Discipleship Is NOT a Dirty Word

Years ago I taught Discipling 101 in an Assemblies of God church in Florida. My incentive came from a book I read called Evangelism Explosion by D.James Kennedy and a deep conviction that God's intention was for us to make disciples of all nations. We spent countless hours memorizing verses, going door-to-door talking to people, handing out tracts on the Miracle Strip while all the while we told people of our conversions to Christianity through the work of Jesus Christ. Our boldness was enlarged and we found ourselves meeting 5 times a week, talking about the work God was doing in us.

This behavior eventually led to me being asked to leave the Assemblies of God church and so I continued to meet with those that would do so in my living room each night. At first there were only two of us. It seems the boldness of the Holy Spirit was growing until there were 30 or more of us that filled that living room as often as we could. We intently studied the Word of God in subject studies, word studies, and reading through the Bible. We bought concordances, Vines dictionaries, interlinear Bibles, study Bibles, books by old revival authors and especially books about discipleship and the ways of the early church.

In 2008 my wife, children and I moved to Tennessee to be a part of another church (Rose Creek Village) that had been on the quest for living the life of God as disciples also. Their passion and goal in life mirrored mine in being a disciple and doing the work of making disciples of all nations. It amazes me how parallel our lives in Christ were but then it only makes sense in another, since we were intent upon the same things Christ was intent upon. Today we are taking the lives God has given us and sharing His life around the world. But, we've only just begun.

I was delighted to read this article by J. Lee Grady (compliments of Andrew Strom's Ministry) and wanted to share it since it is so much of my heart about where we are with churches today. Take a few minutes and think about where you are in your walk with Christ.

Is your walk the same as His walk? 

Does it model the walk of the disciples, Paul or Barnabas? 

Do you make it a habit to talk about Jesus Christ and God in your home?

Do you talk to your friends or neighbors about God?

Do your friends and neighbors now you are a Christian and what you believe?

Does you life look anything like the members of the first century church? If not, why? 

What is stopping you from doing what was the most natural thing to do in the first century church?

Discipleship Is NOT a Dirty Word -J. Lee Grady. Reprinted from Charisma Magazine

I get funny looks from some charismatic Christians when I tell them I believe God is calling us back to radical discipleship. Those in the over-50 crowd-people who lived through the charismatic movement of the 1970s-are likely to have a bad taste in their mouths when it comes to the dreaded "D word."

That´s because the so-called Discipleship Movement (also known as the Shepherding Movement) turned a vital biblical principle into a weapon and abused people with it. Churches that embraced the warped doctrines of shepherding required believers to get permission from their pastors before they bought cars, got pregnant or moved to a new city. Immature leaders became dictators, church members became their loyal minions, and the Holy Spirit´s fire was snuffed out because of a pervasive spirit of control.

I don´t ever want to live through that again. I know countless people who are still licking their wounds from the spiritual abuse they suffered while attending hyper-controlling churches in the 1970s and `80s. Some of them still cannot trust a pastor today; others walked away from God because leaders misused their authority- all in the name of "discipleship."

Yet I´m still convinced that relational discipleship-a strategy Jesus and the apostle Paul modeled for us-is as vital as ever. If anything the pendulum has now swung dangerously in the opposite direction. In today´s free-wheeling, come-as-you-are, pick-what-you-want, whatever-floats-your-boat Christianity, we make no demands and enforce no standards. We´re just happy to get warm rumps in seats. As long as people file in and out of the pews and we do the Sunday drill, we think we´ve accomplished something.

But Jesus did not command us to go therefore and attract crowds. He called us to make disciples (see Matt. 28:19), and that cannot be done exclusively in once-a-week meetings, no matter how many times the preacher can get the people to shout or wave handkerchiefs. If we don´t take immature Christians through a discipleship process (which is best done in small groups or one- on-one gatherings), people will end up in a perpetual state of immaturity.

David Kinnaman, author of the excellent book unChristian, articulated the problem this way: "Most people in America, when they are exposed to the Christian faith, are not being transformed. They take one step into the door, and the journey ends. They are not being allowed, encouraged, or equipped to love or to think like Christ. Yet in many ways a focus on spiritual formation fits what a new generation is really seeking. Transformation is a process, a journey, not a one-time decision."

Reclaiming this process of discipleship is going to require a total overhaul of how we do church. Do we really want to produce mature disciples who have the character of Jesus and are able to do His works? Or are we content with shallow believers and shallow faith?

A friend of mine had to face this question while he was pastoring in Florida. As a young father, he had a habit of putting his infant son in a car seat and driving him around his neighborhood at night in order to lull him to sleep. Once during this ritual the Holy Spirit spoke to this pastor rather bluntly. He said: "This is what you are doing in your church. You are just driving babies around."

My friend came under conviction. He realized he had fallen into the trap of entertaining his congregation with events and programs, even though the people were not growing spiritually. He was actually content to keep them in infancy. As long as they filled their seats each Sunday, and paid their tithes, he was happy. Yet no one was growing, and they certainly were not producing fruit by reaching others for Christ.

How can we make this paradigm shift in to discipleship? How can we add "the D word" back into our vocabulary?

• Churches must stop exclusively focusing on big events and get people involved in small groups, where personal ministry can take place.
• We must stop treating people like numbers and get back to valuing relationships.
• Leaders must reject the celebrity preacher model and start investing their lives in individuals.

When we stand before Christ and He evaluates our ministries, He will not be asking us how many people sat in our pews, watched our TV programs, gave in our telethons or filled out response cards.

He is not going to evaluate us based on how many people fell under the power of God or how many healings we counted in each service. He will ask how many faithful disciples we made. I pray we will make this our priority.