We had our monthly meeting on November 12 with our previously agreed upon topic of "discipleship". Before the meeting I had typed something up to ask a few questions to some Christian brothers that I work with to get a "feel" for what some others thought about this particular topic. I'll begin with the questions I asked them and brought these same questions to the study group to look for similarities and/or differences in our responses.
1. How would you describe a disciple and discipleship?
2. What are the misconceptions about discipleship?
3. Do you feel that the church is being the disciples that the Great Commandment, spoken by our Lord Jesus, tells us to be? If not, where do we fall short?
Using these to "spark" our meeting I was quite interested with the outside answers as well as the answers/thoughts we had within our group. The overriding consensus of the definition of a disciple was a follower, learner, student, etc. That brought up much more questions in the way of a "true" disciple and what it means to be a disciple of Christ. A very good reference was made by Eric in regards to the biblical references to a follower that follows so close as to get the dirt off of the shoes of the "teacher" all over himself. Of course, that leads to the thought of how close you are following as a disciple and the dedication to "become covered" in the dirt of the one that you are following.
We all spoke freely that to be a true disciple of Christ is to be "all in" and following Him by His example and His Word. I am of the opinion, and think Scripture supports, that if a person is a true follower of Christ (Christian) than they also will be a disciple. There are many that will be "professing" Christians, but only in word and not deed, that will never be a true disciple because they
are not a true believer. Disciples are to be growing in knowledge and being conformed (sanctification) and that should be outwardly evident, although some will be faster than others in this growth.
As far as the responsibility of a believer in discipling other it comes down to a couple of things. First of all one must be willing to disciple another. That is not to make someone else be more like us but to help them in the growth of their own walk with Jesus. We all agree that the Church and us as individuals within the church fail at that more times than we succeed. In order to be truly discipling others it involves some personal interaction and "getting dirty" with them. Helping others, especially those new to the faith, in discernment and a growing active knowledge of the revealed Lord and the instructions he has given us. With that being said, discipleship is not a "works" to gain favor and/or to gain some sort of "super-Christian" mindset. That is a common misconception in regards to the amount of discipleship one individual may or may not be active in.
To be discipling others the best example we have of that is our Lord Himself. He gave us the blueprint for helping others to grow in Him. Once again, we can gain a false sense of our own stature in this if we remove the object of who the Great Disciple is and try to replace Him with ourselves. I personally believe this to be one of the issues with discipleship today. A program bent on discipleship can be fine, if the focus is on helping the one being discipled to learn more about Him and not on completing a program or doing some monotonous task.
Discipleship is personal, it is time consuming, and it is hard. That being said, it is sorely missing in today's churches. We are very easy to tell someone once they make a profession of faith that "things won't be easier, they'll be tougher for you" and thank we have done our jobs discipling. We have done a great disservice to a new brother/sister in Christ if we stop there. Individual commitment is needed and that begins with our individual commitment to be disciples ourselves and study the Word of our Lord.
We concluded our meeting by setting a task before ourselves to think of what "we" can do better to help resolve this problem in our own lives and church instead of pointing the fingers outwards.
The topic for next month's meeting will be "Evil".
Meeting to be held at Billy's house in December along with completion of homework assignment given to each of us.
Discipleship is a term I have heard used a lot lately in church and within the SBC. It seems now that there is a greater concern about people leaving the church or those who just seem to fill the pews on Sunday without seeing any growth spiritually. I was born and raised in a Southern Baptist Church and God saved me at age eleven.I must add here for those who think that a certain denomination determines your salvation you have been miss informed. It is the true Church of The Lord Jesus Christ that matters. Jesus said He would build His Church and He knows His sheep. When it came to truely being discipled I can say that I was never taken under another Christian man's wing at the church where I grew up or any other church I attended.If anyone came close to discipling me it was Roger Livingood at Fairfield Baptist. Looking back now at the older generation of christian men who should have been willing to disciple new converts I realize to some extent that they probably did not have a clue and were not taught how important discipleship was and like today as then, there are more women than men who were willing to take responcibility for leadership roles in the church. I believe that the church for the most part began to weaken from within in some of it's core doctrines and beliefs beginning in the 40's and 50's after WWII. Even the Gospel has been compromised by watering it down to make it more attractive and easier to swallow. Anyway, God gave me a desire to know HIM better through His Son Jesus Christ and that desire is still ongoing and exciting today. Since I was never discipled by another Follower of Christ I turned to strong Godly men I came to know and respect through reading their sermons and writtings.Men like Spurgen, Dr. Martyn Loydd Jones, A W Pink,and others that are around today, like John MacArthur, Erwin Lutzer, Paul Washer, Steve Lawson, Albert Mohler and others. They answered the many questions I had about God's Word that I never could get answered at church. These Godly men have been a great inspiration to me. Discipling takes two Believers, one who has a great desire to disciple and the other must have that great desire to be discipled.
ReplyDeleteDiscipleship is a "messy" business. To truly disciple another requires an intimate knowledge of what that other person needs in order to grow. It requires a deep level of trust that develops over an extended period of time. It takes the sacrifice of time, energy, and one's own barriers. The person discipling must open up to the other person and reveal the good and the bad of his own journey -- not just the wisdom gained, but the circumstances surrounding it.
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