Baby Geese

Yo,

yesterday was pretty busy. I was out of the house literally from 9 am to midnight. I had decided to join the Ottawa Christian Chorale for this season, so I had practice for that, followed by worship team practice, assisting a bit with Westfest (an annual neighborhood event in westboro) stuff at church, YA, and street marshaling for Westfest. So it was a busy day, but fun.

1. I am not a tenor. E's I am good with. F's sometimes. F#'s... G............ G#    (o. O). A? Please no. So I need to learn how to sing in falsetto, or not sing the tenor parts for some songs. (Otherwise OCC was tons of fun! =D)
2. I biked to and from all of those things. On the way to worship practice I biked along the river and ran into a pack of geese who had a bunch of baby geese! So I had to stop and play with them. I ended up following a couple of the babies that had been separated and caught one when he got stuck on a fence. I held him and pet him. He was very fluffy. (sorry no photos) So I tried again, but I couldn't manage to get the babies away from the parents. They were very protective.

As I mentioned the day before, I think discipleship is one thing that the church really needs more of. Not just my church, but quite a few (I can't comment on all of them to any degree). When I say discipleship I mean more mature Christians kinda mentoring and spending time with younger Christians to help them grow in their faith. And the thing here is that this is what Jesus calls us to! The great commission (Matt28:18-20) isn't to go and tell everyone about Jesus and then leave them hanging. Jesus says to go to all nations and make disciples, people who follow Jesus and grow in their relationship with Him. Paul calls the church at Philippi to follow after examples of godly men and women, and calls the church at Corinth to follow after him as he follows after Jesus' example. And further in the great commission Jesus calls us to teach these disciples to obey everything that God has commanded. And here we see the example set by Paul in 2Tim2:2 as he had trained Timothy who was then to train other reliable men who would be qualified to train others. We see a chain of discipleship, unbroken between generation, age, race, or any other divisions. As Paul explains in Eph2 God has broken down the divisions and made out of two (Jew and Gentile) one church, unified in Him; and again in Rom12 he speaks of the body of Christ being unified yet diversified, each with the different skills and abilities to build up the church.

Discipleship; a chain of disciples following and being further trained by more mature godly men or women as they all follow Jesus.

And discipleship, which I think is so great and the heart of the church, is one thing which I think definitely cannot be offered through parachurch. P2C for example, is a group of students at university. Essentially all in the same phase of their lives, mostly going through the same trials and temptations. Some may have grown up in church and came to truly trust in Jesus earlier, but even they don't have all that much to teach if they themselves are not also growing and being discipled by older men and women. There are some staff members, but they are often not too much older, and are kinda in the same phase of their lives. Additionally, parachurch is typically focused on one thing, and in P2C's case that would be training in evangelism, not so much in deeper bible study or other areas of life.

I had been reading a small book called "The Master Plan of Evangelism" by Robert E. Coleman. The book is all about looking at how Jesus did His ministry and the core concepts we can learn and apply. The second chapter was on 'Association'. Jesus spent time with his disciples. He spent His life teaching and ministering to them so that when He left (bodily) they'd be good to lead the church. The chapter emphasizes the need for this association, without which a new believer may not really grow in their faith and may be swayed by the world and the enemy. And as funny as this may sound, the geese from yesterday morning kinda provide an analogy.

The geese, now mature, protect their babies from any potential threats while also teaching them how to survive and helping them grow. In the analogy I am the enemy coming to swoop down on the unsuspecting poor helpless little geese. But afterwards I had no way to get at them, especially when they stood together in a group in unity.

Thus should the church be; building up, protecting, teaching and caring for their young.

So I will continue to talk about and pray for the church and for God to really help establish a core of discipleship which would cause stronger community, deeper faith, and greater holiness (and Christ-likeness) in the church.

D.Fa