The book remembered!

I've done a bit of digging and found the title and author of the book on guidance to which I made reference in my last post. The book is called: Decision Making and the Will of God, by Gary Friesen. It is still available, albeit with a new cover by the looks of things.

It's been such a long time since I read it, almost 30 years I think, that I certainly couldn't do it any justice in terms of a review. However, I still think it's a book you might want to read if your interested in thinking through how you understand and apply the principles guidance in your life.

I know some might suggest that the book dispenses with the idea that God has a plan for your life, but I don't remember thinking that at all. In fact my memory of reading the book was a sense of liberation from the debilitating need to have everything confirmed by some sort of sign. As with all things, there is a need to keep a sense of balance and to understand the interrelationship between obedience, choosing freely and applying what you already know about God's general will. Too often Christians can become paralysed, unable to make a decision because they are unsure about what God wants them to do. I wonder if that is in some way because we have a showed view of God's will, not grasping the differences between his revealed will, his sovereign will and possibly something more specific to particular events or decisions we have to make. I wonder too if there are not times when we want God to be specific because we don't want to do the "wrong thing".

Complicated stuff, guidance.

Unrealised dreams and the question of guidance

As a short follow-up to my previous post about unrealised dreams, I beleive the particular Bible reference I had in mind was from 1Kings 8:18-19:

But the Lord said to my father David, ‘You did well to have it in your heart to build a temple for my Name. Nevertheless, you are not the one to build the temple, but your son, your own flesh and blood—he is the one who will build the temple for my Name.’ (‭NIV)

I guess the hard part is always going to be figuring out which dreams are going to remain unrealised and which are not. We would love such a clear message from God about such things, but our reality is that things are rarely that clear cut. Guidance is not that clear cut.

I recall reading a book about guidance, but cannot remember either the title or the author (was it Gary something? I'll have to check my library catalogue). at the time I found it a really interesting read and very helpful. I don't remember too much of the content apart from a small part about marriage that sparked an interesting debate with a couple of friends at college.

Marrying, excuse the pun, guidance with dreams and discipleship is a challenge. What is harder perhaps is not beating ourselves up about it all when we either get it wrong or when he hear others talk in a way that makes us feel totally inadequate in the area of hearing from God.

Maybe the answer is simple. Rejoice in those times when God speaks clearly and don't fret on the days when he doesn't, just continue to live as a faithful follower of Jesus.

Spiritual goal-setting

Okay, so January is fast closing in on it's last day. Snow is about to bring the UK to a grinding halt. Some people are really happy about the snow, school closures and days off, but give them a few days and they will be just as frustrated about it as the rest of us that don't mind snow, but don't embrace it in quite the same way.

But while you're buried under a blanket trying to keep warm without putting the heating in order to save on the gas bill, why not stop watching mindless TV or endless recorded films and TV series from your DVD/Blueray/digital library and give some though to some spiritual goals. You don't actually have to be religious to have spiritual goals, sometimes it can even get in the way!

From a Christian perspective let me offer a few suggestions now that you've probably let slip your New Year resolution to read the Bible four times this year, at least once in a original language. First of all, keep them simple and achievable. For example, why not join the growing group who choose to sat The Lord's Prayer everyday at 12:00 noon. I have a repeat alarm on my iPhone that goes off at 12:00. I don't always hear it if it's out of range of my hearing or in a bag, and I don't always get the chance to say the prayer if I'm in the middle of a funeral, a meeting or even a tennis match.

Or, if a daily event isn't your thing, what a simple commitment to prayer each week for your neighbours. I sometimes pray Aaron's blessing over the streets along which I walk on my training routes. As we work out how to pray down the streets of our community, we've applied the same principle. Rather than go out desperately seeking revelation about families and houses as we walk, we simply prayer prayers of blessing. If God reveals something, fine, if not we can still bless our neighbours as we go.

There are probably hundreds if not thousands of simple things that you can incorporate into your routine that will form good habits if you just sit down and think about it. Rather than setting out some grand plan, go simple, even easy. you can always build on it later once the habit has developed. For example, if you take up the Lord's prayer challenge, once a week you could take a little longer to apply the principles of the prayer. After all it's a pattern of prayer not just a prayer. Think about what it mans to cal God "Our Father, who is in heaven". And so on.

Go on, go on, as Mrs Doyle might say (meaningless if you haven't seen Father Ted), use your snow day to set some goals!

