A talk over coffee this morning…

She said to the three of them: “Be baptize so that you will be saved.”

“We wanna see him so that we will be baptized too.” They said.

A conversation between the four of them: Albert’s mom Auling, and her three grand nieces who visited at her house.

They were talking about Albert as he is their ‘favorite boy’ when he was young. “Even his grand mother ‘liked’ him, it’s the reason also that she willing to be a disciple of Jesus” Auling said, when Albert shares the Good News. “How did it started, why are you’re talking about baptism?” I ask Auling. “Why are they interested about baptism?” It was 8:42 in the morning as I penned this down, December 4. Just a couple minutes before we had coffee under the tree sitting at my children’s table.

“Their interest started when I said that I don’t go to church anymore.” She said. “We had also talk with my mom about it [Albert’s grand mother who was just baptized by Albert]. She don’t go to church [Catholic Church] anymore because Albert told him that we can worship God at home.” Her mom suffered with arthritis, constant coughing, and some pains she’s 81 years old.

Whenever we visited the family in the mountain I always found Albert and Jomie praying for people there [without asking my permission] either in the kitchen or in the balcony. Albert’s grand mother is always one of them to get prayed for until she was made into a disciple of Jesus one day, after Albert’s mom was made that midnight! “My mom said,” she continued, “the pain was no more, my toes are great, I am healed.” Auling is just talking with me without hesitation. Just that.”

“‘It was after I was baptized.’ My mom said.” Auling continued. Stories are amazing you know, especially when it’s about life that was change by the Holy Spirit. As we don’t do meetings, but we do meet a lot because we’re a family. Without any “Bible Study Meetings” nor “Prayer Meetings” but Bible discussions and prayers happen as we do things together – it’s playing life together.

One of the hardest thing for me to do nothing is when I said to God, “Lord, I am tired of follow-up and visitations and having schedules. I have been doing that almost every day before, it is what I love doing. But I know I cannot schedule you, you are life itself. So what should I do?” I know one thing to do is to stop doing what I have been doing, I am just so tired of it. I even hated it at times. I said to myself, “What is a ‘follow up’ and a ‘visitation for’ if a person is my brother or sister? How can I ‘maintain through meetings[?]’ with my brother when he is already my brother?”

A ‘follow’ up of what?

A ‘visitation’ of what? What for?

You are already my brother. You are already my sister. Should I maintain of ‘something that would stick as together’ you as my brother/sister? Churches are good at this, they are using their ‘endless weekly meetings’ either in buildings or houses, it does really where is the location. Church is not where we meet but where He lives. Instead of using their ‘relationships’ in which God designs….

[Ophs, for awhile...my 22 months son just came up crying calling my name, “Papa, papa,....brom brom, brom brom.” Taking him for a ride on my bike with my other two daughters.]

Alright, I’m back and back is important.

So, instead of using their relationship in which God designs to build up His Family, they are using other life-less means machines to create programs to maintain people. Jesus defines His ekklesia as ‘hundreds of mothers, brothers and sisters and houses,’ not ‘hundreds of cousins and relatives and hundreds of ‘Christian neighbors.’

As my Dad in the Lord, Mike Peters would say, “Church is not a building, but it’s people. It is not only the people but their relationships.” See, many house churches today have people with their endless meetings, but no relationships. They have not become a family to each other. They cannot even name four people to watch their kids on a weekend when they the needed to get out. They have become a ‘meeting-based’ church rather than a ‘family-based.’ Another Dad of mine Gary Goodell says, “If you want to be family then you’ve got to stop doing meetings. If you keep on doing meetings, you cannot be family. Families don’t do meetings, but they do meet a lot.”

Saying this means, shallow Christianity replaces ‘family relationships’ with having ‘meetings.’ I am not ‘against’ meetings by saying so, I am ‘for’ something by doing it. ‘Meetings’ and ‘gatherings’ have their place but until we are ‘assemble’ together [Heb.10:24-25] no one would the real picture of a church on earth. A puzzle may be gathered but not assembled. To expand the Kingdom of God is to extend your family. That’s the picture.

Trusting God means obedience to what He has called us to do. “Molong, if you want to taste the fullness of the Holy Spirit then you’ve got to trust Me fully.” For my sake, I didn’t have most of the cell numbers of the disciples to ‘follow up’ of their lives. All I am anticipating is God’s surprises simply because you cannot plan God. That means stories like these.

Well, let’s see where’s this stories going on…but I am excited. There might be some ‘burials’ today or tomorrow. Who knows?

