For the greater part of two thousand years certain presumptions about how to do church have gone largely unchallenged.  The key issue for Mark Nysewander is not what model is most historically accurate (by first century standards) so much as it is how to promote intimacy with God.  It is in that place of intimacy and passion for Him that everything else that is important tends to find its place.  At a time when many writers are proclaiming the new thing God is doing in His Kingdom, Nysewander’s newest book, No More Spectators, provides original insights.  Recently OpenHeaven.com spoke with him about the book.

             Could you define the two terms you use throughout the book—spectator Christianity and disciple-making Christianity?

             Spectator Christianity is the Christianity we see dominantly in the West.  People perceive that their experience in the church is:  come, sit, listen, go and obey.  Generally it is a very passive kind of Christianity.  It is watching.  That’s what a spectator does.  Disciple-making Christianity, to me, would be a Christianity where you are committed relationally to people, build them up, strengthen them in the faith and multiply them out, which is the Kingdom view.

             What is the relationship between disciple-making Christianity and the Kingdom?

             The Kingdom was the heart of Jesus’ message that God’s reign, presence and power was breaking through into history now, but obviously not in its fullness.  That won’t happen until Jesus returns.  Even now we can see incredible manifestations of His power, love and might in our lives.  That is a supernatural work of God.  I believe that the relational context is where we see that at its best.  It has a way of really transforming communities.  The reign of God breaks through the relationships of disciples.

             Traditionally when we think of revival or renewal, we picture a big meeting where God’s presence is manifested.  Yet there seems to be another dimension of God’s grace that is only available in small groups.  Could you use the “bottle story” from your book to explain how these two ways of meeting work together? 

             I think God’s grace comes radically in both the large gathering, as well as in the small gathering.  If you pour water over a group of bottles, it might splash and a little bit of water gets into some of the bottles.  If you take that pitcher and pour it directly into a bottle, you’re getting more into it because of the focus of the outpouring.  In times of great revival there can be massive outpouring on a large group.  In order to see that continue, there’s got to be smaller relational gatherings where people pour into one another. 

             No More Spectators brings up the forgotten part of the history of the movement John Wesley started.  Why did George Whitfield complain that his own converts did not seem as strong as Wesley’s?

             Although Whitfield tried to get his converts into smaller settings, he wasn’t as successful as Wesley.  Whitfield may have been the stronger preacher, but when he went back and visited where Wesley had preached, he saw groups of people meeting and multiplying.  When he went back to where he preached, he may have seen a few groups but they weren’t multiplying to the extent that Wesley’s were.

             Tell us how and why small groups were deemphasized in the movement Wesley started?

             The Methodist movement in its early days was sweeping not only England, but the United States.  In the late 1800s there were some decisions made within the Methodist church that defused that.  One was they said the major way into the church was not the small group setting but the worship event.  The second thing was they began to encourage seminary education for pastors.  Basically it said to people there was only so far they could go in ministry if they didn’t have that seminary education, whereas earlier Wesley raised people up from the ranks of common folks ministering.  As they were anointed they went further and further up. 

             I think that probably marks the point where it ceased to be a movement and became an organization, so it was an issue of control.  Maybe some of the spiritual dynamics were dying out because they weren’t seeing the things happening in the smaller groups that the revival initiated.  So folks weren’t coming and they just assumed it was okay to go with the larger church setting.

             Please contrast membership with friendship.

             Both of those relate to how people see their connections.  Generally when you’re in a large event, you come for the purpose of viewing.  The relationship you have with people there is simply that you are members with them to watch what’s going on.  In the book I use the illustration that you go to a theatre to watch a movie.  You don’t go to know the person next to you.  In discipleship you come together to be a friend, to invest in one another, to know each other’s life, to give yourself to one another. 

             How can a home group encourage obedience?

             The means of obedience for us as believers is the Holy Spirit within us.  The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a sanctifying work in us that transforms our will to choose for God consistently and passionately, but that experience needs to be coupled with a commitment to relational Christianity.  In those group settings, we pray for one another when we’re struggling with a problem or are accountable to one another when there’s an issue of sin in our life.  That kind of openness and vulnerability is a means by which the Holy Spirit can build us up.

             How can anointed leaders avoid becoming a distraction?

             The key for individual anointing is the impartation of that anointing into the greater group.  One of the keys is to find ways in church life where others are encouraged in the ministry and not just encouraged to sit and watch.

             What about some of the traveling ministries such as healing and evangelism ministries?  It’s very possible for that particular type of minister to become almost like a superhero.  How can he move away from that and get the people operating in the gifts themselves?

             One means might be to pray for anointing over the group and encourage the group to pray for one another.  That does not mean he or she doesn’t continue to do the ministry they have to pray for the sick or to evangelize.

             Is it correct to say leaders exist to work themselves out of a job? 

             In many ways.  Obviously there are people who will continually be in greater roles of supervising and encouraging, but I think a true leader of the Kingdom is always looking for someone to raise up and be a leader and rejoices when that person surpasses him in ministry.

             Many churches aspire to turn out disciples, but if it stops there what is missing?

             I began to see there was a vast difference between a disciple and a disciple-maker.  A disciple is one who follows.  A disciple-maker is one who makes more disciples who make more disciples.  If all we’re doing is gathering people as disciples of Jesus who are not reproducing, then the dynamic is growth by addition.  If we’re raising up disciple-makers, it becomes growth by multiplication.        

             If I hadn’t read the back cover of No More Spectators, I would have assumed from your teaching that you practice house church.  Yet Wesleyan Fellowship is a cell church.  What advantages do you see in your particular model and are there things to watch out for as well?

             I wrote the book not so much as to push a particular model but to push the values I think are part of disciple-making Christianity.  What I’m finding is that there are a variety of ways of getting at this. 

             The discipleship model can fit a number of different settings but I would probably say the house church movement is the one setting where it’s probably the fastest growing because of the implications of multiplication.

             In the West we do have large churches.  It may be different from the house church movement in China, but even in the large churches I think there are ways of building in the relational context.  I’m now an associate of a church that probably runs about 600 on a Sunday morning.  We have discipleship/cell groups throughout the church, many of them looking different in the way they do it.  Some are large and some are small.  The key is trying to get these values into the people in terms of raising up other people and investing in leadership.  Part of a cell church should be to give people the freedom, in the cell setting, to discover ministry and the full dynamics of the Kingdom.  It is more than going over a sermon or Bible study, although I think the Bible is part of a cell.  It is Christian living together in ministry. 

             What is the danger in pursuing a particular model of church only because it makes sense?

             A lot of people try to find the model.  To me, the real issue is the values.  You can get a model and do it but not in terms of true disciple-making.  You’re just fulfilling a structure that you see in the Word. 

             Do you believe discipleship-based, relational churches will overtake spectator churches as the predominant model in the foreseeable future?

             I think we’ll see it more and more but I’m not sure we’ll see it like at the level of China where you have the house church movement.  What I find in the younger generation is a great hunger for relational Christianity.  They’re kind of tired of the event-oriented Christianity.  Christianity is still pretty strong in the U.S. in the megachurches, but even in those churches there is a desire to do some level of disciple-making.  I think we’re beginning to see a shift in the United States where a church is not measured by the size of the event, but by the kind of believers it’s producing. 

Read Steve Eastman's review of Mark Nysewander's No More Spectators.