Discipleship As I Envision It – A Natural Part of our Everyday Lives

Discipleship should be part of the DNA of God's church, especially the Church of the Nazarene. The Church of the Nazarene has identified its mission as "Making Christlike Disciples in the Nations." This article expresses discipleship as I envision it, as a natural part of our everyday lives.

Who cares?  Why would anyone care how I envision discipleship? Who am I?  I am nothing more than a servant of God, who has received a vision from God, and is now devoting all his time to the fulfillment of that vision, seeing discipleship become a part of the DNA of God's church, especially the Church of the Nazarene.

First of all, I envision a people who understand that we must do discipleship!  They understand that it isn't enough to get people to church, or to get them to the altar.  We must get them to heaven!  John 15:16 (NIV) says . . . "I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit - fruit that will last."  Our job never was meant to be about evangelism alone.  It was always meant to be about discipleship.  Jesus never intended the two to be separated, but meant them to both be a part of the process of transformation.  In Matthew chapter nine, Jesus instructs His disciples to pray for workers for the harvest field.  Jesus knew then, as we know now, that there is more to working the fields than just bringing in a harvest.  We must also get the harvest to market.  This is discipleship.  We must make sure the harvest (fruit) lasts until market (heaven).

Jesus made clear what His mission was in Luke 19:10 (NIV): "... the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."  Jesus wanted people saved.  We also understand that none of us are really "saved" until we die, because of the chance of backsliding.  We must realize that we aren't fulfilling Jesus' mission just by getting people to pray at an altar.  Jesus Himself said:  "Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven."  (Matthew 7:21, NIV)  We must help people not only learn what obedience to Christ is, but how to be obedient.  In Luke 14 Jesus talks about one who starts to build a tower, but does not finish.  Jesus says this man will be the subject of ridicule.  If we lead someone to the altar to pray, but don't finish the job by discipling him, aren't we like the one who starts the tower, but doesn't finish?

Secondly, I envision people who not only understand why we must do it, but understand what discipleship is and what it leads to.  Matthew 28:19-20 should, by itself, be enough to convince us to disciple people but it doesn't say what we do.  I recently took my car in for some work.  I knew the one waiting on me to be a church-going, professing Christian.  He knew that I had been a pastor, and asked me what I was doing now.  When I told him that I was doing discipleship training, he got a puzzled look on his face and said that he didn't know what that was.  While he wasn't Nazarene, many Nazarenes have similar reactions.  Unfortunately, we don't even have an agreed upon definition of what discipleship is.  Some have defined it as completing one or more classes that are called discipleship classes.  Some have defined it as membership in the church.  Some have just defined it as being Christian.  All of these fall short.  (The idea of a disciple and Christian being the same is fine as long as we aren't calling anyone who comes to the altar and prays a Christian.  A study of the book of Acts reveals four phases of following Christ - believer, disciple, discipler, and leader.  If we only refer to those in the second phase as Christian then a Christian is a disciple.  However, if we un-Biblically treat believer and Christian as the same then not every Christian is a disciple.  See Acts eight and the story of Simon the Sorcerer, then compare him to the people in Acts 11.)

Allow me to offer the following definition of discipleship:  The purposeful, planned (intentional) advancement of a person from where he is into a deeper walk with God.  This definition carries with it several important points.  It is planned.  In other words there are definite spiritual growth goals that we are attempting to help someone attain.  These goals are lifestyle changes.  However, the goal can't merely be lifestyle changes, but ones that are heartfelt and not just ritualistic.  Thus we are helping someone actually change their attitudes and action.  It is also intentional.  We are doing what we do on purpose.  All of discipleship is really intentional.  We might unintentionally or accidentally become an avenue of spiritual formation for someone else, but in discipleship we are intentional in our actions.  Also we must realize that it isn't just  about them building a relationship with us, but that the end result of their relationship with us is a closer walk with our Heavenly Father.

The third thing I envision is that we all understand the thought process that makes discipleship natural.  When it becomes natural this is known as lifestyle discipleship.  To make it natural we need to be ever thinking about five things.  The first is what a discipler is and does.  Simply a discipler is someone who intentionally invests his/her life in another for the purpose of helping that person become a true disciple of Jesus Christ.  The four things that a discipler does are: motivates, instructs, supports and holds accountable.