The Running Disciple!

Now be honest with me here, can you truly say that you enjoy your Christian life? Does everyday present you with joy or does it feel like a chore, a drudge, something to be endured rather than enjoyed?

I'd guess that most of us fall somewhere along a continuum from chore to joy, and that it changes through the course of a day or month or year. For some their life as a follower of Christ has become a rut in which they have become stuck and for others it is a continual adventure from start to finish.

I'm reflecting on this for two reasons. first. because I;m always aware of my own us and downs and secondly because of something I read in Born to Run. We are a fascinating creation. In fact, whether you subscribe to a creation or evolutionary theory of first origins (or even a combination of the two), we are a remarkable creature. The argument for an inherent running gene so-to-speak lies in our structure as much as anything else. For example we have a ligament in our necks that only mammals that run share. Those that walk do not have it. We have the ability to sweat away heat and breathe and run at the same time. something no other mammal can do. We may not have the fat out speed of a deer or cheetah, and we don't have the claws and teeth of a lion, but we do have endurance. We can't out-sprint a squirrel but we can run one to exhaustion!

But we don't generally run. Why? Because it's become a pastime, no longer a way of life, it has become a wearisome chore that's painful and un-enjoyable. We run to keep fit or to lose weight (unsuccessfully because we don't change our diet). And what's worse we run badly when we do run. If the book is correct, then we've been suckered by marketing into running in the only way guaranteed to hurt ourselves. As we persevere we invest in more cushioning and more strapping to make running bearable. Eventually we give up, buy a large screen TV and watch other run instead.

Now reflect those thoughts into discipleship.

We buy devotional guides to help us learn how to do what ought to come naturally. That's not to say that they are bad things. Just like running shoes, if you run properly then you can run in anything, then if you are a follower of Jesus then you can probably use any guide you like if you've got the basics of following down. And the worst thing we can do is sit and watch others do our devotional life for us. We're too busy, too injured too out of shape, so we watch others do what we ought to be able to do but can't motivate ourselves to do.

Somehow we've lost the joy of discipleship, of running with Jesus for the joy of running with him. It's become a checklist, a programme a means to an end instead of an intrinsic part of who we are. We are all made in the image of God. If we are born to run then we are also born to reflect God's image.

I went running this morning for the time in years. Proper running. not just running  part of the route I usually walk, but setting out to run all the way. I almost made it. I took a breather towards the end, but ran 90% of the 4Km I set out to do. I tried to run light and run properly. I ran for the joy of running. And now my legs ache a little! But that's okay because I ran. I worked my muscles in a different way and of course they will ache.

If you try following Jesus for the joy of following him it will be different. I don't yet have a recipe to offer you that will ensure it will work or a pattern to follow that will promise joy. Maybe that's just not possible. But I wonder how different our faith might look if somehow we could reinject a measure of simple joyfulness into what it means to be a Christ-follower.

Maybe the next step on from functional discipleship will be barefoot discipleship!

Functional discipleship

I bet someone else has used this phrases somewhere else before I have, but it's a term I'm beginning to think about using to describe a pattern of discipleship that prepares us to function within the setting of our everyday lives. I know that all discipleship should do this, but too often our programmes are actually geared to making us better at being followers of Christ in church rather than in the world. Or so it sometimes seems.

From an exercise point of view, we talk about functional fitness to describe exercise that in some way mimics daily tasks and helps us develop appropriate fitness for those tasks. When you go into a gym you might see people using free weights (barbells and dumbbells) or resistance machines to isolate particular muscles. But very few of our daily movements isolate muscles. More often than not they are compound movements involving groups of muscles. Having big biceps and well defined pectoral muscles might look good in the mirror, but it won't help you get out of your chair!

A second principle of exercise that might be helpful when thinking about discipleship is about the core. Our core provides the foundation for all pour movements. A strong core means efficient and smooth movements. A weak core leads to poor posture and inefficient movement that typically involves compensation by recruiting other muscles to help with tasks done by muscles that have grown weak.

So how would this apply to being a follower of Jesus Christ?

First of all we would need to think about what constitutes our core. What drives every movement of the disciple? Are they simply the core disciplines of prayer, bible reading, fellowship and witness, or are there more things that are core, or maybe fewer things or even just different things.

