Whom are you training to carry on the faith?

(2 Tim. 4:22)
"The Lord be with your spirit.  Grace be with you."

Too often, we rush through our days, barely touching anyone's life.  Like Paul take time to weave your life into others through deep relationships.

What legacy will you leave behind?

Whom are you training to carry on your work?

It's our responsibility to do all we can do to keep the gospel message alive for the next generation.

How do  you intend to guard the gospel that has been entrusted to you?  What will you pass along-to whom, in what manner, and by when?

Goals

Participants may:

1. Understand the distinction between process-oriented and result-oriented training.

2. Discuss the benefits of being process-oriented in Christian life and ministry.

3. Display awareness that God is process-oriented.

4. Experience the distinctive results of Christian training with the class.

Opening Prayer

God, if we look back on our lives and on the history of your relationship with your people, sometimes we see the many ways you gently lead toward your goals.  Thank you for your loving guidance.  Help us to trust you, the result giver.  In you we rejoice and for you we wait.  keep us thankful for the results of Christian training as they blossom around us.  Amen.

Lead-In

One of the great temptations in training another is wanting to jump right in, rearrange a person's life, and immediately fix whatever problems that person might have.  The alternative - entering into another's pain, suffering with and supporting that person while he or she works through a crisis - is much more difficult.  It is also the only way to help effectively.

In our study of Christian training we have been learning much about the process of training others.  We have learned that the results of our training are in God's hands.  In this lesson, we will concentrate on understanding the difference between being result-centered and being process-centered; we will also identify and celebrate the results that God freely gives.

Evaluating Results

Helping people work through critical periods in their lives or to reach a successful graduation.  When you are involved in training another, it feels good to say: "I'm glad I was able to train Jennie to handle her time of grief and grow from it.  She's beginning to invest herself in living and growing in her training program again."  Or, "Tonight Arnie has finally accepted the fact he's going to die and is at peace about it."

To discuss results in a class about Christian training is risky, because it might reinforce the tendency to focus excessively on results.  Americans especially are characterized as result-oriented people.  This attitude hinders training..  Focusing on results can be nonproductive - or even counterproductive - for both trainers and trainees alike.

One of your tasks as trainer, especially at the beginning, is to help people toward a correct perspective on results. 

Overemphasis on results is so common that it's worth proclaiming as a rule: results start happening when you stop pushing for them!

Goals are helpful, and when Christians care for each other, good things do happen.  Yet, as I have stressed throughout this class, your main focus as a caring individual needs to be on the process of caring rather than on results.

Process Goals vs. Results Goals

Process goals differ from results goals as verbs differ from nouns.  Kindling a fire is a process; a fire is a result.

Each of the process goals begins with a verb.  Every one of them implies the passage of time.  All of the results goals are beneficial, but each comes at the end of a process.  You can't have an outcome without going through a process.  And if you have your eye on the outcome, you probably will miss the process altogether.

Many an athletic team has failed because the players were thinking about the championship game while they were still playing the quarter-finals.  When they lost that game, out went their chance for the championship.  The good coach does all he or she can to direct the players to focus only on the game at hand and do their best job playing one game at a time.  Even in a single game, the coach who excels will try to keep players' attention from the final score.  The focus needs to be on the many actions that make up a good game.  Victories are results of many actions that make up a good game.  Victories are results of many actions well executed; or in other words, victories come as  a result of process.

Theological Implications

The issue of process orientation vs. result orientation is a difficult one to resolve by examining the Bible.  The Scriptures do speak about results.  As God works in your life, things happen.  Through faith in Jesus Christ, you experience new birth.  The apostle Paul says that "the old has passed away, behold, the new has come" (2 Cor. 5:17).  The characteristics of newness in Christ include a relationship with God, the forgiveness of sins, the ability to lead a God-pleasing life, the experience of greater peace and joy, and day-by-day trust in God's guidance and protection.  The apostle goes so far as to say that God "has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessings in the heavenly places" (Eph. 1:3).  These are fantastic results!

For the Christian, results are primarily what God accomplishes.  Yet God wants you to be a responsible individual, properly using what he has given you.  He puts goals in front of you to work toward.  Paul states, "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:4).

