Rick Bayer, pastor at Grace Point Community Church in Surrey, BC.
Cam Stuart, CCMBC National Director, recently sat down with Rick Bayer, pastor at Grace Point Community Church (Surrey, BC), to talk about what disciple-making is and how Bayer is making changes in his church function to facilitate better disciple-making practices.
Tell us a little about how you got to where you are in your pastoral journey.
I studied at Briercrest, and then went on to pastor as an Associate Pastor in Yorkton, SK, and then up to Melfort, SK. I did a lot of youth roles there and associate roles. I’d seen a lot of programs. I saw the church through that Sunday-centric lens and the programs.
While we were in Melfort, SK [my wife and I] felt a call to plant a church. I think I was influenced by The Purpose Driven Church by Rick Warren, and the conferences he would put on. As well as some others. Expressions like Peter Wagner out of Fuller, “it’s easier to give birth than raise the dead.” So yeah let’s give birth. Let’s start a new church.
Went to church-planting school and all of that. We were looking to plant in either Red Deer or Calgary. We ended up going to Calgary and did a church restart situation. Again, influenced by the church growth movement. Little Cree, Saddleback, Andy Stanley, and others. This idea of drawing a crowd.
So we drew a crowd. And then we tried to get them involved in small groups or one-on-one discipleship. We quickly learned that people see that as optional, that Sunday is the main thing and if I have time or it’s the right season then I’ll get involved in one of these next things.
How would you describe the current state of discipleship/disciple-making in your church?
I think all of us as pastors, we’re very concerned with discipleship and disciple-making. We know what it’s about. We probably preach on the Great Commission at least once a year, if not more. We know it’s very important to go and make disciples. But like I said, we’ve all been influenced by the church growth movement because we have a certain form of church now that exists in North America, as a result of that.
It’s basically all I’ve known in my lifetime for people to come through the doors on Sunday morning and for us to assimilate them into the church. We have events. We have small groups. We have serving opportunities, in order to assimilate people. To bring them along in a funnel. And that’s all we’ve really known the last few decades in North America. And we can’t deny how that has influenced us in terms of how we see disciple-making and discipleship.
The challenge becomes, like in our culture now, we don’t have non-Christians coming through the doors of the church. We don’t have that in our context here for certain, and I’m betting that in most contexts across our country that is also true. The people that generally come through our church doors, that aren’t part of our church community yet, are people who are “church shopping.” That’s not making a disciple-making movement if we’re just trying to appeal to those Christian shoppers.
It’s not enough for us just to attract and keep already Christians. Is what we are currently doing, is it producing people who look like Jesus?
How would you define a healthy disciple-making church?
I would look into the Gospels, the example of Jesus. And so I think of passages that have formed my thinking on this, like Luke 6. Jesus goes up to the mountain to pray, he spends the night in prayer. Then he comes down the mountain and he chooses, amongst the dozens and dozens of disciples, he chooses 12 who will be with him. And then he and those 12 go out and they teach and they set people free and they heal people and live on mission.
Acts 2:42-47, I would summarize it as the “up” life. The church took communion together, they praised God together, they prayed together, and they did life together. They met for teaching and fellowship and then they were on mission. The Lord added to their number daily. There were signs and wonders that happened. I see that balance, when you ask about healthy disciple-making happening, that balance of the “up”, “in”, and “out”. That all three of those components are happening.
What is your congregation doing to shift how you approach disciple-making?
We’re missing what we eventually called “Core groups”, triads or quads, where people can have high accountability and high vulnerability. And then also I thought we’re missing a mid-size gathering. There’s something that happens when we gather in circles, rather than rows.
We are trying to create some space for those things to happen. We have chosen to take our Sunday morning gathering and we have chosen to disperse it, on the occasional Sundays, out into clubhouses rather than meeting at the church. It’s a gathering of 20-50 people and it’s not led by any of the staff.
What are the core things you are after with these groups?
We’re looking to produce greater connection amongst people. The gathering is different than a Sunday morning. It’s participatory. It’s relational building. We’ve designed these clubhouse gatherings as being neighbourhood-based, and so the desire is they will meet people from their neighbourhood.
For example, in the Delta location there’s all sorts of food scarcity issues. Perhaps that’s something that this mid-size gathering of 40-50 people could address in shared mission. At the moment, we’re about a year and a half into this, so still tweaking some things, but we’re creating some of those relational connections. People know each other, expect to see each other and then we can go on mission together. That’s a lot easier to do when you’re from the same neighbourhood.
What’s gone well and what are the failure points that you have learned from?
Attendance-wise, it’s gone pretty good. We’re happy with that in terms of 70 percent [of the congregation participating] and we’re working on the remaining 30 percent. We take a hit in terms of our offering those weeks of course. But that’s okay. We’re not going to let the dollars determine things.
We now do a meal at each of our gatherings, it’s a potluck. We didn’t do that initially and I wish we would have done that to start. So that’s been a good thing.
One of the other things we haven’t done that well is communicating the “why” behind things. I’m one who instinctively kind of knows the why. I’m good to go. Other people are like, “Hmm I’m not sure”. So we’ve learned we’ve got to keep casting and recasting the vision of why we are doing this.
When you think about the future for Gracepoint Community Church, what are the things you want to focus on?
I think in terms of equipping [the congregation] and believing in them. Saying, “you can do it” and then trying it and continuing to walk with them and work that leadership square with them.
Also to keep the disciple-making in front of people because it’s easy to get lost in what else is going on. To say, “We like what’s happening Sunday and it’s good. But there’s a far bigger vision here.”
