I was interviewed today about discipleship. A local pastor is working on his masters with an emphasis on church leadership. My contribution was related to church discipleship. He asked me for a definition of discipleship. Mine was pretty unoriginal and definitely lacked the "wow" factor I think he was fishing for. I like to think of it as simple but elegant. Discipleship is the process of growing to be like Christ. I am glad he didn't push too hard because I probably would have changed it if he had asked me again.
It was a fun interview and I felt honored to contribute. As he closed the interview he asked me a final question that got my brain stirring (no easy task for me). He asked what advice I would give an emerging (young was what he meant after asking for clarification) regarding discipleship. After thinking for only a moment I thought of three words of advice.
So to you YOUNG pastors (of which I use to be one but apparently am no longer--I'm not bitter), here is some advice from a SEASONED pastor now. Take it for what its worth.
1. Don't assume your church is making disciples.
Most churches I have had the honor to be associated with would never say their weakest area is discipleship. In their evaluation, discipleship is one of the strongest areas and the weakest is almost always outreach or evangelism. They have what they would evaluate as great Sunday School classes. And most of the time they are great because they have withstood the test of time or a teacher has been at it since Jesus walked the earth. There seems to be little concern as to whether the people in that class are world changers or sacrificial in their lifestyle or passionate about the things of God. Longevity breeds greatness for some. And yet there is an obvious disconnect to me. If we are so great at discipleship in our church, why aren't we producing any new ones?! Why aren't people drawn to the disciples anymore? Why were people so attracted to Jesus and so not attracted to me? Are we really producing disciples or do we have a comfortable system in which we feel spiritually grown up?
2. Define discipleship from God's word not some church product made by Zondervan.
I guess each church has to define discipleship for itself and I suspect all of our definitions will be quite similar. I am not qualified to be able to write a complete definition here (you saw my stab at it above)! So let me provide some probing questions. What do disciples of Jesus look like, what would our characteristics be? What do we read in the New Testament that is absent in the post-Pentecost era of the church? I am concerned about the absences in me compared to what I see in the New Testament disciples. Where is faith? Where is sacrifice? Where is radical obedience? Where is the evangelistic component that characterized the New Testament disciples?
What a great thing to discuss with your church leadership! I see it going something like this--call the board together and ask three questions: What is discipleship? Are we accomplishing it? What should we as a church be doing differently?
3. Create systems that produce what you intend.
Every church has a system in place to disciple their people. Most people have no idea as to whether or not it works and some might even struggle to define the system. Don't neglect this! If it is broken, this cannot be ignored. Create a system that accomplishes how you define discipleship. The system is organized and organic; it is structured and alive. But you must change the system to get different results.
At the church I pastor, our system is pretty simple (and still quite new). It is all about connecting people and is illustrated with three circles. We want people to connect to God, circle 1. We want people to connect to each other, circle 2. We want people to connect to the greater community, circle 3. So the dashboard indicators I want as the pastor/leader of our church is how many people are we moving through these stages or circles as we call them? If our numbers are increasing in these three stages then we believe we are doing discipleship well. If not, we have work to do.
So now we are tweaking curriculum and venues to fit all three stages of our discipleship process. We are designing curriculum that will meet different needs of disciples. Sunday morning is a strong focus for the first one, connecting people to God. Our Sunday school and small groups are the main thrust for stage 2, connecting people to each other. And stage 3, connecting people to the greater community is expressed through celebrate recovery and other outreach oriented programs. It is not a perfect system but it is one we have all bought into and are trying.
One more thing to keep the pot stirred. I get nervous when everyone in our discipleship system is at the same stage. I am uncomfortable with classes filled with gray heads that have been together forever. I get nervous when people seeking are not mixed in with those who claimed to have found. When discipleship becomes exclusive it becomes legalistic. When discipleship becomes exclusive we cease to have the community necessary to look at how we are doing.
Well if you have read this far, you are truly a church geek. Welcome to the fellowship! It feels good to get it out of me.
I think we need less emphasis on outreach programs and more emphasis on discipleship, but discipleship that works. We have outreach problems because we have a discipleship problem. Did the disciples of the New Testament ever have to discuss how to get more people to come their meetings? Are you kidding me? They were the star attraction. Transformation took place under their teaching. Love, grace and mercy were introduced to humanity. They were contagious, scary and comforting all at once! We don't need a change in methods unless we first have a change of heart.
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