When a 17 yo makes 5 disciples!!!

It was our break time, when my friends Rhea, Joanna,  Jana and I were talking, and discussing about our project. Afterwards, when everyone was silent and we had nothing to say, Rhea opened up a topic, she shared to us about her family, their ties, and how her mother and father met, and many more. After hearing her stories, the silent mode was back. Her story gave me an opportunity to make them disciples of Jesus, since I knew them, and  I was pretty sure that they trust me. Why I was so sure about it? Simply because they listened to me every time I gave them some advises, and not just they listened, they also did what I told them.Before the three of them were fun of drinking liquors outside the school premises during class hours, and not thinking that what they did is not good to them as a student. They even don’t care what others might say every time they were caught doing such thing. But that bad habit was gone when we became classmates and became good friends. I told them, what they did was not good, and it was just a waste of money to their parents, sending them in school , expecting them to learned more and attended the class attentively but on what they did, their parents wont be pleased to hear about it. They must change their habits because if that bad habit will continue, it might destroy their futures, and at the same time, the trust and the expectation of their parents to them. They listened carefully to what i said, they were like a small children nodding their heads while saying, “You are right!  We will swear we will not do it again” they said. While I was like an old grandma, scolding them and giving them advices. they thanked me for what I did, their eyes was opened and realized that what they did is wrong. And that’s how our closeness has started. We ate together at lunch, we shared each others secrets, and we built trust to each other. That is why i have no doubt in making them a disciple of Christ.

“I am going to make you a disciple of God.” I said to them.

“What is a disciple of God?” Rhea ask.

“Being a disciple is following HIS footsteps, and commandments,” I said. “Do you believe that you were already saved, even before the day you were born He already died for your sin?”

“No! I don’t believe God has saved me already, because I know from the start that I am a sinner, everyone is a sinner,” Rhea honestly admitted her condition and certainly was right about her observation, “and every seconds I know I can commit a sin. and how could you see that I was or we were already saved?”

“As we know that the wages of sin is death, but because of God’s great love to us, instead we all gonna die because of our sins, HE never let that happened, He sent His only son Jesus Christ to be crucified just to saved us. And this all happened two thousand years ago, now that’s even before your grand mother was born! “And all we gonna do is to believed that He already did pay the penalty of our wrongdoings. God has saved us already from death! Death is dealt with on the cross. We have to believe this and so can follow the commandments of God.”

Every one’s thinking was on the air, it sounds so interesting for them and wondering where’s this conversation going to? Jana finally have her thoughts put on the table, “How are we going to do that? Are we going to church every Sunday?”

“Going to the church-building every Sunday is not needed, because we are already the church. The church is where the Holy Spirit of God lives, and he lives in us. The church referred to us – the disciples of God, and not the building that every one had to go every Sunday. Why not we just pray at home, spending time with our family and discussing together the words of God that has written in the bible, sounds great?

“That sounds better than going to church every Sunday and go to the confession box for the forgiveness to our sins, in that very building we can also commit sin afterwards, right?’’ Rhea agreed.

“Yeah right! I experiece the same thing! Joana speaks out, “Every time I went to church and saw someone wearing seductive dress I think very badly. So, by not going to church anymore is all we gonna do to follow Jesus?”

“No, that’s only a part of it, you also have to repent of your sins and renew yourselves by baptism.”

“What do you mean baptism? Jana ask, “like what the priest did when we were a child?”

“Sort of, but now you are going to be baptize because you believe that you are a sinner and you are willing to leave your sins behind and make a new life with Jesus. When we were a child we don’t even understand why we were baptize right? We do not even know that we were a sinner. It was just a tradition then. Biblical baptism that God requires occurs when a person is willing to die and rose again and follow the commandments of God. And if you are willing to be buried with your sins and rose to a new life you will begin a new life-journey with God, you need to be baptize.”

“We are willing to be baptize and when should we do that?” they inquire.

That very day, they are willing to change their life-style, so a few days after they were baptize at the ocean not far from our house.

We’re all school-mates, friends that have become family of God, my extended family in school. We meet together as a family spontaneously.

Lifestyle that Demands Questions

“What’s the difference then?” Jenny asked.

“Jesus.” I answered straight.

She nodded her head and says, “I see, that’s why.”

Jenny, a 21 year old woman lived next town, has been close friends with the girls living with us, Arlene and Analyn and sometimes she would drop in at the house and since then she’s been lovin’ what she’s seein’. The way we live forces her to ask some reality questions.

