I’ve got a new piece called “Unintentional Nondiscipleship” up at Wineskins. Check it out. Come back here and leave a comment if you want to discuss further.
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Wow, Wade . . . we’re really tracking on this. I believe you’re speaking for many church leaders (including me) who are struggling with how to actually do Matthew 28:18-20. I applaud your honesty in this piece.
Wade, great thoughts that I can relate to. Dallas Willard refers to “non discipleship” as the elephant in the church.
Have you or any of the readers taken a look at Frazee’s Christian Life Profile? http://www.zondervan.com/Cultures/en-US/Product/ProductDetail.htm?ProdID=com.zondervan.9780310251590&QueryStringSite=Zondervan
If so, I would like to hear from those who’ve tried using it. We’re taking a look at it right now.
Excellent article. I’m going to print it out when I get home and give it a closer read. This is a problem I see in the Brazilian church here in New Jersey. Not that we’ve done it wrong, just that we haven’t done discipleship at all.
The guilt thing about attending meetings really gets me. When I became a believer I WANTED to go to church every time the doors were open. Threats definitely are the wrong approach to increasing attendance. At the same time, I’d like to see more Christians out in the “field” instead of spending hours in meetings at the building.
I wonder how a citizenship approach to discipleship would work. When a few people take on the identity as citizen, as opposed to consumer, they take on responsibility for the formation of whatever it is they are a citizen of.
Citizenship can’t be educated into people from the top down. Amassive citizenship program is not likely to be any different than anything else that doesn’t work.
There are likely non-guilt-induced citizens in every church without any place for their citizenship to be engaged – only their consumerism, which is settling for someone with a citizen spirit.
Wade, I enjoyed this. I’ve read quite a bit of Donald Miller this year, and I have been wondering where God’s magical gas has been. Hope you’re doing well man! We’ll have to drink some tea again dude.
The book Simple Church has a good take on this, I think. The basic idea is to think about your desired result. “We want to move people from point A to B to C.” Then decide on methods, rather than specific programs to do it. Get your “citizens”, as Fajita said, involved at this point, to create some grassroots programming, which will allow them to use that spirit. The key then is to encourage each member to be involved in one program – not all – that hits each point.
It’s all about process. Once you reach point A, you’ll be encouraged to pursue point B, and shown some ways to do so. Try them until you find one that fits. Once your reach point B, you move on to C. In my mind, once you reach the last point, it’s time to start over at a deeper level.
Disclaimer: I’ve not read Purpose-Driven Church, but I have had the baseball analogy & discipleship model explained to me. I’ve recently heard very good things about another book that didn’t get very much notice . . . Servant-Driven Church by Ray Fulenwider.
When the baseball model was explained to me, I patiently waited until the end of the explanation. Then I responded by calmly explaining that I was having a very strong adverse reaction to how regimented it seemed to me and that I didn’t think God’s Spirit moves within us in that way. Sounds like we’re on the same page.
Wade! This is an incredible article!
I have been blessed to be a part of a leadership team that has asked the exact questions that you are surmising about…it was at a retreat, and I wrote a series of narratives about it on my blog called “The Retreat Chronicles”…
On this archive page… http://brianmashburn.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_archive.html … is the one on what you called “the end result we are looking for”. Pan down to “Retreat Chronciles VII”.
And on this one… http://brianmashburn.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_archive.html …is the one on what you called “the environment we want to create, leaving plenty of room for the Holy Spirit to work.” Pan down to “Retreat Chronicles VII”.
I’d love to hear from you on it given the journey God has you on.
God bless!
And on this one
Wade,
We do not know each other but I read your blog from time to time. This one on discipleship caught my eye and I wanted to share my thoughts. I know that running bases is not the answer, and neither is pressuring people to go through yet another process taken from the latest book or conference. Too often we are following trends, and while that is not always a bad thing, I wonder if what we are looking for isn’t right under our noses. I like what you said about vision, and I think that is where we are off base. I am of course, stating the obvious. We do not by and large think in terms of vision unless it concerns how big or successful we want our churches to be, not how deep we want the persons attending those churches to become. To me, when you accomplish the latter, the former is thrown in as well. The rub is that growing people occurs in seasons not weeks, and we’d rather not invest, struggle, or wait. Church “growth” is much easier.
Ken
For a bit over a year, I have been praying “God, surprise me today.” Of course, not asking for negative surprises, but wanting to increase my vision for how God is going to use me that day. Whether it is as simple as asking how someone’s day is going, receiving an unexpected phone call, fortifying a relationship with a perceived non-Christian, or encouraging a fellow Christian. There is not enough room to list all the examples because it is basically infinite. I came out of preaching school with a set of evangelistic studies that I was assigned to prepare. Those have their place, but I have learned in my short 7 year stint of ministry, that God works in our lives in amazing ways that we rarely are “conscience” to notice.
I started impressing this way of looking at things upon the congregation I am blessed to minister to, and some internalized it and see things a bit differently now. It is exciting to see and hear how God works in our lives. I also sub some in the schools, and I have been “surprised” more times than I can count. It is just exciting to see it unfold. However, there is a “Christmas morning” excitement each day as I await what God is going to surprise me with on that particular day!
Enjoyed the article!
Encouragement & Motivation -> jarrodspencer.blogspot.com
I’m not sure if I have the clout to weigh in but I would say that this aspect of growth is hard to have without the fellowship becoming independently passionate about it on their own.
Sermons and encouragement from leadership helps but unless people actually desire this for themselves it’s hard to imagine them growing. Discipleship takes a leader with the willingness to ask someone if they would like to be discipled, and then that Disciple and Discipler working out a method respective to where the Disciplee is in their walk.
One size fits all, obviously doesn’t fit in here.
As a leader in my church I, too, wonder how to propel people into wanting to do this for themselves.
I read books like “The Heavenly Man” where the church body is so passionate they all would jump at the chance to simply read a bible, let alone have a more mature believer spend time intimately helping them grow closer to God.
I kind of have a fatalistic view at this point where in America I think the Passion and Struggle and Persecution of the church exist in such small amounts that as humans we naturally go to what is most comfortable to us which is routine and some form of consumerism.