I’ve been stuck thinking and reading about discipleship in the last few weeks. I picked back up “The Complete Book of Discipleship” by Bill Hull and became energized to finish reading it as it looks to be a great gem in helping me make discipleship my ministry and not just a part or a program.

He asks a great question in the book that is worth asking the blogosphere, “Does the gospel we preach produce disciples or does it produce consumers of religious goods and services?” I afraid that to many times in to many churches we are producing “Christians” (I use the term loosely) that are just consumers who think discipleship is for Elders, Pastors and Leaders or “Super Christians” but not for them. And the only one to blame is us: Elders, Pastors and Leaders of the church for not making disciples that take serious the call to follow Jesus as a lifestyle that changes us and transforms us into the image of Jesus. Hull goes on to make a few lists of characteristics of biblical disciples (pg. 46-47) that I think are a great base for us to start looking at our ministries and evaluate whether or not we are producing these kinds of disciples.

Characteristics of a Faith That Embraces Discipleship
-A faith that embraces discipleship is only real when we actively obey it.
-A faith that embraces discipleship is defined historically by people who took action.
-A faith that embraces discipleship distinguishes itself from mere agreement or intellectual assent with demonstrated proof.
-Jesus distinguished a faith that embraces discipleship as thoughtful obedience instead of religious words.

Personal Characteristics of Disciples
-A disciple abides in Christ through the Word and prayer (John 15:7).
-A disciple bears much fruit (John 15:8).
-A disciple responds to God’s love with obedience (John 15: 9-10).
-A disciple possesses joy (John 15:11).
-A disciple loves as Christ loves (John 15:12-13)

Personal Competencies of Disciples
-A disciple submits to a teacher who teaches him or her how to follow Jesus.
-A disciple learns Jesus’ words.
-A disciple learns Jesus way of ministry.
-A disciple imitates Jesus’ life and character.
-A disciple finds and teaches other disciples for Jesus.

Just so food for thought. So what are your thoughts?

As I finish up my thoughts about how the church (as a whole) and specifically in my ministries have not given the importance due to training and equipping church members to do the work God has prepared for us and them to do in advance (Eph 2:10 & 4:11-12) there is something we can do about it.

First off there is now quick fix for this, it’s going to take time and energy looking at your ministry (whole church, youth, children’s, first impressions, small groups, etc.) and seeing what needs to be done and then planning it out.

Giving training and equipping the importance that it is due requires…

-Making the big ask. For the most part people are not going to line up at your office door waiting to sign up to be a volunteer in you ministry. They are actually dying on the inside waiting for you to ask, they’ve been told they were created for a purpose yet we never give them ways to fulfill that purpose in or outside the church.

-Ask what are their passions and gifts. A great place to start when placing them in ways to serve.

-Give them a list of places to serve.

-Give them Spiritual Gifts analysis and the Strength Finders test, or your personal favorite. This helps to make sure people are serving in a way that suits their giftedness. Too many times we place warm bodies in whole that might end up being square peg in a round whole.

-Spend time putting together what the position entails, expectations, and training material into a manual of some sort. You can’t pull this stuff from other churches or organizations, you have to spend time putting this together yourself for your specific ministry environment and church culture.

Above all you have to make it your ministry not just a part!

The Whole Series
Part 1 - Equipping?
Part 2 - The Misaligned Focus of Church Leaders
Part 3 - Training and Equipping Lapses
Part 4 - What We Can Do About It

I was having lunch with my friend Drew the other day and he mentioned my post on Counting The Cost - Discipleship and we talked for few minutes about the church (as a whole) dropping the ball when it comes to helping people see the importance of sitting at the feet of Jesus and truly becoming His disciple.

I remember having a conversation a some point with in the last few years with a friend about Western Christianity not having a model of discipleship to draw experience from when scripture talks about disciples in the New Testament. The concept of disciples is not new to the New Testament or first century Palestine for that matter. Plato and Aristotle had disciples. Great Jewish Rabbi’s had disciples Paul mentions being a disciple of Gamaliel, a Rabbi among Rabbi’s. But the modern and post-modern Western church has nothing to base this concept on for application today.

I have been bothered by this lack of discipleship in American churches for sometime. Not really having an mentors or spiritual directors early on in life and ministry (some of that was my fault and some of it not) to help me grow and to direct me or impart the importance of discipling young Christians and helping them grow in their understanding of God. So I’ve begun working through the idea of discipleship, done some research by reading books, blogs, researching churches that are getting it done, talking with friends and have come up with some ideas for how to make it our ministry and not just some aspect of it. And here is where I’ve landed thus far.

It all starts with understanding the need for discipleship:

What is discipleship

Dallas Willard defines and describes it this way, “Discipleships is the relationship I stand into Jesus Christ in order that I might take on His character. As His disciple, I am learning from Him how to live my life in the Kingdom as He would if He were I. The natural outcome is that my behavior is transformed. Increasingly, I routinely and easily do the things He said and did.”

