We continue our discussion this week with Jared Scholz about making disciples and his journey of pressing on towards that goal. Making disciples was at the forefront of their vision when they launched Greenhouse Church in Lawrence, Kansas. When I asked Jared to take us back to what he saw that looking like thirteen years ago when they started Greenhouse, he said,
We didn’t know. But we couldn’t not try. We felt like the Lord said, ‘Here is your next step.’ So we just started somewhere. With every decision (we asked), ‘Will this frustrate the mission of making disciples?’ If so, we don’t want to do it. And then, follow the fruit. How can we get out of the way of fruit being produced and reinforce what produces fruit?
Jared and the Greenhouse family call their small groups “Neighborhood Churches.” There they eat a meal together, tell stories from the Bible, and pray together. In the early years half of their people were doing that each Sunday morning. The other half were in a more traditional church service. Then they rotated every week. They sort of planted two churches at the same time. (which Jared doesn’t recommend.) He says,
For us our main conviction was, people don’t have time for small groups. By God’s grace there were more people in our small groups than were a part of our services. . .pretty much all the way up to covid.
A key dynamic of Neighborhood Church is getting everyone involved. This is how disciples are made. Jared shares that in his Neighborhood Church,
This semester there has been a different person telling the story from the Bible each week, there has been a different person leading prayer each week, and there has been a different person overseeing the kids every week and there has been a different person leading discussion every week. That’s intentional because like we discussed a few weeks ago, the weight of leadership is actually good for us. . .Trucks are easiest to steer if you load them up.
And the above is only the first few minutes of the video! Check out the video to learn about:
- Phrases from the stage.
- Getting people to think, “I’m here to make disciples.” It transforms everything!
- Getting disciplers to recognize people moving from me centric to others centric.
- A detailed breakdown of what happens when Neighborhood Churches gather.
This week ask yourself, “What does helping people follow Jesus in real time look like for me?”
