Snow Shovelling, Wall Building, and Discipleship

On this winter morning two days before Christmas we had 6 or 7 inches of snow that had to be removed from our sidewalk and driveway.  It would have taken a considerable amount of time and effort for me to get the job done myself, but when I got my three boys out there with me, the four of us tackled the whole thing in about 15 minutes!

I've been reading through Nehemiah over the last few days.  Nehemiah had a burden for the city of Jerusalem which lay in ruins.  Some Jews had returned from exile back to the city, but its walls had crumbled down and its gates had been burned.  Nehemiah's burden led him to ask (at great personal risk) his master, King Artaxerxes, if he could return to Jerusalem and rebuild the wall.  Through God's sovereign plan, the king allowed this and even provided supplies.

But how can one man rebuild a city wall?  He can't.  He returned to Jerusalem and made his case to the leaders there.  They also probably had the desire to see the city rebuilt and when this vision was put before them, they responded.

This all leads to Nehemiah 3 which is an encouraging account of how different family groups took responsibility to rebuild individual sections of the wall.  Some were lazy and did not do their share (Nehemiah 3:5) but others who might not be expected to help pitched in anyway (Nehemiah 3:12).

As our church ends this year, there is a conviction among many that we have dropped the ball when it comes to discipleship.  Many of us (myself very much included) have done good things, but at the expense of better things.  And so, as we head into 2010 we are repenting of our lack of full obedience to Matthew 28:19-20 and are evaluating all we do to get the focus back on building disciples of Christ.

But this is a big job.  Perry and I can't do it ourselves.  Even adding in the help of every house church and small group leader won't be enough.  Everyone in Summitview needs to find a part of the wall to work on.  Maybe it's helping with men's events or monthly men's meetings.  Maybe it's leading a Bible or book study.  Maybe it's just meeting with your buddy every week or two over coffee and cracking open your Bibles and talking about what you are learning.

Rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem is an extreme example of a huge job that only gets done if each man does his part.  On a much smaller scale, a job like the clearing of snow from the front of my house is something one man could do, but it becomes much more manageable and happens more quickly when the work is divided.   If we share in this work of discipleship, we will also share in the fruit and satisfaction of knowing we are doing what God wants us to be doing.  As that happens we may, come next Christmas, look back at 2010 and remember one of the most important and rewarding years of our lives.

Additional Resources

• Building the Church or Making Disciples? - This is the first in a series of blog posts by Mitch Majeski (pastor at Summitview in Fort Collins) on this subject.  Be sure to check out the rest of the series.
  
• The Trellis and the Vine - About making a paradigm shift away from building structures and toward building disciples.
• No Man Left Behind - As we've talked about over the past few weeks at Summitview, we feel a particular burden for the men in our church.  This book has been helpful in rethinking what "men's ministry" means.