Secondly we need to think about what is needed to help us function properly as followers of Jesus partnering with him in his mission.

I haven't got a prescription for this as yet, maybe you have some thoughts. I guess the thing that floats around the back of my mind is this idea that maybe we don't necessarily need lots of theological teaching in the church in order to ensure we're picking the correct doctrines, we just need to figure out how to live for the gospel. After all, we will have an eternity to discover how wrong our theology is, there are thousands of people around us who don't have that option.

Knowing you're on mission

There's always going to be an ongoing conversation about the mission/missional strategy of the local church. In some ways, if we're not having that conversation, then we're not engaging in critical thinking about what it means to be the people of God engaged with God in the fulfilment of his mission. And yet, at the same time, too much talk can mean too little action.

So how do we know when we are on or in mission? What might some of the signs be? Well, Jeff Vanderstelt gives an interesting definition in this short video clip of a longer talk. His basic point can probably be summed up in terms of living life among and with the people we are trying to reach.

I still maintain that too much of our mission activity is predicated upon the idea that people need to come to where we are in order to come to faith. In simple terms, they need to discover the church before they discover Jesus because the church is the only valid route to do this. Now we might not articulate in that way, but I think if we stop and think about, that is precisely what we've tended towards for many years. We hold evangelistic events and invite people we hardly know.

Now I guess that if the church really was the people living out the gospel and not the programmes and buildings and events, then it might just work more effectively than it has done. It certainly has worked in some circumstances, but I fear that there are many for whom it hasn't worked or for whom it may never work that way. Our imagination has to shift away from populating our programmes and towards something altogether more kingdom focussed.

I wish I could see the end from the beginning, but I can't. All I know is that it is time for the church to leave the building and find ways of taking the gospel into the heart of the communities where missing people dwell, and to invest the time and energy to dwell there with them as gospel people. In the world but not of the world as Jesus once said.

Psalm 137

I read Psalm 137 and wondered what it has to say about our current, and future situation. Of course, just because you read the Bible it doesn't mean that you have to find some sort of point of equivalence in every word. That was one of the faults of some of the early interpreters who found meaning in almost every detail of the parables. But it's always important to ask questions of the text you are reading, even if in the end you conclude that it is silent on the prevailing issue.

So, as for Psalm 137, I'm not going to equate our new home with Babylon, although I did remember God's word to the exiles in Jeremiah to settle down, build houses and pray for the prosperity of the city. Equally I'm not going to treat either Upminster or even Bedford as our Jerusalem. But there was one lesson to learn.

Don't forget the heart, the focus of your worship.

With the potential to be out of connection with a church, it would be easy to drift into a worship-less pattern, to become the Christian equivalent of the solider stranded on the desert island who doesn't know the war is over. We want to continue to grow and worship and develop as followers of Jesus and we need to guard ourselves against losing our way in this.

So there was a lesson to learn from Psalm 137, it just needed the right question and the right eyes to see it.

Holy Yoga

I know, I know, yoga and Christianity doesn't mix well, particularly for evangelicals, but as a form of exercise it remains fairly popular. So what are we to do?

One approach is to reject it as a distraction or deviation at best, fraught with pitfalls and dangerous mystical beliefs and practices. An alternative is to think redemption. That appears to be what one group is seeking to by developing a Christian based alternative.

I'm in London today to see for myself what holy yoga looks like and to meet a Christian practitioner. Should be an interesting morning!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Dealing with uncertainty

How do you approach uncertainty? I think my preferred approach might be to hide inside a wardrobe until its all sorted itself out! I think part of the problem with uncertainty is that it brings with it a sense of powerlessness. Some of rise to the challenge and set about determining our own destiny. And that's okay, maybe even for followers of Jesus it's okay to take some control and plan and determine what to do next. But where does faith fit?

The problem with an uncertain future, one you cannot describe in detail backed up by evidence, is that no matter what your present looks like, you are about to swap something you know for something quite unknown. To others it might look very exciting, but they aren't the ones who will have to live with he consequences of the decisions you make and the outcomes you experience.

Our future is uncertain. We are making plans, but we'd be foolish to suggest that we are certain in any way about the absolute rightness of the choices we're making. Maybe this is where faith steps in and plays its hand.

I guess you might say that we are trying to make open choices and not to box God into a corner where he has to do what we want in order for our faith to be satisfied. It's an exercise in disciplined thinking and faithful obedience.

