Helping One Another Draw Near to God in Faith

by Lenn Zeller, Director of Conference Care

Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18–20)

This month we are focusing on the CCCC guiding value which challenges our local congregations to become healthy, disciple-making churches. We in the CCCC take seriously Jesus’ command to go and make disciples of all nations. This means that we are fully committed to the evangelistic call to proclaim the Gospel and make it known far and wide, so that all people everywhere can have the opportunity to respond to Christ in repentance and faith and become His disciples. But it also means that we are intentional and dedicated to the mandate of helping people to develop and flourish in knowledge, wisdom and obedience as they grow into mature discipleship in its fullest sense.

In other words, we want to help people to believe in Christ as Savior and thus know the hope and assurance of forgiveness, atonement and the life of glory in God’s eternal kingdom. But we also seek to help them obey Jesus as Lord and serve Him faithfully in this life as well. In fact, you can’t truly have one without the other. If you have truly trusted in Jesus as Savior, you will be compelled to follow Him as Lord.

Dallas Willard expresses this well, “A fundamental mistake of the conservative side of the American church today, and much of the western church, is that it takes as its basic goal to get as many people as possible ready to die and go to heaven. It aims to get people into heaven rather than to get heaven into people…. It implodes upon itself because it creates groups of people who may be ready to die, but clearly are not ready to live. They rarely can get along with one another, much less with those ‘outside.’” (Renovation of the Heart, by Dallas Willard. NavPress, Colorado Springs, CO, 2002. p. 238.)

The CCCC value of disciple-making churches is an acknowledgment that our focus must be on making disciples — helping people to grow in their obedience to Christ as Lord and to become mature Christ-followers who will in turn seek to draw others into faith and discipleship as well. Our priority of Conference Care fits full well into that effort by coming alongside pastors, individuals and congregations who find themselves struggling, for a wide variety of reasons, to make the kind of progress they might desire — and that Christ might desire for them — along that path of discipleship.

We offer the Minister Under Care program to provide counsel and encouragement for pastors who have hit a serious pothole on the road of ministry. We have people around the country trained and ready to assist congregations with Peacemakers training and guidance, should a local congregation find itself off track because of internal conflict. We are working to develop local Communities of Pastors to provide pastors with regular, ongoing fellowship, support and mutual guidance, to keep pastors well-grounded and strong in their own spiritual and professional development. In these and other ways, we are trying to offer assistance to those seeking to become disciples and to live that out in their lives and in the life of their local congregation.

Hebrews 10 says it like this,

Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (Hebrews 10:19–25

That is a description of Conference Care and of discipleship itself: helping one another draw near to God in faith, rejoicing together in His gracious forgiveness in Christ, holding unswervingly to the hope that we share in Christ, and spurring one another on toward love and good works. So may it be among us in the CCCC.