How Not to Fix the Discipleship Problem

The following article was written by Chuck Lawless, who is Dean of Doctoral Studies and Vice-President of Spiritual Formation and Ministry Centers at Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

He has authored several books, including Discipled Warriors, Putting on the Armor, Mentor, and Nobodies for Jesus, and was pastor of two churches in Ohio for 14 years.

He writes; Church revitalization is a big deal today – as it should be. One reason we talk about this topic, though, is the church’s failure to produce disciples. When the church fails to disciple, the result is baby believers who never grow (even though they may be placed in leadership positions). Stagnation results, and revitalization is in order.

That being said, here are some ways not to fix this discipleship problem.

Get angry with church leaders for not being disciples.

It’s easy to do. Get frustrated at church folks and wonder how they ever achieved the position they now hold. Your frustration is likely valid, but here’s the issue: you may have inherited the problem. Somebody else gave these leaders their positions without questioning their discipleship. So, they’ve come to this place honestly – and deserve our guidance, not our frustration.

Focus only on content transfer.

If discipleship is only about completing workbooks and classes, church members can do that on their own. Knowledge, while critical, does not itself make a disciple.

Discipleship requires content + application + accountability. It requires life-on-life fellowship that must be intentional.

Neglect evangelism in the process.

This is one of my concerns for the young generation of leaders who have recognized this discipleship problem: they are so committed to fixing this omission that they risk neglecting evangelism. If you don’t evangelize until you have the church in order, you’ll never evangelize.

Assume small group attendance + worship attendance = discipleship. 

Apart from Christian community under the teaching and preaching of the Word, of course, full discipleship does not occur. All of us know people, though, who are faithful to both activities but not really following Jesus. We need more intentionality – accountability through small groups and mentoring – to make disciples.

Plant a church in order to avoid the problem.

I fear too many young leaders move into church planting simply to avoid the issues of the established church.

They assume they can put a discipleship strategy in their DNA and never face an undiscipled congregation. It’s never that easy, though. Even church plants struggle with maintaining a strong discipleship strategy.

Avoid mentoring because it’s too complicated and slow.

Mentoring is work. It can get messy because you’re dealing with human beings. On the other hand, we can name biblical examples of those who took this approach. Moses and Joshua. Jethro and Moses. Naomi and Ruth. Elijah and Elisha. Jesus and His disciples. Paul and Timothy. Even the seemingly best discipleship programs are lacking if mentoring is not a part.

Expect everyone else to be a disciplemaker. 

If you want your church to be a disciplemaking church, you cannot stand on the sideline and cheer for others to do it. Your church’s discipleship approach can be stronger today if you choose to invest yourself in 2-3 other believers.

Focus on the growth of others only.  

Leaders who themselves stopped growing don’t worry much about discipleship. Those who don’t regularly pray and read the Word seldom challenge others to do so. Those who no longer fight sin don’t stand in the battle beside others.

If an honest assessment shows you’re not growing in Christ, your attempts to help others won’t last long.

Don’t train parents to be disciplemakers. 

The primary disciplers in the home ought to be parents. Our churches are to come alongside, support, and train them, but parents must take the lead. When we don’t challenge them or train them to do so, our disciplemaking strategy will be lacking.  

Obviously, these “bad” fixes help reveal some positive approaches to dealing with the discipleship problem. Build a strategy of mentoring, small groups, and corporate worship. Include structured accountability. Teach content, but do life-on-life. Never stop evangelizing in the process. And, leaders, keep growing while you invest yourself in somebody today.

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Spiramentum Ministries can help create breathing space in people’s everyday, busy lives and ministries. 

Utilising Natural Character Development,  a discipleship resource that can assist in clarifying where they are at in their Christian journey, it can help in setting a better course for your life, and enable you to experience life in all its fullness.

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

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Intentional Discipleship

Over the past few months I’ve been thinking alot about the importance of discipleship – Not the kind of discipleship that we have become accustomed to in the Western Church.

Which sees the vast majority of Christ followers today as “church-members, pew fillers, hymn-singers, sermon tasters, Bible readers, even born again believers or Spirit-filled charismatics – but not true disciples of Jesus.”

The above assertion of a Christ follower comes from David Watson’s book ‘Discipleship’ and in many ways is more indicative of what Kyle Idleman would constitute as a fan in his book ‘Not a Fan: What does it mean to really follow Jesus?‘

You see, Kyle goes on to unpack the truth that “Jesus wants more from His believers than church attendance, occasional prayer, and the ability to recite Scripture.”

He asserts that Jesus is actually looking for people who are willing to sacrifice, in order to follow Him. People who are prepared to accept the call of discipleship as a way of life, not just a significant decision point in time and leave it at that.

Kyle then goes on to explain that there is a big difference between making a decision to believe in Jesus and making a commitment to follow Him. Tragically many churches have become fan factories, as “they have separated the message of ‘believe’ from the message of ‘follow’.”

In our approach to discipleship “we spend much of our time and effort bringing people to a point of belief without clearly calling them to follow. We have taken ‘believe’ and we have written that in capital letters with bold print: BELIEVE. But everything that has to do with following has been put in small print: follow.”