While the wardrobe offers a safe place to hide, and maybe even the possibility of another world (think Narnia at this point), it's not going to much of a walk of faith. More a crouching insecurity, a paralysis of faith, a timidity of heart. So I'll leave the wardrobe to be a place to store clothes and not a place to wait for the future to write itself.


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Ongoing thoughts about discipleship

A couple of interesting things from a book I'm currently reading called Growing the church in the power of the Holy Spirit.

People need to be incorporated into the kingdom of God by being born again. The fruit of the Spirit needs to be cultivated so that people are transformed into increasingly Christlike character. Unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God must be nurtured, growing people in their understanding and in their personal relationship with Jesus. And men, women, and children need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit so that they can be empowered to do everything that Christ commands, each playing their unique roles as members of the body of Christ. 

This sums up the early chapters of the book rather well, and the foundational argument of the book as a whole. But it's also an important summary of the fundamentals of church.

Later there is a compass point illustration which is rather helpful:

N: New life (incorporation)
S: Sanctification (transformation)
E: Empowerment
W: We (fellowship)

As I continue to think about discipleship, these things are proving helpful along the way. I was listening to an interview with Bill Hybels the other day and he said something very interesting. The Reveal Study has been on the receiving end of some harsh, and unwarranted criticism, over the years since Willow first shared its findings. But I've often wondered if that is because it revels exactly what we've actually known deep down inside.

People don't tend to grow through a programme, they tend to grow through active personal involvement and engagement. Not that might be over simplifying things, but I've watched and participated in a lot of personal evangelism training and I don't see any great improvement in my ability to share the gospel or in the church's engagement with mission. I've prepared a lot of Bible study notes, but I'm not sure that I've seen much actual spiritual transformation taking place as a result. I've preached a lot of sermons, but I cold count of the fingers of one hand the number of times anyone has accurately reflected the content of a sermon back to me.

Anyway, the thing Bill H said was how he would remind the congregation that they were responsible for their own growth. "We can't read your bible for you, we can't say your prayer for you," is a paraphrase of what he said. That isn't to say that the church as an organisation doesn't have a role to play, but spiritual growth depends on the desire of the individual to grow not on the range of courses offered.

Disciple-making

A couple of weeks ago Mike Breen posted the first part of a series of posts about discipleship. It caused a bit of a stir, mostly because it forecasts the failure of the missional church movement and people seemed to have latched onto that. Read the article carefully and you will clearly see that the point is that any model of church without discipleship will fail, not just those who call themselves missional.

Through the series the process of discipleship and its importance is discussed. We cannot ignore the validity of Mike Breen's point. His analysis is surely correct when he states that:

The reason the missional movement may fail is because most people/communities in the Western church are pretty bad at making disciples.

It's not the type of movement, its the basic structure of most Western models. Have we not learnt this lesson form all the studies and reports and analyses we've had over the past 20 or more years? We simply are not making disciples. People are not becoming whole-hearted, fully devoted, followers of Jesus Christ. We are making users more than we are making disciples.

If one was being cynical, you might say users are easy to spot. They are the ones who ask if tithing is really important and did God really mean 10% and is that before or after tax. Users are usually familiar with Bible stories but can't paint a big picture of the biblical narrative. They are, to put it plainly, biblically illiterate. Users are often more interested in what they get out of church than what they put into church. More interested in how their needs can be met than it how God's mission can be implemented. For users discipleship is an inconvenience that disturbs their essentially selfish pattern of life. It is too demanding, too time consuming, too life altering and too costly to comtemplate. "Just give me forgiveness and assurance and let me get on with my life", might be their motto.

That might seem harsh (re-reading it and it does seem quite harsh), but maybe it's time we took a long hard look at the reality. It's time to ask ourselves some tough questions. When was the last time you took stock of your Christian life? When did you last try to answer question like:

• How is Christ being formed in my life right now?
• What am I learning about God through my daily interaction with him and his word?
• How am I partnering with God in his mission to the world he loves?
• What things are holding me back from full commitment?

None of us really like being asked these kinds of questions, but how are we supposed to grow as disciples if we won't ask the basic questions we need to ask? Have we really reached a point where we actually think that tomorrow we will wake up more committed than today without doing a thing to grow?

It won't happen.

