The Vine Project

Setting The Scene

The Big Question

The big question is "How can I change (or shift) the whole culture of our church in the direction of disciple-making?" (p.13). This book, "The Vine Project", is a follow-up to "The Trellis and the Vine", a book that articulates biblical convictions and philosophies about disciple-making ministry. "The Vine Project" is aimed at helping ministry leaders do what "The Trellis and the Vine" proposes. Payne says, "In many churches around the world, there is an immensely dissatisfying gap between what we hope and expect the gospel will produce as it hears fruit among us, and what we actually see day to day and Sunday to Sunday" (p.15, while Marshall and Payne are co-authors, Payne is responsible for the final text).

The outcome of this book is very similar to that of "Community" by Brad House. Payne says this, and it could easily be a quote from House, "disciple-making is really about calling people to faith and hope in Jesus Christ in the midst of this present and evil age... To become a church more focused on disciple-making is to become a fellowship that understands more clearly why life is often hard, and what resources God has given us to grow in faith and hope and love in the midst of the struggle. A discipleship making church is actually better able to handle the crises and pressures of everyday life... We need to build a larger team of engaged, equipped disciple-makers working together, and this is one of the key outcomes of The Vine Project" (p.17). "Community groups", as House calls it, is the "Trellis", as Payne and Marshall call it, that empowers Disciple-making, which is the essential work of the church and the commission that God has given us to build His Kingdom.

Payne says that this book is called a project for a reason. "It's not a set of detailed answers or prescriptions delivered from on high to solve your problems. It's a set of processes, tools and guidelines for you to work through with a small team of like-minded fellow workers... It outlines a process to work though and talk over. It's a book that should lead to a plan and to actions taking place over time" (p.18).

A website has been created to provide additional support. It is called TheVineProject.com.

This chapter concludes with six suggestions on "How to make the best use of this book":

1. The project is for anyone "leading a group of Christians, and hav[ing] the authority and capacity to shape the direction and activities of that group over time" (p.20).

2. The project is for new and existing ministries.

3. Read through the whole book before you start implementing it's process so that you can fully embrace it for yourself and your ministry.

4. Assemble a team to work through the process together.

5. Draft a plan for your team to work through the five phases of project.

6. Bathe the whole process in prayer.

Changing the Culture

Payne tells a story from his own life illustrating the inextricable link between culture and convictions. "The welter of different habits, norms, practices, languages, forms, structures, traditions and relationships stemmed from a different set of convictions and beliefs. And the range of different practices in turn expressed and reinforced those convictions and beliefs - or in some cases, as is inevitable, clashed with the stated convictions and beliefs" (p.26). His main point is, "what we routinely do communicates, reinforces and shapes who we are, often far more than what we teach" (p.27).

An important question to begin answering would be, "What do our routine habits and activities reveal about what we believe?"

Payne defines culture as "'the whole way we do things around here' - the complex and deep-rooted matrix of beliefs, practices, shared language, traditions and preferences that a group of people have developed over a period of time... The culture will usually shape what people actually do in any given circumstance, often more so than their stated beliefs" (p.28-29). The concept of culture can reveal whether or not you actually believe what you say you believe...

It is worth pausing to apply this idea to my own ministry experience with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Just yesterday I had a conversation that reiterated this point that I have been dwelling on for at least a year. FCA says that it is a ministry "To and through the Coach" - that is the ministry's stated philosophy/strategy. However, I believe that FCA actually practices a strategy that is essentially "to and through the athlete". I have said before that FCA is neither a student-athlete ministry or a coaches ministry, but a sports ministry. We certainly hope to impact both coaches and athletes "and all whom they influence", but I see a note-worthy disconnect between what we say are are about and what we are actually about. Culture reveals actual beliefs.

This leads Payne to say, "there's little point teaching some new convictions or initiating some new kinds of vine work unless you're also prepared to reform and optimize the trellis that supports it" (p.30-31).

So we come back to the "Big Question"... How do you shift the culture of a church in the direction of disciple-making? If the goal is to create a discipleship culture, how do you do it. Payne says, "You can't change the culture by working on the culture, because culture is a description of what you have become... What you can work on and change are the elements that produce culture:"

• the beliefs and convictions that drive and underpin culture

• the activities, practices and structures that express and embed those beliefs and convictions

You can set your sights on shaping the convictions people hold and the way that they practice them. This requires the Christian leader to be a "Bible guy" and a "leadership guy" (p.36-37). Precise and clear biblical convictions worked out in practical living is the recipe for a movement. Payne and Marshall propose a five phase process:

1. Sharpen your [personal] convictions about discipleship and ministry

2. Reform your personal culture - do you own beliefs match your own habits

3. Loving, honest evaluation - take a full inventory and evaluation of everything happening in your ministry

4. Innovate and implement - determine what you want to stop doing, start doing, and keep doing

5. Maintain momentum

The book now turns to address each of these phases individually.

