The Lost Art of Discipleship
by Jon Peacock
True Disciples is what the Church needs. True Disciples within and outside of the Church is what brings optimism to a bleak picture of the power and future of the Church. If discipleship serves as the ancient method of spiritual movement within God’s people then this poses a problem.
Currently the American Church does anything but excel within discipleship. We, as the American Church struggle to raise up True Disciples, and in my opinion this seems to have become a lost art. Sure, we love to see people cross the line of faith, but then what? What happens then? Do we teach people how to hear the voice of God, how to commune deeply with the Father, how to engage scripture? Do we model this to them? And then do we teach our communities of faith the horizontal focus, of taking what we have received from God and paying it forward, the art of reproducing ourselves into the lives of others? Is the western Church currently doing this? Well, unfortunately the answer for the most part is no. According to Barna’s latest research, along with scholars such as John Stott we are below average at best in raising up true disciples.
Last week I met a friend who is currently the most influential singer/song writer and church planter in South Africa, who happens to be in his late 20’s. He and I spent a couple of days together and discussed the condition of the Church and the future of it as well, both here in North America and on the continent of Africa. It struck me that our conversation continually came back to the center point of the cross, the intersection of the vertical and horizontal beam of Grace and Freedom; discipleship. My guess is that I don’t need to convince us that discipleship is a must in the Church now and in the future, I guess my concern is why we are not hearing more stories of success within discipleship.
Perhaps as pastors we’re too busy for this, or we’d prefer operating at a level to where we don’t regularly connect with the students in our ministries. I fully understand leadership realities, but we need to wrestle with some of the barriers that are preventing the resurgence of discipleship. Greg Ogden, author of Transforming Disciples states “the irony is that in our attempt to reach the masses through mass means we fail to train people the masses could emulate”.
As pastors of students and I’d like us to consider what type of students we’re sending from our ministries, The reality is we are all in the export business whether we like it or not. This thought continues to help me focus on the big picture and supplies my dreams for ministry growth to not overshadow my dreams and vision for what catalyzes spiritual transformation, we have to return to the patterns that Jesus and the early Church left us with. Just spend some days in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, and realize that Paul and his crew had around 3 months with the people in Thessalonica!
Shift 08 will be a powerful time for us to collaborate with each other as to what stands in our way in regards to regaining and the lost art of Discipleship - from Bo’s consistent vision of mentoring to Kara Powell’s main session teaching on “Deep Ministry in a Shallow World”. I look forward to learning from you and continuing the conversation!
[Jon Peacock is the director of Axis, Willow Creek’s ministry to 20-somethings. Jon will be leading a Cup of Coffee at the Shift 2008 conference entitled “The Mobilization of Missional Students”.]
True Disciples is what the Church needs. True Disciples within and outside of the Church is what brings optimism to a bleak picture of the power and future of the Church. If discipleship serves as the ancient method of spiritual movement within God’s people then this poses a problem.
Currently the American Church does anything but excel within discipleship. We, as the American Church struggle to raise up True Disciples, and in my opinion this seems to have become a lost art. Sure, we love to see people cross the line of faith, but then what? What happens then? Do we teach people how to hear the voice of God, how to commune deeply with the Father, how to engage scripture? Do we model this to them? And then do we teach our communities of faith the horizontal focus, of taking what we have received from God and paying it forward, the art of reproducing ourselves into the lives of others? Is the western Church currently doing this? Well, unfortunately the answer for the most part is no. According to Barna’s latest research, along with scholars such as John Stott we are below average at best in raising up true disciples.
Last week I met a friend who is currently the most influential singer/song writer and church planter in South Africa, who happens to be in his late 20’s. He and I spent a couple of days together and discussed the condition of the Church and the future of it as well, both here in North America and on the continent of Africa. It struck me that our conversation continually came back to the center point of the cross, the intersection of the vertical and horizontal beam of Grace and Freedom; discipleship. My guess is that I don’t need to convince us that discipleship is a must in the Church now and in the future, I guess my concern is why we are not hearing more stories of success within discipleship.
Perhaps as pastors we’re too busy for this, or we’d prefer operating at a level to where we don’t regularly connect with the students in our ministries. I fully understand leadership realities, but we need to wrestle with some of the barriers that are preventing the resurgence of discipleship. Greg Ogden, author of Transforming Disciples states “the irony is that in our attempt to reach the masses through mass means we fail to train people the masses could emulate”.
As pastors of students and I’d like us to consider what type of students we’re sending from our ministries, The reality is we are all in the export business whether we like it or not. This thought continues to help me focus on the big picture and supplies my dreams for ministry growth to not overshadow my dreams and vision for what catalyzes spiritual transformation, we have to return to the patterns that Jesus and the early Church left us with. Just spend some days in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, and realize that Paul and his crew had around 3 months with the people in Thessalonica!
Shift 08 will be a powerful time for us to collaborate with each other as to what stands in our way in regards to regaining and the lost art of Discipleship - from Bo’s consistent vision of mentoring to Kara Powell’s main session teaching on “Deep Ministry in a Shallow World”. I look forward to learning from you and continuing the conversation!
[Jon Peacock is the director of Axis, Willow Creek’s ministry to 20-somethings. Jon will be leading a Cup of Coffee at the Shift 2008 conference entitled “The Mobilization of Missional Students”.]
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1 Comments:
Great comments. Right on the nose. There are several issues. 1. Few if any Christian organizations even have discipleship listed as a function. Greg Ogden is unusual and actually writes and talks about growth in Christ. 2. When all ministries are led by folks whose primary gifts are outreach then rearing the babies and kids into adults will be unknown. 3. Many of the "Pastors" have no long term experience themselves so how can they lead converts to places they have never visited themselves? Kids having kids and raising kids leads to eternal childhood of the church.4. As long as the church is enamored with "talking heads" as a means of discipleship nothing will change.
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