The Missing Link of Discipleship

Here is my latest in the AFA Journal: 

Years ago in the Wall Street Journal, Martin Marty wrote an article on evangelicalism. These were the headlines:

         - An Evangelical Revival is Sweeping the Country, But with Little Effect

         - Shunning the Sinful World

         - Effect Has Been Small

         - Shying From Involvement

    Ouch. I tell my students at the seminary where I teach that “If you make disciples by sitting around and talking, don’t be surprised if your disciples sit around and talk.”

    The truth of the matter is that active service is part and parcel of the discipleship strategy of Jesus and the greatest missing element of modern discipleship.

    We prefer to make disciples in small groups, hunkered over our Bibles and our lattes, asking each other provocative questions about the biblical text. A really good study leader might encourage us to go and apply the truths in our lives this week. But one thing we don’t do – we don’t serve together regularly.

    Do you suppose Jesus, after demonstrating for us His discipleship model, might wonder Why not?

    The gospel of Matthew, the most “rabbinic” of the accounts of Jesus, tells us that Jesus began to call his disciples to Himself (4:18-22). In chapters five through seven comes the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus adds fresh perspective to everything the disciples probably already thought they knew.

    But here’s the problem – in Scripture, the Sermon is not what comes directly after the disciples’ call. This is what follows:

    Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. … people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them (4:23-25).

 This sort of thing happens throughout the Gospels. Jesus calls His disciples together and He teaches them, to be sure. But He does it in the context of touching the untouchables of their culture and asking His disciples to do the same. He teaches them in “Bible study” moments, but He is downloading kingdom content amidst service to the desperate in His community.

    This is so basic a truth, it is astonishing that Sunday school classes, small group Bible studies, families and whole churches miss it. If Jesus made disciples with service, for service, then how can we possibly emulate His method with biblical content minus activity together?

    The problem is particularly acute, I suspect, with our families. God has called us to make disciples – primarily, I feel, with our own children. Two different experts in youth ministry recently interviewed on my radio show cited research indicating that if you want to keep your kids interested in church long after they have left your home, it is essential to serve with them, and not just now and then. “Go do something regularly heroic,” said one researcher, “and bring your kids along.”

    Teaching your children a biblical worldview is important, as so many Christian ministries remind us today. But inculcate that world-view without some kind of concomitant world-do and you might have inadvertently conveyed how irrelevant the Bible and church can be to the prevailing culture.

    One can almost sense the disdain that pours forth from the pen of Luke as he writes of those ready to dismiss the message of Paul: “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas” (Acts 17:21).

    Not choosing. Not doing. But talking. And listening. A sure recipe for discipleship disaster if it ends with an application of mouth and ears but not hands and feet.  Read the rest...

Why we don't make disciples

We have a lot more evangelism numbers in our church statistics than membership growth or, dare we say it? - disciples made. Here's why, I suspect:

1. Our world view is all wrong. "Be holy as I am holy" is not a core conviction.

2. We prefer the things that are "more exciting" - like worship, harvesting tithes, building buildings, getting on the latest trendy movement of evangelicalism.

3. Not intentional enough. We think Sunday school or the regular programming dynamic of the local church will do the trick to transform lives.

4. We read the gospels for many reasons but not to find the methodology of Jesus for changing the world.

5. Hard to brag about discipleship in the statistics manual of district conference.

6. It is hard work.

7. We were not discipled therefore we don't have a clue what is meant by discipleship or how to do it.

8. American society is a time stealer, and discipleship, alas, takes time.

When character is taught...

Will and Ariel Durant once said that before the Grecian Empire died: "There was greater enlightenment than in any time in its history. Education was more widespread, literacy was at an all-time high; but they had long since ceased to teach character; and that's why they died."

Sound like contemporary Western civilization?

Character comes from the Greek charattein which means to engrave. More about that in a moment. Webster has these definitions, among others, for "character": a distinctive trait, behavior typical of a person or group, moral strength.

For the Christian the traits of holiness come to us in premier fashion in the personality and deeds of Jesus. You see them in didactic lists of Scripture like the Beatitudes (Mt. 5:3-12) or Paul's fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). But I have come to think that one of the greatest methods of teaching character to our children is through the stories of Jesus' life.

At random I opened the Gospels a moment ago and fell upon Mark 6. First paragraph on the page was Jesus sending the Twelve out on a mission. Many character qualities could perhaps be inferred, but one of them is certainly this - Jesus was sent, and He is sending. Hence, we should know we have been sent, and are sending...for the glory of God.

Are we?

On that "engraving" thought...the great Shema passage of Deuteronomy 6 has this line: "...teach them diligently to your sons..." Those words "teaching them diligently" in the NIV is "impress." The Hebrew word is shanan. In the Master Plan of Teaching this is how I explain that word:

Shanan..."occurs only nine times in the Old Testament and only once in the intensive stem of the verb called the Piel. That single time is here in these verses. Shanan is normally translated sharpen. But used in the intensive form, as it is here, shanan has a stronger sense. Related etymologically to the Hebrew word for tooth, it could here mean to "incise, or carve into." Essentially, train your children in the law of God so that their lives are permanently and irrevocably marked by its message."

Character is important, and frequently it starts in the family. But it must reverberate everywhere. For character impacts more than our family, it impacts the word. Impress, therefore, the holiness of Jesus on that world around you...today!