TEACHING ON DISCIPLESHIP – August 2, 2001

What is discipleship? We hear that word and have pre-conceived notions about what it means if we are Christians who have been in the church for a while. I think mainly, we think of a class or a program of some sort that we go through - and then we're discipled. We learn this specific set of truths, show that we have learned them, and we are there.

Well, I'm not sure that's really how it works. I think it's more a process - a long process - than that. It is the process of helping someone to "grow up" in Christ - to find out who God has created them to be. It's about transformation, not necessarily education, although that is a part of the process.

I have a friend who worked in College ministry a few years back. He worked with and built a relationship with one student over a 3 year period - spending time together in many ways - basically pouring his life into this student. After the 3 years one day the student went to another campus minister, my friend found out, and he asked if he would "disciple" him because he'd never been discipled.

...huuuh???

I think this was a matter of a certain set of ideas that was in his head about what it meant to be discipled. Most likely, as with many of us, he thought of it in more of a programatic way than in a relational way - unfortunate. He had been discipled for 3 years!

It happens just as it happened with Jesus and His "disciples" - through relationship. They spent a good chunk of their lives together - working, eating, talking, playing together, etc. There was no programmed system that He took them through - He gave His life to them - He lived His life with them, and they absorbed that. That's how it works now as well - we live together in community as members of the same body, the same family, and the Jesus in me rubs off on you, and vice-versa.

SCRIPTURE:

Ephesians 4:15-16 – "Rather, living the truth in love, we should grow in every way into Him who is the head, Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by each supporting ligament, with the proper functioning of each part, brings about the body's growth and builds itself up in love."

So how does growth happen? Through our being poperly functional parts of the body - ALL of us. When this happens - this holistic community life - it brings about the body's growth. Conversely, if we aren't all properly functioning, we don't properly grow - it's that simple. We "live the truth in love" and as we are doing that, we are being nourished - we grow up "into Him... Christ."

All of us - not just a couple of us. NEWS FLASH! - the proper discipling of the community of faith does not happen merely as a result of preaching!!! We can't count on the function of one part to support and nourish all the others - it doesn't work that way. It was never designed to work that way. That's simply our false cultural notion of how things work in the church. Of course, that teaching, pastoring, leadership function is important and vital - but it isn't ALL. Those of us who are leaders need to hear that more than anyone I think. Pastors aren't the be all and end all of the body's growth process - Wow!

All that said - it's important that we understand as a body what this process involves so that as we are going through it, we aren't ignorant of what is happening - that as we are simply "being Christians" - living as members of the body, of the community - being who we were created to be as we discover that - that this brings about growth in the whole body. We need to be able to recognize the the gift that we are being given as it is being given so we can use it.