These considerations would seem to make you result-oriented, focusing on what God has done and will do for you and through you.  However, the fact that God has given you goals implies that you haven't arrived yet.  God has made us his children, people who do not always live in accordance with his will.  We are always in need of spiritual growth and commitment.  And so Scripture directs us to the process of Christian living:

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" (Phil. 3:12).

"Be transformed by the renewal of your mind" (Rom. 12:2).

"Let all that you do be done in love" (1 Cor. 16:14).

All the while you are engaged in the process, you work under the promise that "he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" (Phil. 1:16).  For the Christian, therefore, process is intimately involved with results.

We live in a sinful world with its pains, illness, deprivation, and tragedy.  As Job discovered, walking with God will not always entail pleasant feelings or financial success.  God has not promised us a rose garden, a paradise on earth.  We find ourselves within a troubled world - trying to spread God's love to individuals, institutions, and society as a whole.  Being the "salt of the earth" is a continuous process.

The theology of process and results has several implications.  First of all, you rely upon God for results.  Ultimately all results in helping relationships are in his hands.  He decides the nature and extent of the training.  You are called to trust in him and in his living providence.

Second, because you realize that God is the one who will provide training in the future, you can focus more fully on the present.  Jesus tells all Christians:  "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself" (Matt. 6:34).  Given the assurance of God's loving presence and healing power, you are free to give yourself completely to the training process.

Third, you can truly view yourself as an instrument of God, a part of God's process of training.  This provides a foundation of identity for the person giving Christian training.

Distinctive Results

What follows are some distinctively Christian results that can develop through the training process.  They may not all happen, but some will.

Community

Through receiving Christian training, a person can develop stronger ties with a community of Christians.  As the person becomes actively involved with a fellowship of faith, he or she begins to feel a closeness to that community.  Inner barriers and blockages - emotional, spiritual, personal - to other people are destroyed as the individual becomes more receptive to the warmth of the Spirit-given unity of that group.

Perspective on Suffering

Through Christian training an individual could better grasp the role of suffering in life.  The person will be able to handle more realistically those problems and pitfalls that befall everyone because of the human condition.  This will not totally remove pain, hurt, or anger, but the person will be able to look at suffering and handle it from a more mature perspective, with greater realism.

Forgiveableness

Forgivableness does not mean that people have somehow become worthy of forgiveness, but rather that they are able to accept forgiveness and grace from God and others.  In short, people will have learned to receive.

Forgiveability

A person receiving training might develop in turn the ability to give forgiveness and love.  This often follows the acceptance of forgiveness or love, simply because it is impossible to give what one has not first received.  "We love, because he first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

Trust

According to psychologist Erik Erikson, trust is an integral part of the first developmental crisis people undergo at an early age.  Lack of trust is endemic in a society where broken relationships abound and people are almost expected to take advantage of you.  As a result of Christian training, a person might develop an overall increased level of trust, which can be foundational for other growth in the fullness of Jesus Christ.  Who better is there to trust in?

A New Relationship with God

Christian training leads a person to trust in the love of God.  Through Christian training and relating, a person who has not had faith in Jesus Christ's control of life can come to faith and experience the joy of Christian rebirth.  God, working through his Word and the trainer, creates trust in the trainer.  A person can be "born from above" through your training and relating.

A Renewed Relation with God

We all fall short of God's will for us.  When we fall, it can be a long time before we permit God to raise us up again.  Sometimes we get angry with him along the way.  Through receiving Christian training, people who have been estranged from God for a time can experience again how much God still loves and cares for them.  We forsake him; but he does not forsake us.  As we come alive to our Lord and his will for us, our lives are revitalized and our faith rejuvenated.

Christian Hope

Christian hope is both in the present and for the future.  The source of Christian hope is the knowledge that Jesus is with each Christian training might display deep-hearted trust in Christ's continuing presence and his return by positive attitudes and expectations.

God-Centered Stability

When you base your life as a Child of God, you have a firmer foundation than any other.  As a favorite hymn declares, "on Christ the solid rock I stand.  All other ground is sinking sand," God alone is the foundation for holistic stability in your life.

God Centered Self-Image

When the person with whom you are joined in Christian training truly believes that he or she is a child of God and a temple of the Holy Spirit, that person is going to have a much healthier ego and a realistic self-image.  This is not haughtiness or conceit;  it is a good feeling about oneself because Jesus Christ is alive and well within.