Introduction

"We've been suggesting that bringing effective, long-lasting change to the culture of your church will involve both the convictions (or theology) that you hold and prayerfully teach, and the structures, habits, practices, programs and relationships that express and support those convictions" (p.43).

...I think this might be the most important sentence in the entire book. If applied to how you understand ministry philosophy and practice, it affects everything.

"...And together, convictions and practices generate a culture - a 'way we do things around here'."

Two main problems nearly every church culture faces are (p.43):

1. lack of shared clarity on core convictions

2. lack of alignment between convictions and practice

To make a change in your ministry, Payne and Marshall suggest, "we have to address both our beliefs and our practice, both our convictions and our structures" (p.44).

It gets better...

"[T]he clarity we're looking for should be sought in the Bible - rather than through a negotiated settlement of the various opinions that we might happen to hold" (p.44). The governing authority on all things life and ministry is Scripture, not pragmatic trends, strategies or opinions. Though they might be useful to consider secondarily. "What we are after is a sharp, clear, shared understanding of the scriptural truth about Christian life and ministry, to serve as a solid foundation and framework for our entire church culture" (p.44).

Payne and Marshall will explore five convictions to unpack this premise. "[W]e don't for a minute believe that our way of putting it is the only way of putting it. In fact, an essential element of this first phase of the process is that you come up with your own way of expressing and communicating the deep, shared convictions that should drive everything you do" (p.44).

"The five convictions are build around five key questions related to 'discipleship' and 'disciple-making', namely:

• Why make disciples?

• What is a disciple?

• How are disciples made?

• Who makes disciples?

• Where to make disciples?

By answering each of these questions, biblically and theologically, you should be able to construct a coherent vision of what disciple-making is, and what it means for your church" (p.45).

Conviction 1: Why make disciples?

The question could be answered simply by quoting Matthew 28:19 and saying, "Because Jesus commands us to". But the answer is woven into a much greater tapestry that blankets all of Creation in God's eternal story. This is critical to see and embrace. Payne says, "In this first conviction, we're going to explore and clarify just what this extraordinary plan of God is - because it will help us to grasp more clearly and powerfully why 'making disciples' is of such urgent importance" (p.48).

The extraordinary plan of God - Redeeming a people for His Son

Payne clarifies the extraordinary plan of God - the meta-narrative of the universe - beginning at the end, with Revelation 7. There we see "the crucified and risen Christ... ruling with God; by His death He has cleansed and gathered together a people from every nation around the throne of God; and the ravages of sin and evil and death are no more" (p.50). The same picture is painted in Hebrews 12:18-24; Titus 2:11-14; Colossians 1:13-20; Ephesians 1; Romans 8 and numerous other passages. We see the culmination of God's eternal plan in the redemption of a people for His Son.

...Out of this present darkness.

"What all human cultures and nations profoundly share is that we dwell in darkness... This is an important aspect of the 'why' of disciple-making. God's plan is a rescue mission for the people trapped in an awful and inescapable darkness" (p.54).

Payne makes a challenging and accurate observation about western culture and its general lack of urgency in the Great Commission. He says, "It's like the dimmer switch is turned up; the darkness doesn't seem so dark, and people don't seem so lost in it. This has multiple effects and consequences for our Christian lives, but perhaps the most serious is how drastically it saps the urgency out of making new disciples of Christ. We so easily settle into a comfortable week-by-week church existence, where we are happy to be together and to help each other grow as disciples of Christ, and (to be frank) are reasonably content with the world around us continuing in its way to hell in a hand basket. We stop appreciating how deep is the prevailing darkness, how lost and blind are our neighbors and friends and community, and how desperate and sad is the plight of the missions who 'remain in darkness'" (p.55).

Make more disciples

This extraordinary plan is what Payne and Marshal call "history-wide". "This understanding of God's worldwide and history-wide plan gives us a different perspective on 'disciple-making'. It is like a zoomed-out picture what explains what's really going on" (p.57).

