Tuesday
Dec162003
Rethinking discipleship
Tuesday, December 16, 2003 at 12:43PM
Sometimes I read someone and I want to jump out and shout "Yes!" I was trying to express something like this (from Alan Creech) the other week:
For instance; if I am beginning to question my views of what the evangelical term "discipleship" means, I had better not have an answer too terribly ready at hand to trump any other one which might overshadow it. I need to bust it wide open and say, "I don't know what discipleship means and I'm not even sure that's what it should be called." We need to step out on the cliff's edge and open ourselves to definitions that we may have never heard before - ones that even outright contradict what we used to believe concerning this area. So, to question something - to re-visit it's meaning - we MUST be ready to feel the pain of perhaps finding out we have been horribly wrong for 37 years, and admit that what we believed and taught may have actually harmed people. If we are not ready to lay down like that, we do not want the Truth.
Reader Comments (9)
No doubt. For something as basic as "making disciples", most of our churches have done a pretty poor job of doing so. Why? Being a disciple requires real sacrifice, and I think you have to be a disciple to make a disciple. It's a double whammy. I think "discipleship" is way more than a program, and as such there is no quick-fix approach to becoming a disciplemaking church. Just gotta do it!
agree - plain and simple - agree!
Easier to break windows than fix them though...
Trish: HUH?
I'm guessing she means it's easier to complain that we're doing something wrong than to actually take steps to do it right. Though I may be misunderstanding. :) With that understanding, I would say: You can't fix the window if you're focusing on the mini-blinds.
we've been reading, mulling over and beginning to try and look at disciple-making though a lens that Dallas Willard has been writing about in Spirit of the Disciplines, Divine Conspiracy and Renovation of the Heart ( John Ortberg, Brian McLaren and others have popularized some of Willard's thinking in recent books ). I hear you asking similar questions to what we were asking 18-24 months ago ( still are ) so ... ask on!
This is what gets me! We have been using buzzwords like "discipleship" and "small groups" for years but haven't seen much disciplemaking happen. In this sense, the church has changed very little. My forefathers were wrapped up in debates over eschatology... for what? And then we debated the charistmatic movement... for what? More recently, women in leadership... for what? Not that discussion of these issues hasn't been interesting and mildly helpful, but our penchant for debate and discussion has distracted us from actually doing something, no?
So stop talking, start doing.
I've found that doing without talking doesn't work too well. How about talking and doing at the same time? It doesn't hurt to talk about a better model of discipleship as long as we're not just talking.