First time she came we had meals together, then second time she stays longer, this time she stayed for a night. We share our hospitality with her as we normally do to anyone who needed it. The next day before she left she already expresses some appreciations like:

“I love it here.”
“I wanna learn some things…” [She saw the people around this Apostolic Hub how we got some work to do and share.]
“Can you adopt me as one of your kids Uncle Molong?” [She sees how we behave together as one family, though around 15 of us living life-together.]

She began to see things differently and others began to recognize her “wanting to be a part of” us. Around this time she already expresses that she’s getting tired of her work, and not wanting to just stayed at home and waited for the next work day. So, I throw a question at her while helping one of the girls cook our breakfast one morning, “What’s your purpose in life Jenny?”

“None,” was her quick reply, “I do not know, I am confused.”

I let her own words sunk deeply inside her boggling thoughts. It is good to be curious about things especially about on what to do with your life.

She’s looking for something “different.” I was pretty sure at that.

We let that day passes by. Then a second time she visited us, about a week later, still stayed with us but this time a bit longer, 3 days. The day is Sunday. As normally I have my coffee, it’s time to call her up and sat under the tree with some chairs around the table sipping my coffee.

“Hi Jenny, good morning.” I started to initiate some discussions. “Have you done your coffee time yet? Can you come over and sit with me for I have something to tell you.”

“Alright Uncle,let me finished cleaning the hut and then I’ll join with you.” She answered back. When she’s finished she sat down on a chair right opposite to me, there’s another vacant sit on my left side. [See how this chair was being prepared by, later.]

The two of us started a conversation:

“So, you like it here Jenny?” I started, “Why?

“Something just different Uncle, I wanna learn what they learned.” Looking at the people around working something.

I look her in the eye and said plainly, “If you want to become a part of my family, then I have to make you a disciple. You like that?”

“Sege bah.” She said it in cebuano word means “Yes, for sure.”

“Unsaon mana?” [How was that?] She inquired.

“You’re 21 and says you have no purpose. That’s pretty normal life like anybody around but until you start something new in your life then you be like everybody else. Imagine what you’re doing today is the same yesterday, what do you think would happen to you tomorrow?”

“Hmnn….of course nothing. Yah.” She keeps hearing me.

“No purpose right? How do you think you would find your purpose? Where do you think you could find it? If I will buy a TV set and I do not know how to use it then where should I go? Where should I look to find how my TV would function?”

“To the manual!” she answered quick.

“Who made the manual Jenny?”

“The one who made the TV.” she said.

“Like us then, God created us and after that He made a manual on how we should function as humans, as who we are created to be.

Jenny, your longings for family and purpose is wonderful for that’s how we are created. It’s good, but until you understand the story behind all of this then we cannot go on making you a disciple and be a part of my family.”

“My family here, all of us living here is called Jesus Family. We are followers of Jesus, He is our King and as much as we can we will obey Him. To make you a disciple is one of our job. You want to become a art of us, of course, as we know you little by little we also want ourselves to become a part of you.”

“Sege na Uncle, unsa man.” [Tell me now, come on!] she blurt out.

“There’s something that you want to know.” She eagerly listens. “You’re dead.”

She look at me in the eye, and said calmly, “What do you mean?”

“When Jesus died for you, that means there is something wrong in us. Sin does not only make you hide from your purpose in life but also hide yourself from God. That means, because of sin, you’re dead. And you know that dead person could could not communicate. You’re dead. And you needed to be raised back to life.”

“Should I do ‘good’ works?” She offered

“Good works? How can can a dead person work Jenny?”

“Oh, so you mean, what will happen to those people who does good works?” She reason.

“What’s the difference, everybody does it right?

At this very moment, remember that empty chair on my left side? It was now occupied with my mother holding her cup of coffee and just speak out, “Relationship my dear, they have no relationship.”

I stare at my mom with amazement, “Whew, what a good timing!” I said in my mind. I think I could not answer the way she answered! It’s just perfect time. Much more she continued…

“God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it.” Well, there you go. And honestly, to our whole conversation with Jenny to the end, at this point, mom just left without notice! It’s just like the Holy Spirit, the wind blows wherever it wishes. You don’t know where it’s coming and where it’s going but surely you can feel it!

She’s gone, and I think she goes somewhere in my Filipino hut watching TV?

“Exactly,” I pointed out. “You may know our president and may want to do something good to offer him. But the question is, does he knows you?”

“Probably not.” She answered in dismay.

