on biblical principles, rather than programs because one size does not fit all. His book also points to practical ways in which these principles can be applied in whatever situation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9781681978659

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The Missed Mission of The Great Commission

A First Century Discipleship Paradigm for the 21st Century

George D. Eberly

ISBN 978-1-68197-864-2 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68197-865-9 (Digital)

Copyright © 2016 by George D. Eberly

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

296 Chestnut Street

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Scripture Used:

THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society.

Two verses are taken from: HOLY BIBLE, NEW LIVING TRANSLATION, Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation.

One verse is taken from the KING JAMES VERSION.

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

1 - Is Something Wrong?

2 - What Is My Quest?

3 - What Did Jesus Know That We Don’t?

4 - Is There More to the Spiritual Life Than Being a Church Member?

5 - Can We Miss Immaturity?

6 - Is the Church a Spiritual Orphanage?

7 - How Did Jesus Succeed?

8 - Was the Apostle Peter Saved, Sanctified, and Petrified?

9 - Do We Need a Spiritual 2 by 4?

10 - What Can We Do?

11 - So How Does the Rubber Meet the Road?

12 - What Really Counts?

Appendix 1 - The Core of the Paradigm

Appendix 2 - Diakonos Discipleship

Notes

About the Author

Introduction

In 1968, I met Jesus Christ in a college dorm room on the campus of Arizona State University. It was a very dynamic experience which greatly changed my life. Some eight years later, I became an ordained minister, and since that time, I have continued to faithfully serve my Lord in various settings.

During the years since my encounter with Jesus, there have been, in the United States, three Evangelical Christian movements. The first was the Jesus Revolution, which included the time of my salvation, and happened in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. The second of these movements happened during the 1970s and early 1980s. For lack of a better name, I call this the Conservative Church movement. During this time, a number of conservative independent churches were born. Also, many established or denominational conservative churches experienced new growth. One of the focuses of this movement was Sunday School busing. Churches would send out buses on Sunday morning to get children to attend Sunday School and worship, and some church had more than a hundred buses. Another part of this movement was Moral Majority. This political arm of the movement seemed to be very effective, and many politicians, during this time, claimed to have had a Born Again experience. While these conservative evangelical churches were growing, mainline churches like the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, etc., began significant declines in membership and attendance.

The third movement, which I call the Mega-Church movement began in the mid-1980s and is going to today. Probably the most noteworthy component of this movement is Contemporary Worship. This movement encompasses both church starts and the transitioning, or changing of established churches. Some of these new or reborn churches have boasted weekend attendances of ten thousand to twenty thousand. On the other end of the spectrum of this movement is the growth of house churches which seem to reject organized religion of any form.

Since these three movements have reached so many people with the message of the Gospel, one would expect a great increase in the influence of Christianity on society. Unfortunately, the opposite has happened. Over the last forty-plus years, the influence of Christianity on the American culture has diminished. Some would describe this as a change from a Judeo-Christian culture to secular culture. Others would simply say that it is a sign of the end times.

Personally, I believe that there is another explanation for this diminishing of Christian influence on the culture in the United States. We Christians have missed something, something that dates back to the First Century or the beginning of Christianity. In all of the movements mentioned above, there was a great emphasis on winning people to Jesus Christ, but often discipleship has been an aside. If emphasized, its goal was often to make the evangelism better rather than making the Christians better.

The intent of this book is to bring discipleship to the forefront, not just in theory but in practice. It is not designed to present a program, but a paradigm.

One of the major contributors to this book is Bible study, results of various personal Bible studies. Though I am personally indebted to Dr. Robert Traina, especially his holiness lectures at Asbury Theological Seminary, and to Mildred Bangs Wynkoop’s book, A Theology of Love, for an inductive approach to Wesleyan Holiness, I do not quote their works. Instead, I have done first hand studies of some of the same Scripture passages. Though I taught Biblical Greek for seven years at Kingsley College in Australia, I do not consider myself a Bible scholar. I am a Christian who is seeking to use the certain Bible study tools to discover the rich truths of the Bible. I cannot say that my scholarship is perfect or complete, but I can say that it is mine. If there is somebody who can enhance my understanding or correct my understanding, I would welcome their input.

The other main contributor to this book is forty years of ministry experience. Roughly half of that experience was in evangelical conservative churches and the other half was in a mainline denomination. All of this experience was in established churches. This term refers to churches or denominations which existed before 1970. From my personal experiences and the observation of the churches in the United States, the lack of discipleship is very universal. It is neither an evangelical conservative or mainline phenomena.

It is my fear that the goal of many evangelicals is to get people saved and dump them into a program. This book requires the reader to think though the processes of discipleship and to evaluate the growth of its participants. Only two of the chapters provide practical suggestions. To effectively use these practical suggestions, one must both understand the Biblical teaching regarding discipleship and rely on the discernment and the direction of the Holy Spirit.