The second thing we are ever thinking about are the method we can use to disciple and what we must know to use them effectively.  The first of the four traditional methods is known as the formal method.  These are courses specifically designed to teach and practice discipleship principles.  I envision these teachers being more effective disciplers because they know not just what they teach, but why they are teaching it, and the intended results.  The second traditional method is small group discipleship.  This is where discipleship principles are applied in group meetings either where there is no curriculum, or where the curriculum is not designed around discipleship principles.  I envision this as being more effective when groups know their purpose for existing, know the principles that they are helping each other with, and know how to be disciplers to one another.  The third traditional method is mentoring.  Mentoring is a discipleship tool which is informal, intentional and an intense relationship between two people.  I envision this as being more effective when the goals of discipleship and principles of being a discipler are better understood by the mentors.  The fourth traditional method is informal.  Informal discipleship is intentional but occurs outside of a classroom or any formal discipling relationship.  I would envision this being more effective as we know those we are discipling and understand spiritual disciplines better.  I would envision all four of these methods being used more effectively as we understand discipleship better and make it a natural part of our lives.

The third thing we are ever thinking about are the goals and objective objectives of discipleship.  Space does not permit an extensive discussion, so I will just repeat what I said earlier that these goals must be lifestyle changes and the objectives help them to be heartfelt instead of just mechanical.

The fourth thing we must be thinking about is where our students are spiritually.  Many shrink back from evaluating spiritual growth because of the mistaken thought that this amounts to judging, which is forbidden by scripture.  However, a closer reading of Matthew 7:1-2 indicates that we are simply to be careful about the criteria that we use.  Even if this were an admonition against judging, spiritual evaluations are not casting final judgment.  They are simply helping us be able to set a course.  You can't get to where you're going if you don't know where you are.  If we are thinking about where our students are then we can help them get where they need to be.

The fifth and final item we must always be thinking about to make our discipleship natural is what resources are available to us.  Much is available to us in North America depending on the methodology and discipleship goals we choose.  This is not the case, however, for every language group.  The greatest resource we have is God's Word itself.  If we learn the Bible, not only what it says but what it means, we have the only essential tool to do effective discipleship we will need.

So far we have envisioned a people who know why we do discipleship, who understand what discipleship is and who understand how to do it naturally.  The fourth thing about discipleship that I envision is a people who understand how the enemy works against us.  I firmly believe that Satan really doesn't care if I go to church or even if I go to the altar.  However, what he does care about is my spiritual growth.  He doesn't want me to be an impact on anyone's life.  Thus, it is spiritual growth more than anything else that raises Satan's ire and causes him to attack.  We need to understand his purposes, methods, and goals for attack so we can be prepared for them.

In addition to knowing how the enemy will attack we need to prepare a response.  Of course one of Satan's biggest strategies is to draw new believers away from God.  Thus, we as the church need to be prepared to intervene on their behalf.  Not only should this be done with strategic prayer, but we also must develop an intervention plan to help them win a battle they are not yet ready to fight.  Jesus, in Matthew 13, tells us the three main reasons that new believers fall away from God.  They are: they don't understand; they have no root; and they get caught up in the worries of life or deceitfulness of wealth.  Our intervention plan needs to have strategies to deal with all of these crucial areas.

I also envision us developing a strategy whereby we equip followers of Christ to fight Satan on their own (with Christ's help of course, but not necessarily the church's).  This plan would have to involve: teaching them that victory is possible and how to achieve it; teach them to acknowledge the existence of Satan and be aware of his purposes, strategies, methods and timing; help them get deeper into the Word; help them to become filled with the Spirit; help them to discover their life mission; teach them to take the advice of those who have fought the enemy and won.  If we are going to be successful at discipleship, I envision that we will have to be successful at spiritual warfare.

The fifth and final thing I envision is that we will understand our role and the church's role in discipleship.  Discipleship and evangelism are meant to be a part of the same process (transforming someone from an unbeliever to someone who will make it to heaven).  That being true, discipleship, like evangelism, is a duty of all who follow Christ - in some way or another.  So we can't say discipleship is the responsibility of the church and not mine individually.  Matthew 28:19-20 holds no exclusions.  However, the church does play a role.  It plays the role of leadership.  Leadership here would mean: proclaiming the vision for discipleship; setting up an action plan to teach the vision; recruiting the right people in the right places; and working to keep and equip these workers.  The church also should be the one to choose and teach the lifestyle objectives and goals it wishes to emphasize.  The church's role includes evaluating what its people are doing to see if it is effective.  The church also needs to provide the organizational structure that facilitates accountability.

Discipleship as I envision it would become as natural as breathing, people becoming disciplers instead of just the curriculum.  Oh God, may it be so!