It’s been cold in Middle Tennessee. Morning temperatures in the single digits. Snow. Icy roads. Even so, I’m blessed to sit in a warm office this morning with a hot cup of coffee and a little time for reflecting.
This is our year-end newsletter. We want to thank you for supporting Timothy Network through another twelve months and bring you up-to-date on highlights from 2010. Before looking back, however, a few related thoughts on why our work exists.
It’s December – a time when Christians traditionally celebrate the birth of Christ. Reflecting on the Christmas story this morning gives me pause. Where would we be without the gift of God’s son?
The birth of Jesus Christ brought mankind living hope! Jesus bridged the wide chasm between God and man. His life and teachings embody the essence of the Kingdom of God. His church’s God-given mission is to make disciples for the Kingdom. Disciples are to act as a savoring and illuminating influence (Mathew 5:13-16) that reflect the rule of God.
The Timothy Network represents an effort to bring practical and sharper focus to discipleship and disciple-making. Our specific goal is to help people develop into mature disciples – Christians that live-out the kingdom ethic of Jesus and become multiplying disciple makers in the process. We want to reach souls for the Kingdom.
Beginning with twelve men in late 2005, nearly 200 men and women now form the core of our discipling networks. These networks are attempting to follow through with Jesus’ command to “go and make disciples.”
Highlights from 2010
A New Videostory: “Life on Life ”
In case you missed it in the last newsletter, check out the new video that highlights the scope of our work. It’s viewable at www.timothynetwork.org Click on “Life on Life” in the right hand column of our homepage.
A New Partnership with Greenhouse Ministries
Cliff and Jane Sharp’s invitation for The Timothy Network to help with a discipling component at the Greenhouse has been an answered prayer for us. A local help ministry, Greenhouse has grown in all sorts of good directions over the past several years. A more recent outgrowth of their work has focused on helping homeless men get back on their feet. Our niche’ at Greenhouse involves discipling a half dozen of the men they house and for which they provide job skills training. We meet with the guys for a ninety minute discipling study each week. We talk, study scripture, pray, and enjoy good fellowship. We occasionally go to Dairy Queen for ice cream or have lunch together. We’re building intentional Christ-centered relationships and trying to make disciples through this partnership with Greenhouse.
Further Development of New Discipling Triads
Discipleship advocate Greg Ogden makes an analogy between disciple making and hot-houses. As a hot-house maximizes the right climatic conditions for plant growth, he says disciple making best occurs in environments that maximize the elements of strong relationships (particularly transparent trust), time in the Word, and mutual accountability. It’s hard to get to this depth in Sunday morning assemblies or even in typical small groups (that usually include 10 – 20 people – or more.) Discipleship blossoms when we’re able to get to the nitty gritty and “live life” together. Notice that Jesus taught the crowds but worked closely with only a few – especially focusing on two or three at a time like Peter, James, and John or Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Following this example is the modus operandi of the Timothy Network and we’re working harder all the time to “get smaller.” We’ve transitioned from equipping groups of 6 – 8 to triads and quads (3 and 4 people per cell). This may sound inconsequential, but the dynamics of a triad are much different than small groups. Think of it as home-schooling. Working in groups of three or four ramps up growth, accountability, and commitment and more readily prepares people for working with others.
More Leadership Taking Root
I recently visited the website of a Christian attorney in Houston. His firm has argued and won several prominent national cases involving large judgments against both the tobacco and drug manufacturing industries. He didn’t build a successful practice by himself. He raised up a team – scores of attorneys who work under his supervision in four offices scattered across the country. By training, mentoring, and surrounding himself with other dedicated attorneys, he’s been able to multiply his firm’s effectiveness!
Whether in the secular arena or the church, insightful leaders multiply themselves. Jesus did it. Paul did, too. All who follow Christ must be involved in some capacity of disciple making that leads to reproduction. Making disciples cannot be a dead-end venture. The gospel spreads generation to generation by disciples who multiply themselves and teach others to do the same. Our work aims to help people grow in focused intentionality that naturally leads to reproductive disciple making.
We’ve seen a surge in leadership this year. Men and women are stepping up by making disciples who are, in turn, discipling others. Leadership is taking root and multiplying. We’re seeing the development of a team. This has been our goal from day one, and we’re witnessing God raise up leaders who can disciple and train others.
Partnering with Local Congregations in Promoting Disciple Making
Scripture refers to the church as “the Bride of Christ.” She has been tasked with the responsibility of making disciples of all nations. Healthy churches have a “disciple-making DNA” – they reproduce themselves.
Everyone connected with Timothy Network belongs to and supports the work of a local church. We want to serve as team members within our churches, doing our part to help them mature and reach others outside the body of Christ. Over the past year, for example, Nick Horton, John Magnuson, Tom Boyle, and I were given the opportunity to teach four sections of “The Disciple Making Church” at the North Boulevard congregation. The series focused on the marks of discipleship and the identifying characteristics of disciple making churches. A key point of the study: Disciple making churches are more focused on people than programs. Everything these churches do is framed within the context of relationships, not the external ABC’s (attendance, buildings, cash) which so often dominate. Disciple making churches have a different core than program based congregations.
A good read on this subject:
The Disciple Making Church by Glenn McDonald, Faithwalk Publishing.
In Closing
Welcome to the bottom of the page. The highlights above are only a snapshot but do represent main areas of our work during 2010. There’s more that I could write about including February’s Retreat, the growth I see in lives of people being discipled, plans to expand the staff, our fifth anniversary celebration, a ministry leader’s marriage retreat that Karen and I were blessed to enjoy last summer (aspects of which we hope to use in our work). We met and have been refreshed by people like Terry and Leah Green, a wonderful couple who work on the staff at Glen Eyrie in Colorado Springs. The Greens have a passion for discipleship in the area of building strong marriages. Several couples have been discipled in the ranks of Timothy Network over the past four years, and we hope to see this component of the ministry grow in an even stronger way.
I want you to know about the involvement and help of my good friend Mark Harrell. Mark joined us in a part-time capacity for six months this year. He went home to be with the Lord on October 7th after a two year battle with cancer. Mark was only forty-six and leaves behind a wife and three children. He was a really special man. I hope to devote a full article to his story early next year.
Your love, encouraging words, prayers, and gifts are an immeasurable blessing. Thanks for all you do! We’ll soon be mailing giving reports to all who have made monetary donations to the ministry in 2011.
Because of the Prince of Peace,
Mike Stroud
Director and Discipling Minister
The Timothy Network
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