http://root48.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/discipleship-the-big-issues/
As I finish my weekly checklist of Christian activities, I often wonder if any of it made me look more like Jesus. I connect with a small group, serve with a ministry team, attend a Sunday service, and maintain personal devotion time - all of this helps me learn and grow, but I sense the need for a comprehensive plan whereby I, and others around me, become better disciples of Jesus. It kind of feels like church structures are hoping that discipleship just happens on its own somewhere in the immersion of church activities.
We need a plan. We have to do more than hope discipleship happens. No commission from Jesus was more clear than to make disciples. Discipleship is the most fundamental unit of the Kingdom of Jesus - if we cannot reproduce a disciple, we cannot do anything else for the Kingdom. With a plethora of activities and the absence of planning, I fear our lives will do little more than wander in the direction of Jesus, never reaching the destination he intends.
Over the course of this week, I will post a daily blog on well known discipleship models. I invite you to explore, evaluate, and recreate these models by posting your comments as we work together toward a discipleship plan for our churches. I recommend subscribing to email updates to stay up on the latest posts.
Here are a few overarching questions/observations for you to comment on and get us started.
- Do we need a Model? It sounds rather holy when people say that all we need is Jesus, all we need is love, or all we need is the Bible. However, I believe that stewardship of the resources and goals Jesus has proscribed to us requires an intentional plan, and therefore in all probability, a structure/model to maintain that intentionality.
- Can one Model work for Everyone? In other words, should a church focus their efforts on one discipleship plan or an open a buffet line of options? I’m personally leaning toward one focused plan within any given church, yet we also have to find a way to foster creativity and flexibility so as not to suck the life out of it. We also have to question here whether a standard curriculum/workbook helps or hurts us.
- Can Discipleship be Measured? It is going to get really frustrating if we have no way to measure progress toward the end destination, but I’m still not sure how. I’d like to think that we can focus life in Jesus toward three-five key directions, and then establish mile-markers of maturity in each of those directions.
- Action Orientation. No questions here, just statement. For too long we have assumed that learning more will translate to doing more. Any discipleship plan that educates more than activates is worthless. Faith is something you act on more than think on.
Keywords: Church, Discipleship, Ecclesiology, Education, Jesus, Obedience
Comments
I agree that intentionality is very important. I like to think of discipleship as a special kind of friendship - a friendship rooted in a common purpose - or intention - an intention centred on learning how to live Christ's way.
I have used curricula and workbooks in the past. Now I feel that the make-or-break factors in any approach lie in the maturity of the mentor, the quality and mutuality of the friendship, and the hunger of the mentee. That middle factor is especially key where you're doing peer-to-peer discipling. There is something very special about discipling of a younger person by an older person and it is hard to miss in Jesus' "model" that his own seniority was a significant part of the dynamic - even if Peter sometimes forgot it.
Naturally, people are sometimes uncertain about the extent to which a pastor or mentor or disciple-maker should seek to emulate Jesus' pattern because, after all, he is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Word made Flesh. As mentors or disciplers we shouldn't ape that kind of seniority should we!
However when Jesus commissioned the twelve to teach others "everything that I taught you" I don't think it was just syllabus content he had in mind - hence the footwashing!Doesn't that say something about process - that we should love each other in the same kind of way he loved us?! That's about process isn't it?!
I have also been struck that signally fruitful disciple-makers in history whom I have admired were very unembarassed in teaching their people to "Be naked in your imitation of Christ and the Apostles." I'm thinking of people like Aidan, Columba and John Wesley in particular. (I think that's an Aidan quote.)
Curriculum-centred approaches can inadvertently send the signal that maturity is about knowledge and that discipleship is passing knowledge on. However, as James reminds us in his letter, the wisdom from above shows itself in our relationships with others, and in how we respond to others and to the circumstances and challenges of life. To transmit such things requires a sharing of lives and an attitude that places the life-sharing process more centre-stage.
In my little netowrk - Jesus Generation - one of the tools of life-sharing which we use is to INCLUDE others, believers and non-believers alike, in the normal day-to-day stuff of our lives. For men in particular meaningful conversation happens far more naturally when we're doing something else. I try to include others in my gardening/landscaping at home, in my bushwalking, in my decorating, in my hospitality at home, in my exercise regime - and even from time to time in my shopping. The last three guys who have come to faith through the agency of my input have come through that kind of inclusion. Paul speaks to some of his mentees about the fact that his apostolic team had shared with them "our very lives" in the transmission of the Gospel way in, I think it was, Thessalonica. In one place he says "You know how we lived while we were among you." I think that is essential in any friendship rooted in the common cause of discipleship.
In terms of measuring, for me personally, the way of INCLUDING has been the most fruitful avenue of bringing new people to faith. In terms of evaluating a model in the context of a big church, I guess if you have a small-group infrastructure, your small group leaders will feed on to you if that kind of fruit is being seen.
I strongly agree with you, Brian, that achieving education rather than activation has been one of the pitfalls of evangelical approaches in the past. However the change of a person's character will often show itself when the individual or group comes under some kind of pressure or when the person or group faces some kind of crisis. Other fruit will be entirely secret, known only to Heaven - in the way of Matthew 6 etc. This makes assessing difficult.
This reemphasises the need for us to be diligent at the other end of the process - the start - identifying disciple-makers with good character (however many or few that may be) and the stability of purpose to work with the uncertainty of a more organic, Jesus-style process.
I say uncertainty because, is it my imagination or is there a hint of relief in Jesus' voice when he prays in John 17, "I have not lost any of those you gave me..." ?!