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...