Rediscovering Discipleship

Christ's final instructions to His disciples, given right after His resurrection, were to go out and make disciples, baptizing them and teaching them what Jesus had taught them:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Matt 28:18-20 (ESV)

What is discipleship?

So what is discipleship? Well, the word disciple merely means student or follower. That is, the calling is to develop students into followers of Christ (see the related article, Only Born Again?). Thus we see that we are to go into all the nations and train up students, followers of Christ, who will then train up their own students. This is the divine calling, the pattern by which we are commanded to build Christ's church.

And how do we accomplish this? By following the example of Jesus himself. While He walked this planet He selected 12 men, and invested 3-1/2 years in their lives, preparing them to carry on the work He began. They didn't just hear Jesus speak on prayer - they saw Him pray. They didn't just hear sermons on healing and compassion, they saw it lived out. And they didn't just hear about Jesus' anger against the abuses of the religious system - they saw the cleansing of the temple.

Discipleship Today

So how does this play out in real life, in the church today? For the most part it doesn't. We have become so focused on gaining decisions, on getting people to answer an altar call so we can "get them saved", that we have forgotten the call to discipleship. And once we get them saved? Why, they can spend the next 20 years listening to basic sermons geared more towards reaching the lost than helping the saints mature.

And what have we replaced discipleship with? Classes, classes, and more classes. Need to learn to pray better? Let's hold a class. Couples struggling with their marriages, or their finances? Let's hold classes on building stronger marriages, and let's hold a Crown Ministries seminar on finances. And soon we've got a smorgasboard of Wednesday evening classes on a variety of subjects, to help our people with their various issues.

And what about the man struggling with alcohol or drug abuse? Or the woman who was abused as a child? Let's hold recovery classes, where all your problems can be discussed in a caring and supportive environment.

Even preparation for the ministry is done via classes, albeit at the college or seminary level. But it's one of the worst-kept secrets in the world that a seminary education does not prepare one for ministry. Why? Because it's all theory and no practical application. There are no classes in how to deal with stubborn elders who resist change simply because "we've never done it that way before", even if that way is failing. There are no lessons on dealing with Sister Bertha Better-than-You, who say's you'll never measure up to the pastor that was here 20 years ago. And there are no classes in dealing with the pressures on a pastor and his wife to measure up to the most unrealistic expectations imaginable by a bunch of Monday morning quarterbacks who do nothing but sit in the pews on Sunday morning and pop an occasional $10 or $20 in the plate.

What To Do?

So the final question is, what do we do about it? How do we implement a program of discipleship? Well, in theory the answer is simple, although in practice implementing it may be almost impossible in many, if not most, churches. The answer is to do what Jesus said to do - go out and make disciples.

The how is actually very simple. All we have to do is allow our pastors to disciple members of the congregation. Let him invest his time in 4 or 5 men, taking them along on visitation, to meetings, and out into the ministry field. Let these 4 or 5 mean see the nitty-gritty of ministry, where the rubber meets the road.

And then let these men minister, and invest themselves in other men, perpetuating the process. It really is that simple.

What's The Catch?

The catch is twofold. First, we have to give our pastors the time they need to spend with these 4 or 5 men. And second, we have to allow these 4 or 5 men, as well as other mature believers, to pick up the slack. That is, we have to wean ourselves of the mindset that the "work of ministry" is the sole responsibility of paid staff.

We also need to wean ourselves of a mindset that says that all ministry is internal, and that the primary evangelistic function of members of the congregation is to bring non-believers to church so the pastor can preach to them and get them to respond to an altar call.

See why I say true discipleship may be nearly impossible in many churches today? We have an entrenched power structure where the real authority rests almost exclusively with the pastor and/or the board. We also have members that are comfortable sitting in their comfortable pews, feeding an occasional bill into the plate on Sunday mornings, who won't want to be bothered with actually doing something substantial for Christ.

But if we are to be the church of Christ we need to stop treating our faith as a spectator sport. For all too often church is like football:

Fifty-thousand people who need the exercise,
Watching 22 guys who could use the rest.

Let's quit treating Christianity as a spectator sport, resurrect the nearly lost art of disciple-making, and let the church once again be what it needs to be.