The call for discipleship – Luke 9:23-25

We are all called to follow Jesus. We all need to be disciples, even those of us who are disciplining others.

What are we looking for

Gary Zustiak says, “Mentoring (discipleship) is the process by which an older leader invests his or her life into a younger, emerging leader for the purpose of spiritual character and leadership development in an intensely relational fashion. Mentoring is not an end to itself, rather, it is a process, a means by which followers can be equipped and empowered to develop dynamic lives and ministries that are uniquely theirs.”

Our goal as people wanting to see transformation as a result of discipleship should be focusing on 6 areas to be transformed. -transformed mind
-transformed character
-transformed relationships
-transformed habits
-transformed service
-transformed influence

Being the example – Col. 1: 28-29 & Gal. 4:19, Phil. 3

Jesus primary work with a group of 12 and an even smaller group of 3. But also Paul saw this as his primary function.

In Kevin Greer’s book “Life to Life Discipleship”, he talks through this idea of being the example while looking at Paul in Philippians 3. “A discipleship leader needs to be a Christian whose life is worth emulating. That’s a pretty intimidating concept. None of us are perfect. A good example of this is the Apostle Paul. He writes to the Philippians in vs. 17, telling them to join with others in following his example. This could sound like he is pointing to himself if you didn’t read the entire chapter. In vs. 4-8 he humbles himself before the Lord, (he says that all the stuff he states in vs. 5 & 6 are dung (look at the strong word used to describe his accomplishments). He confesses that he wants nothing more than to know Jesus fully (vs. 9-11). And he admits that he hasn’t arrived yet in knowing Christ, but he will continue to press on in that endeavor (vs. 12-14). None of us are without fault in our relationship to Christ, yet we must continually strive to know Him more and walk daily by His side. As a discipleship mentor we invite those we disciple to follow our examples as we follow Christ.”

We have to model it. If we aren’t sprinkling our time with God into our messages, lessons and conversations they will never know if or what we are learning from God. Wayne Cordeiro, Senior Minister at New Hope Christian Fellowship O’ahu, says that he uses the times he meeting with and discipling others as the time he spends reading his bible, seeking application and praying and in doing so he shows those he meets with how to do it. I designed a few 30 day devotional guides that we encourage our students to use either as a way to get into the word for the first time or their primary study guide. On the back is the model that Wayne uses at his church in Hawaii, S.O.A.P.(Scripture, Observation, Application, Prayer) which turns any passage of scripture into a devotion.

The reality is that until we as leaders start doing it on daily basis those we disciple aren’t going to follow. We have to ask, are deepening ourselves first and giving them something to follow?

Make it intentional

Discipleship isn’t going to happen out of the blue it has to be intentional. Ask yourself this question. What are you doing to intentionally disciple people in your church, young and old? Here are a few different ways to do discipleship. Different Models Work Well For Different People.

-One on One Mentoring
-Small Accountability Groups (no more than 3 or 4)
-Small Groups (no more that 8 to 16)

First thing we have to do is realize that we cannot disciple all the people in your church alone. The primary leader is going to have to spend time recruiting other leaders to help them break down the larger group into manageable smaller groups. Depending on which type(s) of discipleship you choose will depend on how many leaders you need. The primary leader cannot shepard the whole group by themselves and cannot connect with everybody so work hard to recruit a diverse group of leaders.

These leaders will have to be willing to give not just quality time but also quantity of time. They will have to find different ways to connect with those they are discipling. Obviously meeting face to face, but also emails, phone calls, txt messages, maybe a blog where you create community so that who every is posting everyone is commenting and joining in the conversation.

Kevin Greer goes on to tell of a story he has heard used many times and maybe you’ve heard. You go to a really nice restaurant and order the most expensive steak on the menu. Your expectations would be pretty high. Imagine after 45 minutes of anticipation and appetizers your waiter brings out your plate and on it is a 1 inch cube of steak. You complaint would be immediate and adamant. Then the waiter went on to tell you that this bite size morsel of meat is the finest cut. It has been tenderized, marinated, and seasoned to perfection. It may be small, but it is the highest quality steak that money can buy. Quality without quantity is of little value. The truth is that if a person is going to make a serious impact on another person’s life it takes quality and quantity time, which is intentional.

In the end it is leaders deciding to make discipleship a part of the process of what it looks like for a person who is part of their church not a side ministry or sloppily put together program. Time and energy is required to make this a part of your core DNA.

A few books that I’d like to recommend that I’ve found helpful.
-The Complete Book of Discipleship by Bill Hull
-Simple Church by Thom Rainer & Eric Geiger
-Life to Life Discipleship by Kevin Greer

As I sit and think about what the church is supposed to be about, that is… why we exist. I’ve come to realize that we don’t take into consideration what it takes to actually takes to accomplish what we say we should be doing. I used to believe it was lies and half truths when people would say things about reaching lost people, engaging the culture we live in, serving others and so on, but that’s not the case. I come to realize that they are telling the truth, they do want to accomplish these things but they have never counted the cost of what it would take (to barrow the famous line of Larry the Cable Guy) to “get r done”.