I rant, or appear to rant, simply because I know myself. I know how much I resist asking the tough questions and avoiding the honest answers. Yet if I truly want to grow, if I want to develop the spiritual capacity to walk with Jesus, sensitive to his prompting and obedient to his mission, then I simply cannot afford ignore my discipleship.

A question of discipleship

Mark Greene in his monograph The Great Divide says something along the lines of: the greatest challenge facing the church today is the need to develop whole-life disciples. Apologies to Mark if I'm misquoting, but I think I have the gist of it and as I recall you'll find the exact sentence of page 20 unless mt memory is playing yet more tricks on me.

Anyway, the point is this, we need to be making disciples, followers of Jesus Christ, who are living out that discipleship in their everyday lives not just their Sunday and housegroup lives.

Discipleship has always been at the heart of the things that move me most. I'm constantly asking myself about what discipleship really looks like, if it's actually defined by all those evangelical niceties I was taught when I first came to faith, or are they a smoke screen that too often allows me to treat my life with God superficially? A topic for more thought I feel.

Well, I was catching up with stuff from around the blogosphere this afternoon and a post from David Fitch popped up about the Missional Learning Commons that is coming up in Chicago in October. I see the information about these events and wish I could be there or at the very least find a few like-minded folk who would do it here in the UK near me!

These are some of the questions that will be shaping their discussions this October and I think they are questions that should be shaping our thoughts too.

• What does discipleship actually look like in our lives?
• Does the gospel we preach naturally and organically lead people into discipleship, or does it feel like an extra-curricular activity?
• How should the call to make disciples shape and guide our church practices: what we do, and how we do it?
• What is the significance of discipleship as the core component of the formation of Christian leaders?

Perhaps we should add at least a question about what we are going to do next about discipleship in our particular setting. At least that makes it practical and focussed.

I'm particularly drawn to the question about the Gospel we preach and whether it naturally leads to discipleship or not. Certainly in the past we preached a gospel of escape from judgment rather than one of transformation.

Prayer and Preaching

Here's a useful article about the importance of prayer in the process of sermon preparation.

It's true that prayer often features as a perfunctory step in the process, even as an act of desperation as Sunday morning approaches. But we all know that payer ought to be a central feature not a peripheral part of the process. As the author of the post says:

We need to regain a theological vision in which prayer becomes the posture of the preacher, for before our people can hear from God through us, we must hear from God ourselves. And hearing from God through his Word is the fundamental work of prayer.

But not only is prayer about hearing from God, it is also about something more fundamental too:

The point of prayer is realignment, as our hearts assume a posture of dependence and humility before God. Prayer places our needs in the perspective of God's sufficiency, our problems in the perspective of his sovereignty, and our desires in the perspective of his will. Prayer is not a monologue. Rather, prayer invites God to have the last word with us, and for his Word to shape and define us.

This is true whether you are praying as you prepare to preach or whether you are praying as you prepare to live out your daily life for the glory and honour of God.

Some helpful questions

I've bee reading a paper on missional church and came across these questions:

How did you see God at work in your life this week?

What is God been teaching you in his word this week?

What conversations are you having with pre-Christian people?

What good can we do around here—and how we get some of our neighbours in on it?

How can we help each other in prayer?

These aren't just questions to put in your journal, they are meant to be used as accountability questions within the church family too.

Any questions that causes us to stop and think is probably not a bad question. In the past I've used such questions as the basis for a morning or day in prayer.

In fact it's high time I did another such day. I feel pretty frazzled at the moment and a day's reflection would be a good thing. There's a place not too far from home that I could use.

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The New Universalism Debate

I guess we all know to whom we are referring when the topic turns to universalism these days. I've not read the book, and I've got rather too many on my reading list at the moment to add it to the pile.

I just wanted to post a link to a useful post that I think sheds helpful light on one of the keys issues that can go ignored. Put simply, if we perceive that the fundamental problem with universalism is that everyone is saved and that means that there's no point being a disciple of Jesus, then we've made Jesus little more than a get into heaven free card. There is more at stake than this.

This post by Ed Cyzewski addresses that very question.

Questions for the start of the year

If you want a list of questions to ponder at the start of the year, then here's a list of 31! All good questions, and you don't need to answer them all in one go, but maybe 31 is stretching it a bit.

