Since I came to my position as a pastor at North Park Community Church in London, Ontario 11 years ago, I have been practicing what I like to refer to as life-on-life discipleship. As I have mentioned on numerous occasions in my writings, the format that I have used for this has been triads as I have found this very effective, although we must always remind ourselves that triads are only a means to guiding someone into a deeper relationship with Jesus, triads are not the end in and of themselves.

Over the years I have remained faithful to this. I have prayed for many guys to want to engage with this, and I have prayed that many others would step into the game and also lead others.

I have at times been excited at the progress and other times I have wondered if we would ever gain traction, whether what I was doing and promoting was really something that could spread out wide and far or if it would never be more than a niche ministry, after all, I’ve been doing this in my current context for 11 years and wasn’t seeing the expected return from my labour.

With this reality, the question for leaders is when do you give up on something and try other means to achieve your objectives? I know that I believe in this and would continue on but perhaps it would never become as widespread in my wider ministry context as I believed it could and should.

A few weeks ago I started to ponder the guys and gals that were engaging with life-on-life discipling relationships in triads. I wrote some names down and when they had begun the journey together. I was amazed that about 12 months ago we had a disproportionate number of triads begin, beyond anything that I had pondered previously. The majority were with men but a number of women have begun the journey as well. As I thought about this, I realized that in a year from now, we may have 15-20 individuals that are ready, willing and able to lead a triad on their own, meaning that we will need to have 30-40 new people that desire to be led in this way. Where will they come from? And, if all goes perfectly (which it won’t, I’m a realist), in 3 years from now, we will need another 90-120 people to take life-on-life discipleship seriously. Where will they come from? And with this many people engaging this way, what will it do to the dynamics our local church culture?

As I’ve been thinking about this, I’ve wondered if we have finally reached the tipping point that I have been praying about all of these years? That perhaps enough people have been involved and experienced life change and are now willing to make it a part of their reality, to carve out the time to make this part of their routine of life?

It’s fun to think about such things, and yet I realize that if this does begin to become a reality, it won’t go unnoticed and without a fight from powers that wish it would just go away. So I am praying for this next season of our church. I’m praying that many would want to continue on and lead others. I’m praying for their protection. I’m praying that stories of life-change get told and that others would step forward and desire to be led by someone so that they can lay down a solid foundation for their faith and life in Jesus.

If you are a part of this work, would you pray along with me? Wouldn’t it be energizing to be part of a local church community that had a disproportionate number of its members who were always on the lookout for two more people that they could build into so that they would then do the same. That is MY prayer, and I hope that it will also be OUR prayer.

For the Kingdom.

Do those that you lead wrestle with scripture? Are there passages that they allow themselves to be confused with and even question God about? How do you come alongside them in those situations? Do you allow them to muse without believing that you need to be the one to give the answer? And in all of this, do you model this for them? Do they see you wrestling with certain passages that you have not been able to fully grasp?

For some reason, I have always been okay with telling my guys that I don’t get some things, that some passages for me aren’t all that black and white, that I live with some grey at times. Sometimes I wonder if I’m simply copping out and letting myself off the hook for not having an answer. In reality, I do wrestle with many passages and want the guys that I connect with to be okay with their own deep questions.

Let me model this for you with a passage that I’ve been pondering for probably a month now. It is from the book of Judges, the story of Samson.

When the Angel of the Lord first appears to the couple who is to be Samson’s parents, in essence they are all in. At one point, Samson’s father asks the following (Judges 13:12):

So Manoah asked him, “When your words come true, what kind of rules should govern the boy’s life and work?”

As much as his parents were shocked by the news, they were ready and willing to do whatever God was calling them to do, even asking for advice from the Angel of the Lord. So far so good.

However, when Samson falls in love (lust) with a Philistine woman, he tells his parents to go and get her for him so that he can marry her. They can’t talk him out of it so they head out to make the arrangements. I’m sure that they felt God’s disfavour on the actions they were about to take since they had previously committed themselves to doing whatever God wanted them to do in raising Samson. This action was completely wrong.

Yet Judges 14:4 has a fascinating statement.

His father and mother didn’t realize the Lord was at work in this, creating an opportunity to work against the Philistines, who ruled over Israel at that time.

Ponder this for a moment. Here were parents that were doing what they believed to be wrong and yet God was using it for the good of his overall plan. But they weren’t allowed to know this at the time, and perhaps they never fully put it all together in their lifetime.

What do we do with this? In our own neat and tidy understanding of God (this is how I often perceive much of the North American teaching I hear), we have here a messy situation that God is orchestrating for his own use, much to the chagrin of some parents who had committed themselves to following God’s ways. Yet God needed them to be disobedient in order to fulfill his plans to punish the Philistines – at least that’s how I read it.

In reflecting on this that past while, I still am not sure about how this applies to my life at this time, or the life of my family or my local church. In fact, it is making be re-examine much of what my life may have been about or what I have been praying for. I pray for neat and tidy, and yet perhaps that prayer is not what I should be asking for? Maybe I should pray for insight at to what God is doing among my community? What wrongs are taking place that God is providentially orchestrating that are actually for the glory of God and the establishment of his kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven?” Even writing those words seems strange in some way. I am pondering this and so far have not come up with great answers.

As we lead others on this road of discipleship, let’s not simplify what may not be all that simple. Let’s not brush aside the tough questions, both of those we are leading as well as our own. This side of heaven we will never have all the answers, that’s okay. Let’s engage the questions anyways. God will reveal to us as we need to know. It’s all for his kingdom, not ours.

May you choose to embrace the questions, and may they still allow you to worship God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength.

For the kingdom.