1

Is Something Wrong?

A spiritual awakening called the Jesus Revolution broke into the public consciousness through a Time magazine cover article called The Alternative Jesus: Psychedelic Christ, published on June 21, 1971.¹ Some considered this movement part of the hippy movement which began in the latter half of the 1960s. This Jesus Revolution was preceded a decade and a half which many church people considered to be the heyday of the church. Over the years, I heard about this time when the churches were full, the Sunday schools were growing and Vacation Bible Schools were huge. These veterans of the established church had fond memories of this time in United States church history. In an almost subliminal way, they often communicated that my job as pastor was to return their church to the heyday. The established church of the 1950s and the early 1960s appeared to be their model of an ideal church.

Though I grew up during this period of time, I did not have the same positive memories as these veteran church members. Like most of the people of my age, I had a church background, and I attended Sunday school or was sent to Sunday school. Also, I occasionally attended a church worship service, went to church youth camp a couple of years, and even earned my Boy Scout religious award. My father, though he only attended worship a couple times a year, was the church treasurer and a substantial financial contributor to the church. My mom did baking for the Ladies Aid and for church dinners. In spite of this involvement in the established church, my memories of the heyday of the church were rather negative. To put it bluntly, I became turned off to the church and religion. In fact, when I graduated from high school, I believed that the church did more to hurt people than to help them.

In 1968, at the beginning of my second year of university, I met a person who seemed to have a very positive view of the established church. Our first encounter or discussion took more than two hours. I did most of the talking or I should say the criticizing. I was very hostile toward the church, which stemmed from both my personal experience and my college studies of Western Civilization. At the end our conversation, I said, Jesus may have been an all right guy, but you religious people have ruined him. Somehow, this statement set the stage for me to be invited to small group Bible study.

The Bible study was in the room of my new religious friend, but it was led by a staff member of Campus Crusade for Christ. It was a continuation of a study begun the previous year but with a new leader. This leader did not know that I was a visitor and not a former member of the group. He assumed that all who attended the study had a relationship with Jesus Christ. Therefore, he began the study with an interesting question: What has God been doing in your life over the summer? My answer to the question was something meaningless like, I had attended church once. The other members of the group seemed to glow as they shared answers to prayer and God’s leading in their lives. The meeting ended with a time of prayer, and during that time, I prayed silently the following prayer: God, whatever you are doing in these guys’ lives, please do it in mine.

After that prayer, I was in Jesus’s presence. I do not know whether it was a feeling or a vision, but I knew, at that point, that I had met Jesus Christ. After the meeting, I ran up to my dorm room and told my roommate that I had met Jesus; He was so real. The next day, I floated to class and had an unbelievable joy. Something had happened in my life, but at the time, I could not explain it.

A couple of days later, I met with the leader of the Bible study, and he presented the Gospel using a booklet called The Four Spiritual Laws. At the end of his presentation, he asked me if I had ever asked Jesus Christ into my life. I said, without a doubt, Yes, at that Bible study. Then he encouraged me to get a Bible and start to read it.

As soon as I had a chance, I went to a local bookstore, purchased a Bible, and began to read it. When I brought this Bible to my study group, I discovered how poor my church background had been. The Bible was a misprint and had two Acts of the Apostles. I did not know that there were not two Acts of the Apostles in the Bible.

Under the spiritual parentage of individuals of Campus Crusade of Christ, I learned what I thought to be the normal Christian lifestyle. In the next year and half, I completed ten basic Bible study books, memorized around two hundred Bible verses, and read the New Testament enough times to almost be a walking concordance. Also, I learned to share my faith and saw several people come to the saving knowledge of Jesus.

My spiritual nurture was not unusual for those of us who were part of the Jesus Revolution or who were Jesus Freaks. Besides, Bible study and witnessing, the fellowship experiences were unique. Special small groups or fellowship activities were not needed. It was part of the lifestyle. Like one does for friends, we Jesus Freaks naturally made time to spend with one another in fellowship. Prayer was also a very natural activity.

Even my new church relationship was not very traditional. In 1969, I became a member of a cutting edge church which sought to become a church which lived out a Biblical lifestyle. My pastor, the late Reverend Bob Girard, wrote a controversial, but best-selling book called Brethren, Hang Loose. His book advocated letting the Holy Spirit and the Bible teach us how to run the local church rather than by established church traditions and culture.

After graduation from University, I went to Asbury Theological Seminary, and there I began to see a difference between what I considered the normal Christian lifestyle and what happens in the established church culture. When the seminary had a chapel service, the back rows filled up first and the front rows were empty except for me and a few others. In the Jesus Revolution, there was a strong desire to learn, and therefore, we sat as close to the teacher or preacher