Over the next couple of posts I want to look at counting the cost of a few important subjects in the life of a leader, specifically a church leader.

-Counting the Cost of Discipleship
-Counting the Cost of Change
-Counting the Cost of Leadership
-Counting the Cost of Ministry

Discipleship is one of those thing that has not been a big part of “Western Christianity”. We don’t want Christianity to be hard, tough, scary, trying, or to even die for what we believe in. We have worked so hard to build safe communities and schools, workplaces and cars to take us there that to be apart of something that takes away from that seems silly to most people.

It has seemed odd to me in recent years to see all these people (Christians and non-Christians) walk around with crosses around their necks as jewelry pieces. The cross was not a pleasant sight to those who lived during the years of the Roman Empire. It was a sign of death, pain, and suffering all a most unpleasant sight. Yet that is the call given to us by Jesus, “Take up your cross and follow me” Luke 9:23.

That is the cost of discipleship. Dying to self so that Jesus can live all the more in us and work through us. Yet most Christians do not take this seriously and so Jesus gets crowded out after just a short time as the Lord of our life.

Discipleship is such a huge part of what Christianity is. A disciple is one who sits at the feet of a great teacher to learn all they can and in our case all we learn is then supposed to be directly applied to our lives. So then, what does a disciple look like?

-Put yourself at the feet of the teacher daily. This is reading your bible daily (or close to it). We have the most accurate account of Jesus life and God’s work in and among us in the bible. To learn from Him can only happen when we take seriously studying God’s word. I was recently turned on to reading scripture in big chunks at a time for my devotions, and have been working through 5 chapter chunks of Acts this last week. Thanks Chris!

-Listen to what He has to say to you. Scripture is not for knowledge building only so you can answer all the Jeopardy questions right. Scripture is suppose to change us, mold us, shape us and not only these thing but there should be outward signs that you have been with Jesus.

-Focus on Jesus being your Lord and He’ll become your Saviour (I wish I could remember who I heard say that but man is that a great little gem). What would it look like if you made Jesus Lord of your life? How would you act? What would you say? What would be your priorities? All of these are great questions to ask when you are counting the cost of being a disciple of Jesus and if you focus on letting Jesus run your life you will easily see that He is your Saviour.

-Other ideas are things like one on one mentoring groups, small accountability groups, journaling (personal) or maybe blogging (a lot more public) what God is teaching you, it’s actually listening to Godly Leaders in your life (ministers, church elders, small group leaders, and so on) and what they impart to your life, they are given to you to equip you to do good works for the Lord.

I’ve been reading N.T. Wrights book [Simply Christian][1] and I just finished chapter 11, Worship. It’s really interesting that I just listened to a podcast about using Revelation (the last book in the bible) as worship and now he goes into this chapter on worship talking about chapter 5 & 6 of Revelation also. Now I’ve held the view that there is more to end times material (if that is in there beyond the last few chapters) in Revelation but never really been able to put my finger on I, this has helped.

As I read the chapter one huge piece stuck out to me and I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around it since.

“Telling the story (of redemption of man), rehearsing the mighty acts of God: this is near the heart of Christian worship, a point not always fully appreciated in the enthusiastic, free flowing worship common in many circles today. We know God through what He has done in creation, in Israel, and supremely in Jesus, and what He has done in His people and in the world through the Holy Spirit. Christian worship is praise of this God, the one who has done these things. And the place we find the God-given accounts of these events is of course scripture: the Bible.” N.T. Wright, Simply Christian, Ch. 11, Pg. 150

He goes on in the chapter to talk about reading scripture in (you choose the word: service, gathering, big church, little church, home church) your corporate time together. Not just what the preacher is using in his sermon, not some small amount like a verse or two, but reading large clumps of scripture.

Here is where I have been wrapping my mind at how to work that into a gathering of the God’s people that isn’t by nature liturgical. As I was riding in the park with my son in tow in his trailer it came to me (Thanks Holy Spirit). Wright refers a little to it so I can’t take complete credit to it but if you (the preacher) where to select a larger selection of scripture around the central text you are using to read in your time together it could give greater context to what you are preaching (if it’s not expository of course) and add to the validity of what you are trying to get across.

The reason I have been working to get my mind around this idea is because I agree with him that scripture is a great way to worship God and the telling of it corporately shows it’s great importance in worshipping Him and in the lives of God’s people but more over I’ve been trying to figure out where it plays out in a church that is reaching predominantly non-Christians. I’ve heard Mark Batterson say, “That when you reference scripture you gain buy in from Christians, but when you use non-Christian references you gain buy in from non-Christians”. And where I agree with him and that is an extremely helpful point. But where does this play into that?

So I end with this question. Can we use scripture in a way that brings validity to our message and brings a greater picture of the one we are worshiping in our gathering and still be a place that non-Christians feel at home? I hope so.

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