Grace Based Discipleship
ChurchTaking a few minutes break from prep. I am teaching an MA course in Christian Leadership at WEST next week. Looking forward to getting with a small group to think about leadership in depth for a whole week. Nearly my definition of a perfect week!
I am just completing some material on developing a discipling mentality rather than an events/teaching mentality in a church. My main contention is:
- That the foundational task of all leadership is to lead people in progress and joy in the Lord (Phil 1, 2 Cor 1)
- The foundation for people making progress and having joy in God is receiving his grace (Rom 5:17)
- Therefore the foundation of all discipleship and spiritual direction is being a companion with people to seek God for his grace in their lives
Talking about grace, rejoicing together in grace and spurring one another on in the Christian life is normal Christian living. Regularly asking "what is God doing in your life at the moment?" is the key discipleship question. Regularly being concerned for the joy of the Lord in each others' lives is the foundational expression of Christian love and community.
That doesn't sound so very difficult, does it? So why does church life in so many places not actively prioritise these things? Why is it that we assume that people grow in praying, worshipping, sacrifice, godly desire by receiving our upfront teaching programmes? What if they don't? I know people who sit under godly teaching all the time and it doesn't seem to penetrate to the point where it transforms their behaviour.
We need to find ways not only to teach, but also to train, to disciple, and to provide opportunities for living out what is being taught in order for the content of the teaching to have finally been learned and absorbed. Mere teaching can go in one ear and out the other.
So why don't we? I suspect the major answer for many teachers is that we know how to teach and not how to disciple. And our teaching is sufficiently in demand that it requires all our time, so there is no incentive to change the situation. But that way lies church-as-teaching-centre, rather than church-as-discipling-community. I'm not sure I have easy answer for how a church can go from being the first to being the second. Anyone got any thoughts?
Reader Comments (4)
Hi Marcus, This sounds great. Will you be producing any teaching resources which you could make available? (lecture notes, study notes etc). Are any of the sessions open to non-students (snow permitting I live 30/40 mins away from WEST)?
Yours in Christ a pastor who needs to learn what you are going to be teaching!!
Marcus, You are undoubtedly on the right lines. Refreshing. Hopefully the currently wide-spread -- though understandable from a postmodernist angle -- pragmatist approach will eventually peter out. And folk like yourself, Tim Chester and David Jackman will still be around to gently aid some kind of recovery. Noel
Hi Marcus:
I think you're asking the right questions and making the right distinctions. Please allow me to suggest three reasons for our present difficulty in the church.
First, many Evangelicals have shortened the "Gospel of the Kingdom" to mean simply the "Gospel of Going to Heaven When You Die." If Christianity is only about heaven, then discipleship, along with a vibrant community life in Christ, is optional. John the Baptist, Jesus, and Paul each proclaimed the Gospel of the Kingdom. We must restate the gospel!
Second, the North American church adopted the business world's metrics for success. Discipleship and spiritual formation take time, and are not easily seen from the outside. On the other hand, church programs that are measured by the number of participants--or worse, the money raised by those programs--are much easier to "measure." The problem is, we are not using Jesus' measurements for "success."
Finally, as teachers, we have come to believe that if we know something intellectually, we are therefore living it. We have mistaken "knowing" for "being." Teachers, too, need to reevaluate their assessment tools. If a student is capable of answering a question correctly it does not guarantee he/she is capable of living it out. I believe the Biblical teaching model involves a relationship between instructor and student.
Thanks for posting these important questions, Marcus. Blessings!
Amen, amen and amen
I completely agree, Ray. The models we choose determine our outcomes. Increasingly it seems to me that we have picked models that are more dominated by the educational culture of western society than we like to think. Which leads to the lecture-for-rapid-knowledge-transmission approach, rather than the disciple-for-spiritual-growth approach.
On you first point, in the theological circles I tend to move in "over-realised eschatology" is held to be one of the worst sins! However, it leads to an lot of what you describe as the "gospel of going to heaven when you die" and subsequent downplaying of discipleship, community life and the now work of the Holy Spirit. Under-realised eschatology can be just as bad