CHAPTER NINE: Training the Man of Peace/Honor

The Vertical Component
We have found a man or woman of peace. Let’s presume they have responded positively to the gospel (we may hold off from making a determination as to whether they are in the kingdom or not!). Where do we go from here?

First we need to focus on the vertical relationship--his walk with the Lord. Acts 2:37-47 shows the patterns adopted by the first Christian converts. They were told to repent and be baptized, and then they were added to the church. In the Christian community they learned how to love in deed and truth. We have developed a series of studies around these steps of obedience. They appear in the Appendices 1 & 2: Entering the Kingdom & Living in the Kingdom.

The man of peace needs to learn to seek what is pleasing to the Lord by searching His Word and applying God's remedies to life's trials. Normally we guide him to Scripture which applies to his life. We have developed several study booklets for help at this early stage (Appendices 1, 2, 19). The disciple is encouraged to wrestle before the Lord with how to apply the Scripture to his life. The discipler encourages him and may direct him to different scriptures. But the discipler is not a priest. The discipler rather trust that the Jesus “sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow Me” (John 10:27. The disciple is taught early that regeneration leads to change. He learns several ways to use God's word to illuminate (reveal) areas of his life that need change, then repent of them, and make restitution where possible. These three R's form a cycle of renewal and are repeated over and over again as the believer grows in Christ: Revelation, Repentance, Restitution (For more on this subject see Chapter 4: Background on Discipling). This subject is covered in depth in a book called Transformational Ministry by Dick Scoggins and available through Fellowship of Church Planters.

The Horizontal Component
So now we have one man. How does God build a church around him? It may seem to be an obvious next step to repeat this procedure and find another and another, then tie them together to form a church. The Lord may lead in this way. But if this is the only way we try to build a church it has some design flaws. Such a method extracts the person from the social network in which he was saved and tries to reintegrate him with people whom he has no previous relationship. Our experience shows that extracting a person in such a way and adding him to an existing group of people is difficult and often ends up marginalizing the person until he grows discouraged and reverts to his old way of life. Trying to build new, diverse believers together is even more difficult due to their spiritual immaturity and ingrained carnal ways of dealing with interpersonal difficulties. Often the result is like trying to push two like poles of a magnet together: it takes a lot of work and once the exertion from the church planter is removed, they fly apart anyway! With this in mind we suggest what we have found to be a better way.

From the above section, it should be obvious that incarnating the gospel to one person is no easy task. It takes huge amounts of time, effort and emotional energy. Planting churches by such an effort is going to be slow work at best. If we have to do it a number of times to different people trying to lead them to Christ one at a time it will take a long time--if ever! However, if you try to do it through a man of honor/peace, the task is now much easier!(?)!. As you take him through Acts 2 he sees that there is no church to which he can be added, without extracting him--cutting him off--from his existing circle of family and friends. You point out to him that HE is the solution. God will establish the church through him. And this is much easier than doing it through you.

You are an outsider to his social circle and had to get to know this man over time so that he might see in you the hope of glory, Jesus, the Christ. Now you have a man who is immediately able to incarnate the gospel. He is an insider. He already has a social network of people who know him.

So in order to plant churches, the second component of training the man of honor is to focus on his horizontal, human relationships. He now brings Jesus into all his relationships. Your goal is to see Christ formed in him in such a way that every relationship is exposed to the transforming power of the Love of Christ. Every person in his social network has an opportunity to see the gospel incarnated in this person. And it may be the only opportunity they ever get!

Training the man of peace means showing him how to penetrate his social network with the love of Christ (I John 4:7-11). This is not easy, and often we church planters are guilty of going the easy way rather than the godly one. Many times we do not preach the gospel of reconciliation and expect believers to be reconciled to God and man (Cf. 2 Cor. 5:14-21, Mt. 6:12,15). Often those closest to us are the ones most difficult to love. As we are hurt in the normal course of life, our response is one either of repaying evil with evil, or withdrawing into a protective cocoon. Neither response is Godly. Instead, we should remove the log in our own eye and then try to help our brother with his speck (Matthew 7:1-5).

So we focus on discipling new believers by teaching them how to love their family members, friends and acquaintances in accordance with the Lord Jesus' command. Thoroughly study Jesus' teaching on love in the gospels. The man of Peace needs to learn how to love his wife, his children, his parents, his brothers and sisters, his friends, his boss, etc. He also needs to be taught how to love other Christians (like you and others who may come to Christ through his witness).

He needs to learn how to confront life's difficulties and conflicts using Biblical prescriptions rather than those of his culture, which may be ungodly. Often when working cross culturally we try to contextualize the gospel and the church and this is good. But the church will, in many ways, be counter cultural as well. This path will be difficult and painful for both your disciple and yourself. Since he will be making fundamental changes in the way he relates to people, these changes will often be met with intense persecution. You will need to teach your disciple how to meet this with more love. He will need to learn how to rely upon the Lord as he faces suffering and perhaps being isolated from those he loves. You will need to intercede for him before the throne of grace. You will suffer with him, and may even lose him as he succumbs to the temptation to compromise. You too, will need to learn to lean on the One who watched all His disciples abandon Him in His darkest hour. Hopefully, for those who compromise, you will also be able to rejoice in their restoration one day as they apply the lessons you have taught them about repentance early in their Christian life.

As your disciple progresses in his journey several things will happen. First, his faith will grow and deepen as he finds that Jesus is true to His word and "will never leave us or forsake us". Second, he will incarnate the gospel to all those around him in a shorter time than it would have ever been possible for you. Thirdly he will have learned how to present the evangel, as he learns how to "give an account for the hope that is in him" (Hence you have reproduced). Fourthly, if God grants mercy and a church gets started (perhaps in his home), he will likely be your first leader. But more on that in Stages 2 and 3.

Key Principles
1. The man or woman of peace should be honored by the church planter but as much as possible trying to work through the man or woman of peace to reach their social network. Luke 10:5-9

2. One-on-one discipleship needs to start from very early so that it will become a normal part of the shepherding/training of the church.

3. The church planter should utilize the man/woman of peace as often as possible to train them in the skills of shepherding/discipling.

Questions for further thought
1. What components must be incorporated when training the man of peace?

2. What are some practical steps you can take to train this man of peace (think of a specific person)?

3. How would this vary if a man is inside the assembly as opposed to outside the assembly?

4. What are several possible problems that may occur as you commence with the training? (Think especially of the problems of persecution and relational strain he could face.).

5. What are your specific plans to train your man of peace to overcome these problems?