"What is really going on" when someone comes to faith in Christ? Payne illustrates the zoomed-out picture using an imaginary friend, Fred. Fred was lost in sin and darkness, but is saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ and joins a church. What is happening? It's not about Fred finding purpose and happiness or a new outlet for peace and community. It's not about Fred becoming the Fred he was meant to be. It's not even about Fred at all. "What is happening, amazingly, remarkably, is that God is continuing to move all of history - in this case the little fragment of human history that is Fred - towards its final goal. With the conversion of Fred, God is laying one more brick in an eternal spiritual temple founded on Christ, and glorifying to Christ. Jesus is building His church, His congregation, His assembly, His great gathering of redeemed humanity that will one day throng around Him in a new heavens and earth - and He is doing it one Fred at a time.

This is why we want to make more and more disciples of Jesus Christ: because God's goal for the whole world and the whole of human history is to glorify His beloved Son in the midst of the people He has rescued and transformed" (p.58).

"This must be our first and foundational conviction, because it frames and determines everything else" (p.59).

Looking ahead to the end, we see the final picture of the marriage supper of the Lamb, the New Heavens and the New Earth, and the New Jerusalem (Revelation 19-21). This is the "history-wide", worldwide trajectory of God's plan. Making disciples through the proclamation of the Gospel in the fellowship of the church is the means by which God is accomplishing this plan.

What this might mean for FCA is that making disciples of coaches and athletes is not about "redeeming sports" or making sports more wholesome and fulfilling. It's not about liberating people from the crushing pressure of sports or helping them establish a new, healthy self-concept. Those things are good, but they are byproducts of fulfilling the ultimate mission. FCA is a tool that can be employed in a specific sports context and used to bring about this ultimate goal of God for the world and for humanity. FCA helps coaches and athletes fulfill the Great Commission.

Conviction 2: What is a disciple?

"Our abiding impression has been that although many people use the language of discipleship and disciple-making often, not many people are particularly clear what they mean by it. Their (sometimes implicit) definitions are often too narrow in scope or too vague about what is involved" (p.62).

"Discipleship" is most definitely the hottest word in ministry and in the church from my perspective. "Make disciples" is the banner that everyone is carrying. This is good in many ways because it seems that the church is unified in its understanding of its mission. The church has the job of making disciples of Jesus Christ. It is not the church's job to establish a political party, or to cure world hunger, or to serve coffee. It is the church's commission to make disciples.

However, this concept is cloudy. To ask the question, "What is a disciple?" is to welcome a vast array of responses that may seem similar but not concise. "All of which means that a vital step in clarifying our convictions about discipleship and disciple-making is to clarify what we mean by these important terms" (p.63).

What is a disciple?

The Greek word for disciple in the New Testament is mathetes, which means learner or student, someone who is apprenticed to a teacher to learn from him. "Put simply, a disciple is a learner; discipleship is 'learnership' (p.64).

"A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher." (Luke 6:40)

"And they said to Him, 'The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but Yours eat and drink." (Luke 5:33)

Jesus was not the only one who had disciples. "Whether it's the disciples of John, the Pharisees or Jesus, the basid point is the same - the 'learners' stand in relation to their teacher (or teachers), whose teachings and way of life they seek to learn and adopt" (p.64)...

This understanding of discipleship has hugely significant implications for ministry activity. Discipleship cannot be accomplished in a once-per-week instructional meeting over a cup of coffee. I will argue that is not Christian discipleship. "You could hardly learn from the Master, and adopt the way of life He taught and exemplified, if you weren't regularly with Him" (p.65).

"'Following' Jesus in the Gospels is very much like repentance. It is abandoning my current existence and heading off in a new direction, to learn a whole new life from a new Master, and to be part of the new kingdom that He will bring" (p.66).

Payne then discusses "Two potent symbols" in the discipleship journey. First, he describes the significance of the act of baptism as a symbol of repentance and transformation. This is a declaration of discipleship. Second, he describes the illustration of the yoke. "Take My yoke upon you and learn from me," Jesus says in Matthew 11. "To 'take the yoke' is a metaphor for service and submission and obedience, for accepting the authority of another... This is essentially what a 'disciple' was in New Testament times: someone who submitted to the authority of a teacher, in order to learn from him and become like him" (p.68).

The chapter comes to a close by bringing this principle to bear on our modern churches and ministries. "'Learning Christ' is a reality that the New Testament attests to repeatedly and powerfully. However, it is worth asking whether 'learnership' has waned (if not disappeared) in many modern churches... What we mean is that in our observation of churches, and in our conversations with pastors all over the world, the culture that exists in many churches is no longer a culture of transformative learning, it it ever was" (p.73). An important diagnostic question is asked, "Would you describe your church's culture in this way? Would you describe your own life in this way?"

Conviction 3: How are disciples made?