Now this is something that Jesus identified during His time doing ministry on earth (refer to John 6). Not long after feeding the five thousand and walking on water, Jesus starts getting to the nitty gritty of what it means to believe in Him wholeheartedly, and how they (His followers) can attain true spiritual life, referring to Himself as the ‘Bread of Life‘.

Now for many of the disciples that were following Him, this teaching was way too hard to understand and offended them, and “after this, many of his disciples left. They no longer wanted to be associated with him.” John 6:66 (The Message)

The disciples quit! They abandoned Him, turning their backs they deserted Him, walking away from His teaching and going back to their previous lives.

To me I get the sense that when the going got tough these guys bailed. Sounds more like a bunch of casual fans to me than true followers.

Jesus then asks a pertinent question of the ‘Twelve’ disciples “Do you also want to leave?” to which Peter responds by acknowledging that Jesus “[alone] has the words of eternal life [He is their only hope]. We have believed and confidently trusted, and [even more] we have come to know [by personal observation and experience] that Jesus is the Holy One of God [the Christ, the Son of the living God].” John 6:68-69 (Amplified Bible)

They had come to know by not only believing, but also by following. They had connected “the message of ‘believe’ with the message of ‘follow’.” They had connected the dots. Not only did they believe in Jesus as the Christ, they made a commitment to continue following Him. Their intention was to be more than just fans, they were committed followers, true disciples.

The challenge that we have today as Dave Mann writes is that “Discipleship is a topic that is often talked about but rarely practiced.

Most assume that believers are discipled through their involvement in the local Church.

They think discipleship is ‘incidental’ as opposed to ‘intentional’.

To a certain extent believers are discipled through sermons and other such programs, however those who desire to disciple people effectively, and who then allow themselves to observe and assess the effectiveness of their discipleship in peoples lives in the years that follow, will soon realise that this is not the case.

Discipleship needs to be INTENTIONAL if it is to be truly effective.

Discipleship can utilise programs (we need platforms for meeting), but it cannot be merely ‘structured’. It must always have an ‘organic’ element to it – being relational, flexible, and Spirit-led.”

He goes on to write that “We can’t just ‘program’ discipleship – it takes real effort“.

If we’re truly honest with ourselves this is where we seem to have got it wrong – we have programatised discipleship (among other things like; evangelism, mission, service, bible study and prayer etc.)

Unfortunately, across many denominations the world over we seem to have minimalized discipleship to a course or programme to complete.

People then get the warped idea or sense that once they have completed said course or programme then they’ve arrived, they’ve become a disciple.

In our search to seek a better understanding of our faith and what it means to be a disciple we have compartmentalised everything so much so that we have lost sight of how they are all interconnected and integral to one another.

For too many of us, our faith in Jesus Christ is more akin to being an occasional football fan, where we sometimes watch the game (weekly service) in-person or even on a screen, and perhaps we may even buy a shirt or some other paraphernalia to show our allegiance but that’s as far as our discipleship goes.

To be a disciple is so much more than what we have made it.

It should be our life’s purpose and our motivation to be transformed into His likeness, as it is tantamount to our identity in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour.

But if someone was to look at us would they see a disciple of Christ, or something else entirely?

If we don’t go to the next level and start working on our character ‘intentionally‘ to bring about change we miss the point. Transformation has to start becoming evident in our lives for Christ to be seen in us.

Dallas Willard in his book ‘Renovation of the Heart’, offers another helpful definition for discipleship; “It is a consciously chosen and sustained relationship of interaction between the Lord and his apprentice, in which the apprentice is able to do, and routinely does, what he or she knows to be right before God.” Oh that we would become more like Jesus!

You see, discipleship occurs when we answer Jesus’ command in John 13:15 to live and do what He has done; “I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you.” (New Living Translation)

Therefore, we need to live out our discipleship more intensely and more intentionally.

It is not enough just to believe in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, we have to continually live our lives doing what He would have us do so that we can become more and more like Him.

We need to constantly assess and work on our individual character flaws so that we become an example of a true disciple, and proper follower, not just a fan.

Living as a faithful disciple helps us to strengthen the bonds of our union with the Lord, our unity with one another and involves continually growing in our faith.

This allows His light to shine in and through us and then in turn people will be able to clearly see Him in the way that we live our lives.

So what resources and tools do you use to enable you to focus on your Character Development?

Do you know your spiritual gifts? Have you explored your Spirituality Style, the way that you are wired so that you can connect with God more effectively? Have you unpacked the expressions of the Fruit of the Spirit that are evident in your life and what you could work on so that you can be more loving?

This is where Natural Character Development & Spiramentum Ministries can help, as it can assist you in setting a better course for your life, and enable you to experience life in all its fullness.

FYI – Last year I wrote a series of posts about the Importance of Discipleship which you can review starting here.

You can also check out these other two posts The Importance of Discipleship in Everyday Life and “Is your Discipleship Strategy Effective?”

Blessings ’til next time 🙂

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