Peace

As a result of Christian training, a person might come to experience peace.  Such peace is not merely the absence of hostility or a state of inner contentment; rather, it is the peace connoted by the Hebrew word shalom.  As people experience Christian peace, their relationships become whole and complete - with others, with God, and with themselves.

Perspective on Results

This list certainly does not include every distinctively Christian result.  Nor does it include all those results of training that are important, but are not specifically Christian in character - for example, the ability to express one's feelings, greater honesty with oneself and others, overcoming depression, or reducing one's anxiety level.

Another result of Christian training accrues to you the trainer, and it has to do with the strengthening of your own training, and it has to do with the strengthening of your own personal faith and Christian life.  The more you use the tools of your trade, the better you get, especially when you consider that use implies keeping them in good repair.

Results are great, but they belong to God, who chooses to let you share is the pleasure of them.  Don't stalk them; let God send them to you.  Desire them, but don't lust after them.  Expect results, but don't concentrate on them.  Evaluate them, but don't count on them.  Be glad when they come, but don't spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make them come.  Count on the certainty that the Lord's sense of timing and purpose is better than yours and better than that of the training receiver.  Rely on the promise of the Lord in Rev. 21:5 "I make all things new."  Now that's what I call results!

Homework

1.  Let's say you have a friend who is going through a painful divorce.  How might you "push for results"?  How might you focus on process?

2.  What do you think of the statement "results start happening when you stop pushing for them."

3.  If Jesus commanded us to actively do the following:  "Make disciples of all nations" and "Save the lost," how can we focus on the process rather than on the goals?

4.  Don't Bother me with Facts - I want Results!!

In the next 10 minutes, each of you describe to a time in your own life or in that of someone you know when results started happening only when you or someone else stopped pushing for them.

5.  Results vs. Process

This exercise has four steps.  The first step is for your group to choose an example of a personal or life crisis, either actual or invented.  That crisis will be the focus for the exercise.  Go ahead.  Take a couple of minutes.

Examples of crises that you might choose are: death of a spouse, being in the hospital, loss of a job, or the birth of triplets.  

Focusing on this crisis, think of as many result-goals for your training as you can.  Please write down all the ideaas.  Take five minutes for this."

In the next five minutes brainstorm and record as many process goals as you can for training with someone going through this crisis.

Finally, spend five minutes discussing how your training would be different if you focus on result goals rather than process goals.

6.  Training Betty and Beverly

I'll provide you two hypothetical situations in which someone is in need of Christian care.  After I'm done with each one, you'll have some time to write about it.  Ready?  The first situation involves Betty, a young women in your organization going through a difficult divorce.  She has stopped attending church, perhaps because she believes she is unworthy to associate with "good" people.  She is isolated; she spends most of each day in her house with her two preschool children.  She has a great deal of resentment toward her husband coupled with a great deal of guilt about her own conduct.  She seems to have lost faith not only in men, but in people in general, maybe even in God.  Her life seems to have no focus or purpose.  Take a few minutes and discuss in your class what you might do to provide Christian training to Betty and how you might go about it.  Go ahead.

Next, take a look at your course where there is a list of 11 distinctive results that God might provide through your training.  Look at these and decide, which you might reasonably expect as the results of Christian training.  For example, take the first goal - community.  Can you see the possibility that God might allow her to develop stronger ties to the Christian community as a result of your training?  Go ahead and go through the 11 results and apply them to Betty.

let's take another situation.  This time the person for whom you are caring is Beverly, a 90-year old widow in a nursing home.  She has no family or friends left.  Her physical is poor; she has very little time left.  She is unresponsive and incoherent; neither you nor the medical staff can tell for sure whether or not she is aware of the fact she has a visitor.  This time, which of the 11 results can you reasonably expect?  

The questions I want you to discuss is:  In situations like Beverly's in which God is not likely to grant us much in the way of tangible results, what should we be trying to do?  What does God want from us in situations like these?  Go ahead, take three or four minutes and write about it.

Closing

God is a God of action.  He speaks, and what he says happens!  May his strong word speak peace, joy, and love into our lives and into the lives of those we relate to.  Amen.