BLOG 8/12/15. GREAT FEEDBACK QUESTION: WHO MAKES DISCIPLES?

I love it when some of you guys feed me back comments or questions. I got one this week asking for some specifics on how the church should make disciples. That question raises a whole plethora of other questions, … plus there is no one-size-fits-all answer to it. Let’s start with goals, or purpose in one’s discipleship. I’m intrigued that the geniuses in Silicon Valley are passionate about clear goals, and focused on the customer. That may be a good clue to us.

First of all, the very term church can get us off track if it is conceived as an impersonal assembly in which we are passive observers of religious rites. The church is a community of those called out to incarnate the thrilling news (gospel) of God’s design to make all things new in and through Christ. The New Testament doesn’t give us any instructions of exactly what form that takes, and that is because it has to be versatile and flexible according to its particular context. But we do get a couple of dimensions demonstrated in the example of Jesus, and then his disciples. Jesus, first of all, did in fact do a lot of teaching to large audiences, such as the Sermon on the Mount. So larger assemblies in which the teachings of Christ and the Scriptures are clearly propounded were also practiced after Pentecost, then by Paul at Ephesus, and elsewhere. It is always a great gift when there is a skilled teacher who can assist us in understanding the riches and depths of God’s word. That communication of clear understanding of the meaning of Christ and his calling is one component of disciple-making. That makes disciple-making, on one hand, a communal learning process.

But then, secondly, what do we do with that teaching? How do we process it, and how do we learn to put it into practice in our particular lives? The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews chastises his readers that when they should be teachers of others, that they were still in need of being taught first principles themselves. He seems to put to burden on each person who has embraced faith in Christ. Jesus would teach that it was those who had his teachings and practiced them who were his true disciples, who build their houses on the rock, and he seems to make that the responsibility of each hearer. There is a huge host of believers globally who have become fruitful disciples by engaging in a study of Christ’s (Biblical) teachings and seeking to put them into practice without any encouragement from outside, simply because there isn’t any such.

There is an often hidden component here that speaks to the comment of my reader: the church is most basically that small unit (like: “If two of you agree … where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” Matthew 18:20). This doesn’t take extensive scheduling or organization. It can be several guys around coffee fitted into busy schedules. It can be dinner table conversations. But it is always that set of relationships in which we can genuinely be responsible to and for each other. It is where we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It is where we share our journey into discipleship together with a wholesome dimension of intimacy. Such relationships are incredibly durable. I am still accountable to and responsible for those dear friends whom I have not lived near for many years, … but our mutual accountability to encourage each other is as strong as ever. My sense is that this cannot easily be organized by an administrator, nor should it be. It is one believer finding another. Jesus chose twelve out of the much larger group of his followers. Jeff Bezos of Amazon says that the effective planning/working group in his company must be able to be fed on two pizzas. That’s probably a good rule of the thumb. In such group we teach and admonish each other. We are mutual disciple-makers. We can both rebuke, instruct, encourage and pray for one another knowledgeably. A “two-pizza” working group of disciples with their Bibles, with the teachings of Christ, processing their lives together and with a sense of responsibility for each other is where the church makes disciples most effectively, … and where we can laugh and cry unashamedly.