Reading Plans

I know there are lots of variations of Bible Reading Plans, so much so that it begs two questions. First, how come most of us can't find a plan to stick to in order to take ourselves regularly through the text? And second, why do I keep creating my own plan when there are so many out there already?

Well, the answer the second question,  I do it because I'm trying to develop different ways of engaging with the text through regular reading. Over the years I've done a simple one year plan that starts at the beginning of both Old and New Testaments and works to the end of each. I've done the "One-year Bible" approach. Two years ago I worked out a reading plan for the New Testament in one year, spreading the gospels through the year rather than reading all four at the beginning of the year. Last year we did the Old Testament history through the year.

This year we are doing the wisdom and prophetic literature of the OT.(By the way, the "we" means Anne and me. We try to read to each other on alternating nights. Often we have to play catch up because I have meetings that finish late, but that's another story!)

Anne asked if we could mix it up by doing the Psalms and Proverbs every day. It makes the plan a little more difficult to work out, but I'm having a go. The plan is to read the Psalms twice and everything else once. Having done the maths, that works out as 19 verses from Job to Malachi, 3 from Proverbs and 13 from the Psalms. Well that should keep me occupied, working all that out!

Whatever plan works for you, find it and give it a go. Our three plan seems to suit us, and it gives the opportunity to do other things too. Given that this year is the 400th anniversary of the King James translation, it might not be a bad year to look for a resource to help you get started. Search for Biblefresh if you want a place to start.

Coming to terms with not being thin

It's a strange business losing weight. Without appearing to trivialise or lessen the impact of severe eating disorders, I think I've learnt something over the last few months that helps me understand what some people go through. I never quite understood how a painfully thin person could look at themselves in the mirror and see a fat person staring back. I do now. Okay, so nowhere near as severe a distortion, but the truth is that even though I've lost a lot of weight I still see more or less the same person in the mirror. I know I'm thinner. I've gone from a 48in jacket to a 42 and a 40in waist pair of jeans to a 34in waist. When I look down I can see a fairly flat profile.

All very encouraging. I know these things, but what I see in the mirror remains distorted. The disturbing thing is that I actually don't feel any lighter or thinner. Occasionally I catch sight of myself and realise how much I've changed, but most of the time I'm unaware.  Body image is such a subtle thing.

So I have to learn to see myself honestly. Perhaps that's part of the reason we put on weight in the first place, we don't pay attention to our increasing weight and we don't pay attention to our changing size and shape. I know someone who maintained for years that the clothes makers were making them smaller as they slowly added more weight.

Lessons too for our spiritual journeys. The keys to succeeding in losing the weight and maintaining a healthy weight will remain discipline, monitoring and honesty (accountability) about what I eat. The same is true for my spiritual development. I have to commit to a disciplined pattern, be accountable and honest with myself and before God. My journal helps me do these things, and as the new year approaches I ought to make a commitment to use my journal more thoughtfully than ever.

Here's to 2011 as a year of celebrating a successful weight loss programme, getting fitter, playing more tennis, and becoming a better follower of Jesus Christ than I've managed this year.

The glory of Romans

I downloaded a great free application for my iPhone this morning. It's called SpokenWord, an audio Bible app. There are two versions, an Old Testament one and a New Testament one.

It does exactly what you want it to do, or at least what I wanted it to do this morning as I set out for my morning walk.

I listened to Paul's letter to the Romans as I walked the 5Km circuit from home. It's just such an easy way to spend time in the Bible. Of course it can't replace sitting and reading, studying and reflecting. But I love to get the bigger picture of the letters and narratives, and this is a great way to do just that.

So I walked and found encouragement and challenge as I listened to Paul pour our his heart to the Christian community in Rome. I was reminded of the place of faith, the sacrifice made for me, the finished work of the cross, the power of the gospel, the joy of freedom, the choice to walk in the Spirit, the lack of condemnation, the hope of the kingdom, the commitment to others, the call to leadership and service and so much more. Can there be a better way to spend an hour?

If you have an iPhone, you might want to check out this wonderful app.

On Discipleship

Another useful post from the Acts 29 blog, this time about discipleship as doing:

The accounts in the Gospels and the Book of Acts put a huge emphasis on doing when it comes to making disciples. The gospels are accounts of Jesus’ works, and they’re also the accounts of his disciples, young Christians, doing as their master did. Acts is the account of the young church, made up of young Christians, going out, preaching the gospel, and doing great works in Jesus name.