BLOG 10.18.12: DISCIPLEMAKING WITH A BAND OF OTHERS ON SAME QUEST

Let me continue on with the question I have raised in the past several Blogs: Whose responsibility is the making of disciples? To whom do we look who can say, as did the apostle Paul: “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you”?

We can always be thankful when those who are the church’s leaders, or pastors, or elders who are such persons. But, again, as I suggested in the last Blog, this isn’t always so. The resident clergy can be a wonderful friend, be a very effective institution-keeper, carry out all of the custodial duties that are a part of the traditional pastoral role … and yet not be a disciple maker. He or she can deliver enthusiastic homilies called sermons, which while interesting may also be quite vague in equipping God’s people for their works of ministry. So, when this is the case, what is one to do?

The answer is to find a band of others on a similar quest for faithfulness in discipleship as your self. Actually, this is where disciple making takes place in many (if not most) traditional church institutions: community groups, Bible study groups, intentional classes, or simply covenants made between two or three, or a smaller band of brothers and sisters determined to walk together and be accountable to each other, as well as responsible for each other.

This has always been so.

Even after the huge throng were converted at Pentecost, we find them meeting together in homes and around meals, even sharing possessions … which means that every new convert was in some kind of a context in which he or she was known, i.e., had a name and a face and a story. They were support for each other in learning the apostles’ teachings, in facing the demands and hostilities of their context, of walking the new path of obedience to Jesus Christ in the mission of God.

I am personally persuaded that the primary (and even essential) size of the church must be quite small. The omnipresent “one another” teachings of the New Testament require such intimacy only possible in a small company, i.e., love one another as I have loved you, confess your sins to one another, bear one another’s burdens, etc.

I am familiar with such a group of friends who saw this need among themselves and came together after reading Dallas Willard’s wonderful book: Divine Conspiracy, and invited others to join them in weekly reflection on scripture and then asking each other how that effects daily life. The group has been wonderfully encouraging to the participants.

Globally, the cutting-edge of the church’s growth is in house churches. If you want to read more, try: Jesus and Community, by Gerhard Lohfink, or Houses That Change the World, by Wolfgang Simson, or Life Together, by Dietrich  Bonhoeffer.

I see this need played out frequently when I see two or three folk with their Bibles in one of my favorite coffee shops, sipping the lattes and reading and discussing a text together. Find one or several others on the same quest and walk the path of discipleship together with them. It is absolutely energizing and necessary for our spiritual health.