I have been in a time of extreme pursuit, for clarity of God’s
plan for our church, Abundant Life Tabernacle, Mansfield, Ohio. I have prayed, searched the Word and looked deep
within my heart to see what God was saying and what I was missing, or even resisting.
I feel like I have heard some things. Some
of them are hard to accept and some are pleasant. I am about to share many of these things during
the next few Sundays (from the time of this writing), but you may or may not
have heard the crux of them by the time of this printing so I want to share a
few things here. What I am sharing today
deals with Discipleship.
One of the missing elements of the modern church, Christianity’s missing link
if you will, is a real focus on discipleship. It's been lost as a focus it seems, for more than 100
years. Remnants remained until about 40 to 50 years ago, but those have mostly
been lost now as well. Sure, we do some discipleship
naturally because of relationships that form within the Body, and that’s great! Discipleship should happen naturally. But in large, it
seems to me that it has been missing from the majority of the Body of Christ for a very long time.
Biblical Discipleship has been so ignored in the modern Church that
few even know what it is now. I recently
saw a study that was done by the Barna Group and published by the Navigators. In the study, a host of things were explored but
the question was also asked, “What is
discipleship?” The researchers found that it was unclear, to much of the
church, what a good definition of Discipleship is. Many disagreed upon the particulars, as we
Christians so often do. It was found
that most in the church didn’t particularly like the term either, preferring “Becoming
Christ-like” or “Spiritual Growth” to the term “Discipleship.” And that’s okay, these are valuable terms,
and the Bible doesn’t particularly use the term “Disipleship”. Still these
terms fall somewhat short of the biblical idea of a disciple. Furthermore, the ‘principle
of Discipleship’ is clearly biblical whether the exact term is found or not. Jesus called followers to himself and then
told them that if they were not willing to forsake everything, they were unfit
to be disciples. Certainly, He’s still looking for people who will put Him
above all else! So, what is discipleship?
I’ve done my own inquiry into the subject and I’ve found
that ‘it seems’ that Abundant Life has a little better understanding on the
subject than most, but then again the Barna Study said that pastors often think
that (lol). Our experience in
understanding Discipleship, in general, has been that most people have
understood it from the perspective of a weekly Bible Class, or a short term class
on Christianity; the art of being Christian, if you will. Another very
good thing, yet it falls short. Some will say that discipleship relates to progress
in their own spiritual growth. Progress in
spiritual growth is always a wonderful thing for a Christian, but it’s about
half of what is Biblical Discipleship. Many people feel that discipleship is
the same as evangelism; preaching and winning the lost to Christ. It can
certainly be argued that it falls within the same category, but I don’t think
they are the same. Discipleship is for already-believers
of the Good News, while evangelism is to reach not-yet-believers with the Good News.
So what is discipleship? The study I’ve mentioned has said
that from the results, “it’s unclear”. However, I think Jesus made it very clear. He
exampled it boldly with His life and then He told His followers to go make other
disciples (Matt. 28:19a), “teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
have commanded you”(Matthew 28:20a). Jesus
took twelve believers into a relationship with Him. He spent time with
them. He ate with them. They did life together! He lived His life pointing consistently
toward the Father. He corrected them, when
they were wrong. He applauded them when
they did well. He held them accountable and
He taught them everything He could possibly teach them in the time they had
together. He doubtless felt sorrow when Peter
denied Him and I’m sure felt sadness when Judas betrayed Him, but He didn’t
reject the remaining disciples. He kept
on loving. He kept on pouring into them
and He believed that they would accomplish even greater things than He had accomplished
in ministry (John 14:11-13). Jesus lived
it, He taught it, and that’s what discipleship looks like.
So, discipleship is not just about my OWN spiritual growth
or just about ME becoming Christ-like. It’s ALSO about helping others do the
same. There is a ‘revival’ of
discipleship beginning to happen in the world. I am excited to see it! I believe that God is taking His church back
to basics in many areas and again I’m glad to see it! There is also a new movement of discipleship
about to happen here at ALT, and I’m thrilled. I am fully in favor of the disappearance of the 'missing link in modern Christianity', or I could say I'm excited for the return of biblical discipleship. Why am I so excited? Discipleship properly links members of the Body to one another, it links our past to our future, and it's a return of biblical doctrine to the modern church. I think we are going there! (Stay
tuned…)