“God loves you Jenny, and there is no ‘good work’ that you can do to make Him love you more. He should have not gone to that cross if only good works could save us. He already did so much good works like healing the sick people, raised up dead people and feed the poor. But why He needed to die for you? Because you cannot do it, I cannot do it. Only He can do it.”

Right from the beginning when we sin we’re already dead in our trespasses. Nothing we could do with that except we be buried to the ground.”

She’s an intelligent woman, she certainly understand these things.

“Jenny, you’re dead,” I said bluntly, “until I bury you you cannot be a follower of Jesus. See, if anyone follows Christ, He will kill him or her….” She stares with astonishment as I speak these strange words to her. “Until you denied yourself,” this time I am more clearer, “until you realize that the life that you know has now come to an end, you cannot follow Him with your old life because He cannot give you His new life.”

“So, what should I do?” she was so curios at this time.

“Well, what should we do with dead people?” I ask her

“Aw, Elubong! Elubong ko nimo Uncle?” [Well, bury them. Are you going to bury me?]

“Yes. Because Jesus will kill you, that is why I shall bury you.”

This time, she laugh in astonishment. “Did you get my point Jenny?” I ask.

“Yes,” she said.

“I will baptize you in water.” And I said to her plainly, “Just as Jesus died and was buried then you also must die with Him in baptism. And just as He raised Himself from the dead you also will be raised in new life.”

“Mao diay na?” [I see, that’s it?]

“Yap.”

“But I was already baptize when I was young.” She inquire.

“Well, burial is 6 feet under the ground. Are you sprinkled or ‘buried’ under the water? Have you seen anybody was buried by sprinkling some soil?”

“Well, no.”

“When a person ‘realizes’ that he is dead then he would realize that he needed to be buried right away or else he be stinky soon enough!” She laugh hard at this time. “A child doesn’t even know what’s going on when he was poured out with water.”

Death to self is very important in making you a new person. It’s how the Kingdom of God works!”

I must baptize you right away.”

“Now uncle?” she ask.

“Yes, or you start smelly.”

“Yes,” she said with a smile, “OK. but I got no dress to wear?”

“Don’t worry. the way you look just fine.”

As normally do, the way we make disciples is as quick as 6 to 15 minutes. With Jenny is about 15. I took my daughter Shirley Faith with me and her cousin Kimberly. Rode on my bike for 7 minutes and dump her in. I prayed a short prayer of thanking Father,immerses her and gave a hug and said, “Welcome to my family, the family of God. You are now a part of us, we are now a part of you. We’re family.”

When we get home, our eating together is as normal as the Lord’s Supper, ‘accepting one another’ in the Lord. I handed her a book, “Back To The Basics” a good introduction as a babe in Christ.

Our last partings statement just before we went to the sea for baptism:

“Jenny, the difference of what you see in us here?….is Jesus.”

“Ah, mao diay.” [Ah, I get it]

discipleSHIFT: from one-man discipling to one-another making disciples

One of the biggest shift is that the next generation can be able to make disciples to their next generation without us! How can this be?

The modern discipleship that we see in today’s church is so weak in that without ‘the pastor’ the church or the work dies. Someone’s got to do it? We have so neglect the work of the Holy Spirit Who can be able to mature the person without human intervention. Inspite of the heavy materials and schedules [you need a ‘shcedule’ in order to answer the ‘materials’] and ‘services’ and ‘programs’ and ‘methods’ of discipling their members, still the work isn’t done, even ‘turning their own city upside down’ it didn’t happen. For more ‘additional’ trainings they even built ‘Bible Schools’ and do ‘seminars’ and ‘conferences’ about it, yet somehow the answer to the question, “Discipling? How long?” can never be answered.

JESUS, THE HOLY SPIRIT and Me

Job Discriptions:

ME: disciple-maker
HOLY SPIRIT: discipler
JESUS: church-builder

“Our job is to make disciples. The Holy Spirit’s job is to disciple. Jesus job is to build His Church.”

Jesus last command is as important as the first, “Go and make disciples” is just the “how” of “loving God and one another.” Actually,”loving one another” is “loving God.” How can that be the same? The second commandment is the same as the first. How can we say, “I love God” whom we do not see that we cannot even love someone whom we see? [1Jn.4:20-21] The only way to show God’s love is for me to love you. It is through our love for one another that the world will know that we are His [Jn.13:34,35] And actually, this is true “worship service” where “faith expresses itself in love” towards your neighbor in the “field” where sheep is made for, not in the “barn” where they held their “endless” meetings and “weekly Sunday Schools” where graduation was still never announce when.

