Discipleship questions
Dan has a good post with some questions on discipleship inspired by/from the book Simple Church:
I am going to take a shot at answering them here, for me. I haven't read the book, so this is just my honest from-the-heart response with where I am right now. Maybe in a few years I'll think differently. Feel free to answer them, too - either as a comment on Dan's blog, or on your own blog (hint, hint, C.H.! :o), linking back to Dan when you do.
1. What is a disciple? ("A disciple is someone who ____, ____, ____, etc.")
A disciple is someone who "follows Jesus". But that's too easy. A disciple is someone who gives themselves to Christ and by so doing tries to learn more of what God wants for us and to help in His plans. Not to gain salvation through works, but because of gratitude about grace and from that the excitement and enthusiasm that arises to help spread that gift to all.
2. How do we, as a church, get this to happen? (How did it happen in your life - how did you become a disciple?)
[Sorry, Dan - I am probably going to disappoint you on this one.]
You can't. That's the Spirit's job. There is absolutely nothing that any church did to bring me back in the fold. I came back, then I decided to join a church. Individual Christians from all kinds of churches and denominations, in the form of friends and family, plus some well-placed books and movies that crossed my path (thanks, Spirit!) did all that. And I don't participate in any of the various programs at church because if their content is like that of Sunday School Bible study I just wouldn't get anything out of it. All those things reek too much of the stupid school exercises we all hated growing up - "Read a chapter and then get together and talk about it. What was the theme? What were the main points? Can you name three colors that portrayed different parts of the story?" Let's sit in a circle and "rap", shall we? No thanks.
The absolute best religious discussions I've ever had were with friends, individually, one-on-one (and gasp! a few times over drinks!). Because then you can really get in there and get to the heart of things. You can get angry, pushy, argumentative, and since you're friends you know you'll still be friends when it's over, so it's safe to "discuss" it in that way. Because it's important, dammit, and things that are important rarely reach amiable consensus through a bunch of head-nodding and "Me, too's!"
Church can be a lot of things - it can be the dinner party (oh - if only it were a party!) that gathers a bunch of people together for fellowship. It can be a force to be reckoned with in bettering the community and the world. It can be a support network for people in need, the sick, and those who are called to go out and spread the Word. It can be 10, 100 or 1,000 voices lifted in worship and praise. What it cannot be, IMHO, is very effective at discipleship, because at least for me that is really an individual path where everyone is on it at different points.
3. How do the programs and things our church does contribute to these things taking place?
See #2. It seems to me "programs" are completely off the mark. Please point to me where Jesus or Paul talks about a 12-week program. You can't. They always talked about relationships. Period. The industrialization of spiritual growth with study guides, workbooks and schedules is an oxymoron. Mentoring seems a much better way to think of it, but you can't even force that on people. If you look at your own life you've always found your own mentors (and they, you). You can't just assign mentors to people any more than you can assign friends (since they end up being the same thing). At various points on my spiritual path my grandparents have been spiritual role models if not mentors, and my friends Jim and Mark have been spiritual mentors, and I dare say I count Dan as a part-time, unpaid long-distance one now.
I can think of NO ONE at my current church, in a program or out of it (but especially in it) with whom I would bring up the topics I discuss here on this blog. And even if those topics came up in discussion, I wouldn't be as blunt and honest about my thoughts, because then people would cough and shuffle their feet and look away, or get upset, or have some pat answer that'd just piss me off and then I'd get upset. Don't tell me they wouldn't - when I try, they do.
4. Changes we might need to consider?
Get out of the way and trust the Spirit to do His job. Enable Him to do it by making sure there is fellowship, but don't be surprised if the pairings that occur between people are surprising and unplanned, and more importantly not necessarily between people in the same church! (Dan - do you consider you and Tom getting together discipling each other? That's what I am talking about.) Friendships happen that way. Spiritual growth happens that way. It isn't that it can't be planned, it's simply that the plan is under the control of the Spirit. Amazing how we trust God for love and Jesus for forgiveness, but we don't trust the One that Jesus sent to do His part of the heavy lifting and lead us on our path, instead wanting to substitute man-made programs for His work. Pity, that - the Spirit's the one we all get to actually meet while in this life.
I am sure I just committed somewhere between one and three historical heresies in the above. Fire away.
1. What is a disciple? ("A disciple is someone who ____, ____, ____, etc.")
2. How do we, as a church, get this to happen? (How did it happen in your life - how did you become a disciple?)
3. How do the programs and things our church does contribute to these things taking place?
4. Changes we might need to consider?
I am going to take a shot at answering them here, for me. I haven't read the book, so this is just my honest from-the-heart response with where I am right now. Maybe in a few years I'll think differently. Feel free to answer them, too - either as a comment on Dan's blog, or on your own blog (hint, hint, C.H.! :o), linking back to Dan when you do.
