BLOG: 10.15.12. “DISCIPLESHIP: NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT”
Christian faith and Christian discipleship are not a spectator sport. There is an expectation implicit in Christ’s calling of each of us that we will be active participants in his mission. As the New Testament documents (Paul in particular) teaches us that we are to be “imitators of God as dear children.” We are to be renewed in knowledge after the image of him who created us. We are to wear the helmet of salvation, which means that we are to be formed by the word of God, so that the word of Christ dwells richly in the community of Christ’s followers, so much so that they are all able to teach and admonish one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs (Col. 3).
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When I asked, in my last Blog, the question: whose responsibility is disciple-making? The answer has to be extrapolated, actually. The New Testament church did not have clergy. There was no “ministers of word and sacrament,” or resident priesthood. But what is clear is that the risen Lord did, indeed, give gifts to the community so that every member would be: “equipped for ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, until all attained the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4).
Without any explanation, Paul says the Lord gave four gifts for this purpose—all of them necessary to accomplish this maturity: apostle, prophet, evangelist, and teaching-shepherd. He doesn’t tell us whether these gifts belong to separate persons, or can be combined in one person, but what he does says is that they are all necessary.
Somehow we have lost this. Every believer needs to be equipped in his or her participation in the missionary work of Christ’s church. Every home is to be a potential church-plant. Someone in the community has to mentor new believers into this calling. This is the function of the gift of apostle.
Every believer needs to be equipped to discern the social, cultural, realistic, every-day, political, economic, environmental, etc. context of his or her life. This is the necessary function of the gift of prophet. Every believer needs to be mentored into how to engage in wholesome, listening, and fruitful conversation with his or her colleagues, friends, working-associates, etc. who are still those outside of the family of God. This is the necessity of the evangelist, i.e., of someone to walk with us into this ministry (it’s not learned in a classroom!). And then, every believer needs to be formed by the word of Christ, the word of God. This is not just an intellectual exercise, and hence the composite gift of teaching-shepherd.
In the pattern of the church we have inherited, we have something called: “church professionals” or clergy, or priesthood. I’m one of those though I think it is probably a subversion of Christ’s design. But since we have them, I will insist that disciple-making is at the very heart of their (our) responsibility. But unless we pastors are deeply engaged in dialogue with those to whom and with whom we are making disciples, it all becomes hollow. The teaching forum, the pulpit, of the church should be always a rich and informed and profound engagement with the word of God. God’s people should be shepherded through an understanding of the Biblical story. But this becomes unreal unless that same teacher spends significant time engaged with the lives of those who are his/her responsibility.
One of the most fruitful times of my own career was when a group of 8-10 good friends insisted that they wanted to do Bible study with me, and I only agreed if they would study my sermon text with me. They did. They helped me. They were my severest critics and best encouragers. They felt ownership in my sermons. All four of these gifts were exercised in that smaller group. I learned this lesson from my own mentors, models for me such as John Stott and Bob Munger. I commend it.
