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Discipleship ... the 'new' way!




I have been fascinated recently at the increase in attention given to what I have always taken/assumed to be the fundamental purpose of the ministry of the Church ... discipleship. In a recent article I read of five changes that the author believes the Church need to make.
  1. From Reaching to Making
  2. From Teaching to Modeling (from Leading to being Led)
  3. From Attending to Participating
  4. From Connecting to Transforming
  5. From Attracting to Deploying
An article that is worth reflecting on to see what changes could be made to any current practice.
At the same time I was somewhat amused by the initial comment ... "God is doing a new thing with Christians around the world and it’s finally coming to the United States. Of course, it’s not really a new thing, its actually an old thing. It’s called “making disciples.” A very godly man said to me recently "God is always doing the same thing differently!" So how is good doing this today?
 
I have been pondering this recently as I have been putting together materials to kick start what we trust will be a useful springboard to nurture the disciples life - called Engaged Discipleship ... this is of crucial importance to us as a missional organisation as I believe that we can only make disciples if we are disciples ourselves, committed to the process of growing in our own discipleship. There is little point sending people around the world to make disciples if those same people are not committed to the process themselves - and that includes me.
 
There are no end of resources, many of them excellent ... books, websites, media, courses, etc. I feel the missing link in many cases is the western pre-occupation with accomplishing things, completing a course, reading a book, ticking off another Conference to add to my growing CV - which misses the heartbeat of discipleship.
 
Here are my thoughts about the basic principles of discipleship - have I missed anything? Let me know what you think.
 
What is discipleship?
  • It is a deliberate lifestyle, not a course to complete.
  • It is not intended that we merely learn about Jesus. It really means that he is the curriculum for the course. What we see in Jesus is what we are to become. It is infectious – what we learn we are to be passing on, from the very beginning.
  • It is a change of behaviour as we encourage one another to act like Jesus.
John Stott sums it up as a call to be different from the world around us.

I'm looking forward to seeing how these trends to take discipleship seriously will affect the body of Christ - being missional is not simply about inspiring people to engage, it is about equipping them for the long haul, to enable them to be overcomers in this world, not giving up at the first hurdle they encounter.
 
The world needs a Church full of people like this ... full of disciples. 
Press on ...
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