LIFE TOGETHER

It’s about 24/7 Christianity, not a Sunday-Cum-Wednesday Night nor separating our lives between sacred and secular. It’s a ‘lean not on your own understanding,’- that is changing the way you think about Church. It’s not an ‘attendance’ ‘meeting’ based church, as we know we cannot ‘attend’ Christ. It’s not a church-based-church relationship like we know each other because we’re Christians and we go to the same church and all our talks is revolving around ‘church’ stuffs. It is a family-based-church relationship. Family conversations involves about everything. We have become family because we are Christ’s, inspite of our names [-in which honestly it divides Christianity, to be ONE in Christ, names should be eradicated-] all my intentions to you is because we are family, not ‘Christian neighbors.’

It is undeniably the Holy Spirit!!!

Noel comes home, to his extended family here. And everything he shares blows our mind! I believe it will do the same to yours. Again, the way we blog on how we make disciples is go through by detailed account of what is really actually happened. So, here is a new one!

For a couple of days we, I, Jomie and Albert, we still could not finished the dressing cabinet that we’re making for the Lambs here. I thought of buying a plastic drawers but my wife Lisa suggested that since we have unused plywoods why not make one instead. We did, so one day Noel came. I will go through what we’re discussing while we do the carpentry and we let Noel paint the other box. We made two, but one is still on the process of building it.

The Kingdom That Is Not “Here” nor “There”

by: Mike Peters

IT would be best to elaborate in a practical way, with your permission, a little more on the following point. The real McCoy, a true expression of God’s reign and “Dwelling Place” amongst His People (Eph 2:22) will not wait for the gavel to pound for the beginning of a meeting. As the People of God, we’ll be singing or praying together in smaller groups continually as a life, without any cues or “meetings” to set us up for that. “As we rise up, as we sit down, as we walk along the way.” In living rooms, in restaurants together — or even in jail together (Acts 16:25‑26)! We will be singing the praises of God inside and outside of “meetings”…because it’s our life.

10 MEGA-SHIFT IN MAKING DISCIPLES

1. From Traditional Discipleship to Intentional-Relational Discipleship

Johnny was forbidden by his pastor to start his making disciples journey, instead he was sent to a 2 year training on Bible Classes everyday. After the training, he found that making disciples is actually a complicated job.

For many years we have tried to make disciples through a lecture hall and start collecting materials and people to create one. If we want to see Christianity change in our generation then we should re-think discipleship, SHIFT it to making disciples, it is how Jesus make disciples intentionally and relationally. And it is quick, simple and fast to reach the growing population.

2. From One-man Discipling Everybody to One-another Making Disciples to Everybody.

Inspite of how busy the pastor and the church are in their weekly activities, most still having a hard time HOW to make disciples. [http://www.missionalchallenge.com/2010/07/pastors-dont-know-how-to-make-disciples.html ] Survey shows that ‘pastors’ don’t know how to make disciples’ – this shows the number one weakness of any church. Two reasons: They don’t know how, 2. It’s complicated. And third fatal reason is, they try to do it on their own.

For so long, one-man trying to disciple everybody and leave others undiscipled because they don’t make disciples [Bill Bright, 97 percent of Christians are not discipled and they don’t know how to make disciples], this not only creates a clergy-laity division but also makes disciple-making complicated with all the requirement and qualification needed to become one. It  is time to change the way we think about the Great Commission, right from the beginning, the intention is for every disciple of Jesus would make disciples.

3. From Discipling the Believer Already to Making Disciples to Non-Believing.

It is when we complicate the Great Commission when it looses its focus: unbelievers. For so long, we didn’t make any disciples at all because all we do is disciple the saved person already [The 4th Shift would explain this more]. It is the fact that there are many wandering Christian babies still wearing their spiritual diapers and never graduated in their Sunday School Classes. Creating more irresponsible Christians transferring from church to church without changing their lives, having no spiritual parents who treated them as ‘sons and daughters’ in the Lord. From the beginning, the intention of the Great Commission is to make disciples to those who are not.

4. From Discipling to Make Disciples

God is Moving!

It has been quite a while since my last blog. It’s not because we’re not doing anything, oh well, yah we’re not doing anything except what God called us to do. To find His will is to be spirit-led. He may give us the whole picture but that’s rarely happen. The angels could have told Joseph to take Mary to Egypt and then do this and do that and do this and do that…..instead Joseph waited til he was given instructions by the angel. Today, through His Son’s Spirit in us, we are led from within!

5th National Summit in Tagaytay, Manila