Discipleship
Questions
There may currently not be a more important topic to give our attention to than discipling God’s people, to seeing them transformed in thought and action into the likeness of the Jesus of the gospels. Discipleship occupied the full attention of Jesus when he was giving his final words/instructions prior to his resurrection, so should it occupy ours – “Go into all the world and make disciples …” This is our new creation mandate; it is personal and it is missional.
Discipling is being spoken of by many: pastors/leaders are thinking of ways to implement it, conferences are being crafted around the topic, and church-growth-think is focussing on it, books are being written addressing it - there is a lot of attentive activity, which is a good thing.
But is it enough? Is it thorough enough? Could it become just another faddish emphasis? And do we really know what we are talking about when we speak of discipling?
More to the point, do we know how to do it, what conditions discipling thrives under, and what conditions it doesn’t?
Do we know who should be doing it?
Do current Western church structures/programs accommodate or encourage it, or even allow for it?
What do we need to do, to change, to ensure the great commission doesn’t end as the great omission, like cuttings on an editing floor, while we continue our merry way, oblivious to its foundational importance?
Observations and Suggestions
The goal of discipleship – teaching people to obey all that Jesus commanded – is not easily accomplished in the Western church. This is due to its structures, its leadership styles, assumptions, and practices – our spiritual setting, and the inherent self-orientation of the West – our sociological setting.
Discipleship is proven to be most effective in smaller groups of mutual learning and accountability. This is difficult to accomplish in large gatherings – not entirely impossible, but certainly much more difficult. This is due of the lack of both transparency and accountability; a crowd can’t accomplish these functions. A crowd can listen and learn about Jesus but becoming more like Jesus requires close personal supervision and interaction. Jesus preached to the crowds, but never gave himself to them being aware of their fickleness. He discipled those he chose, the twelve - it was these men that turned the world upside down. Remembering that disciples often come out of crowds.
Spiritual formation is gaining traction – which is helpful and essential, but it suffers one major flaw. It is about personal attention/development given to the spiritual disciplines of prayer, reading of scripture, fasting, meditation, etc. It is about me, my better self, not us, much less the world. Spiritual formation is not the same as discipling which requires more than individual growth. Discipleship requires the growth found in a group dynamic as per the early disciples with accountability. It is striking that Jesus never practiced (as a means) one-on-one discipling. It was always in groups – with the 3, the 12, the 70, etc. He spoke to a few individuals, but those conversations were not how he accomplished the bulk of his discipleship. Being discipled in a group holds the group members to a standard of growth and change. Being discipled alone doesn’t and can’t do this; we learn better in groups.
Individual spiritual formation is self-focused, even if for essentially good reasons. It is about the development of the interior life whereas discipleship includes the exterior life – how we relate to others in a Christlike fashion and mission. We do need to develop interior spiritual congruence, but that is not the prime goal of discipling, which is to be more like Jesus in thought and deed. The focus on an interior spiritual life has the danger of self-absorption, or worse, a privatized faith. Another problem with spiritual formation is that it takes a disciplined person and not all people who are discipleship material have personal skills, such as self-motivation - at least, not initially. The better context for the development of spiritual growth is in community. The gospels and the letters speak to and ratify this, as does church history.
The necessity of a healthy accountability – to those around us and to those who teach us – is vital in the process of becoming more like Jesus. This can’t be accomplished so easily one-on-one, where the self that needs transforming is not under any spotlight that keeps it humble and accountable. This can‘t realistically be done at a distance, where the ‘everyday-you’ can’t be seen and challenged. Programs and self-chosen mentors aren’t enough even if they are better than nothing.
Jesus is the only teacher – we are all disciples. We are to lead people to Jesus and his commands and not to ourselves and our ideals. Paul would have none of this, which he showed when correcting the Corinthians who had become sectarian. Only Jesus had twelve – none of his disciples had their own twelve, as far as we know. We aren’t discipling people to ourselves but to Jesus. We should not be creating little sycophants, little carbon copies of ourselves. A full and rich follower of Jesus looks more like Jesus and less like their mentor, teacher, or pastor.
It has been discovered that young men (in particular) who enter ministry have the common trait of narcissism. This being so many young leaders are entering ministry with significant and unexposed character flaws that, unless challenged, will always hobble the best of intentions – to their chagrin and the harm of God’s church. Time, pressure, and in some cases, fame will surface these issues.
Jesus spent significant time re-orienting, correcting, rebuking, and reframing the disciples. He did this much more than teaching ministry skills – which were picked up, and don’t relate to Christlikeness of character. Ministry training, of whatever kind, should focus less on the acquisition of knowledge than on the development of sustainable Christlike characteristics. The teaching model so prevalent in the church today wasn’t utilized in the early centuries of the church’s growth and development. They discipled; we inform.
The Western church is drowning in a sea that focuses on the charismatically inclined individual. Their fruit may last a season, but their demise or departure often destroys their work, it being found wanting – straw and stubble. What they do doesn’t last beyond their tenure. The NT demands/standards of leadership are almost entirely character-based; hardly a word is spoken about how gifted or not a person is or needs to be. When Paul was giving structure to the nascent congregations, he either planted or was involved with, he listed the traits of reasonable, mature, well-regarded people from within the church and without.
It takes a certain humility to allow or want to be discipled. It is not the same as learning ministry skills.
A person cannot be easily discipled by someone who doesn’t know them. This is the point of community being the basis for progress in becoming more like Jesus – something practiced by Jesus and the early church. A mentor may help, a pastor may comfort and guide, but a person who disciples is more inclined to look like a cross between a father and a surgeon. They will love without sentimentality, are committed but not impressed, kind but not weak, addressing besetting sins and flaws without condemning or berating a person. Fathers are few – instructors, many.
These observations of what stands before us as the Western church aren’t definitive but give us food for thought. We didn’t look at the material of discipleship, which is largely in the teachings of Jesus, specifically in the Gospel of Matthew which is the discipleship manual for the church. We didn’t prescribe how to rearrange a church to focus on discipleship rather than a drive of relevance and appeal, etc. That needs to be thrashed out at a local level.
But I think we would all agree that the topic is vital for the maturation and continuity of a healthy church, a church that displays the nature and character of Jesus – the crucified and resurrected one. To be like him, and to show him to the world, is the goal, the telos, the reason.