What led to RiverTree Christian Church’s commitment to make disciples—not consumers? As former lead pastor of the church, I was recently asked by Exponential Network to share some thoughts about the church’s shift to missional life.
“When I began with Future Travelers, the burning question was, ‘How do we produce disciples who are committed to following Jesus rather than consumers of church goods?’ As we wrestled through this question throughout our time during Future Travelers, we began to see ways to transition RiverTree in our core teachings about what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and in our core practices about how we live as followers of Him.”
Watch the video to hear more:
In my experience, it is escleiaply hard to cast this vision with classes that have been essentially static or very slowly growing for over two years. Even after it’s been shown to be successful ONCE, the members don’t necessarily embrace the vision, but may view growth as a fluke or due to some other factor (new pastor, new teacher, etc.) It takes repeating the experience at least twice AND continuing to push’ for growth to see this sustained.