Discipleship, Bible, Christian, Studies – C.S. Lewis Institute

On September 26, 2008, J.I. Packer took time to sit down and answer questions from C.S. Lewis Fellows and from pastors in the Washington, D.C., area.

One of the questions that J.I. Packer addressed was: What counsel do you have to give regarding church-planting and disciple-making?

Packer:  I would say understand that making disciples means making learners.  A friend of mine recently deceased, published a book on this subject with the arresting title, “Go Make Learners.”  That was his way of paraphrasing “go and make disciples.”  Disciples are learners—that’s what the word means and of course there won’t be learning unless there is teaching. 

So I’m going to tell again tomorrow (when I preach) about the occasion when I was a theological student at a liberal college, learning—oh yes, I did learn some things there, but I learned by reaction.  That is I learned by asking myself after each lecture, “Why did I disagree with so much of that?”  and making myself answer the question thoroughly.  Well, there came a moment of joy in the elaborate acreage of rather dreary, liberal instruction in this seminary when a visiting lecturer said that in the pastoral ministry there are three priorities:  the first is teach, and the second is teach and the third is teach.  And I thought that was a wonderful way of expressing a wonderful truth.  It seemed obvious to me before ever I got into pastoral ministry that that has to be the case.  And since I got into ministry, my ministry has had a pastoral dimension over the years, I’ve had occasion to prove that yes indeed that is the way it must be.

There are existing patterns of ministry which are intended to inspire and encourage and warm the heart and all that kind of thing,  but without teaching, where the truths that are handled are simple truths that everybody knows already and there just there in the sermon as a launch pad for the application.  Well, I have in my hand the Bible--this is God’s lesson or series of lessons if you like.  I want to teach the truth that is in the Bible.  I want to teach the range of contents of the books that make up the Bible.  I want people to thoroughly understand what the various writers of the Bible were concerned to convey and I try to ensure that in every bit of ministry that I do, whatever else the ministry is intended to accomplish, that there is real serious teaching at the heart of what I say.  Teach, teach, teach.  And if you ask whether Packer supposes at this very moment to be teaching, the answer is yes he does.  It becomes a mindset.

And well, that it seems to me to be the way of wisdom in church planting.  You gather a little group of people, maybe, but people who are willing to be taught and you work with them.  You don’t have to set yourself up on a pedestal--indeed, you’re not likely to get very far if you do.  You generate rather a sense of fellowship between you and them and them and each other of course, and all together you are moving forward into becoming a church but your particular job as the church-planting agent, is teach, teach, teach.  Keep the people who are going to become the congregation learning; keep them aware that the Christian life is really meant to be a matter of learning from the moment it starts until the grave.  And ask for what is in effect a moral contract:  I’m going to teach, I want you to agree that you’ll come along with me and labor to learn.

Christianity needs to be learned.  It isn’t the religion that is instinctive to all good men, which is what liberals of the old generation used to think.  It is a faith that has to be taught.  Jesus knew what He was talking about when he said, “Go make learners.”  So this is the really big thing that I would say, which I don’t find said in all the texts that I see about church-planting, wisdom for doing it, tips about this that and the other.  That’s my burden.

To listen to more of the Q&A session with J.I. Packer, click here.