1. What is a disciple? ("A disciple is someone who ____, ____, ____, etc.")
A disciple is someone who "follows Jesus". But that's too easy. A disciple is someone who gives themselves to Christ and by so doing tries to learn more of what God wants for us and to help in His plans. Not to gain salvation through works, but because of gratitude about grace and from that the excitement and enthusiasm that arises to help spread that gift to all.
2. How do we, as a church, get this to happen? (How did it happen in your life - how did you become a disciple?)
[Sorry, Dan - I am probably going to disappoint you on this one.]
You can't. That's the Spirit's job. There is absolutely nothing that any church did to bring me back in the fold. I came back, then I decided to join a church. Individual Christians from all kinds of churches and denominations, in the form of friends and family, plus some well-placed books and movies that crossed my path (thanks, Spirit!) did all that. And I don't participate in any of the various programs at church because if their content is like that of Sunday School Bible study I just wouldn't get anything out of it. All those things reek too much of the stupid school exercises we all hated growing up - "Read a chapter and then get together and talk about it. What was the theme? What were the main points? Can you name three colors that portrayed different parts of the story?" Let's sit in a circle and "rap", shall we? No thanks.
The absolute best religious discussions I've ever had were with friends, individually, one-on-one (and gasp! a few times over drinks!). Because then you can really get in there and get to the heart of things. You can get angry, pushy, argumentative, and since you're friends you know you'll still be friends when it's over, so it's safe to "discuss" it in that way. Because it's important, dammit, and things that are important rarely reach amiable consensus through a bunch of head-nodding and "Me, too's!"
Church can be a lot of things - it can be the dinner party (oh - if only it were a party!) that gathers a bunch of people together for fellowship. It can be a force to be reckoned with in bettering the community and the world. It can be a support network for people in need, the sick, and those who are called to go out and spread the Word. It can be 10, 100 or 1,000 voices lifted in worship and praise. What it cannot be, IMHO, is very effective at discipleship, because at least for me that is really an individual path where everyone is on it at different points.
3. How do the programs and things our church does contribute to these things taking place?
See #2. It seems to me "programs" are completely off the mark. Please point to me where Jesus or Paul talks about a 12-week program. You can't. They always talked about relationships. Period. The industrialization of spiritual growth with study guides, workbooks and schedules is an oxymoron. Mentoring seems a much better way to think of it, but you can't even force that on people. If you look at your own life you've always found your own mentors (and they, you). You can't just assign mentors to people any more than you can assign friends (since they end up being the same thing). At various points on my spiritual path my grandparents have been spiritual role models if not mentors, and my friends Jim and Mark have been spiritual mentors, and I dare say I count Dan as a part-time, unpaid long-distance one now.
I can think of NO ONE at my current church, in a program or out of it (but especially in it) with whom I would bring up the topics I discuss here on this blog. And even if those topics came up in discussion, I wouldn't be as blunt and honest about my thoughts, because then people would cough and shuffle their feet and look away, or get upset, or have some pat answer that'd just piss me off and then I'd get upset. Don't tell me they wouldn't - when I try, they do.
4. Changes we might need to consider?
Get out of the way and trust the Spirit to do His job. Enable Him to do it by making sure there is fellowship, but don't be surprised if the pairings that occur between people are surprising and unplanned, and more importantly not necessarily between people in the same church! (Dan - do you consider you and Tom getting together discipling each other? That's what I am talking about.) Friendships happen that way. Spiritual growth happens that way. It isn't that it can't be planned, it's simply that the plan is under the control of the Spirit. Amazing how we trust God for love and Jesus for forgiveness, but we don't trust the One that Jesus sent to do His part of the heavy lifting and lead us on our path, instead wanting to substitute man-made programs for His work. Pity, that - the Spirit's the one we all get to actually meet while in this life.
I am sure I just committed somewhere between one and three historical heresies in the above. Fire away.
4 comments:
Jim,
I appreciate the time you put into this. I just have one question though: When Jesus said to "go and make disciples"... what did he mean? It would seem odd that he would say this if it was all up to the Holy Spirit, wouldn't it?
Peace.
Dan,
He absolutely did, and we absolutely must. I just don't think you do it with programs. I think it is one-on-one relationships that do that. Paul with Timothy leaps to mind.
To put it into context with our recent discussions around church and leaders, if you would like, I think part of your job is to simply BE THERE as a holy man for someone to be able to "attach to you" and be mentored.
Now before you argue about how such things don't "scale" and we therefore need programs to shuffle, er, herd, um, SHEPHERD, yeah, that's it, groups of people through spiritual growth at a time, let me just remind you of the old "doubling of the number of grains of rice on each square of a chessboard" Chinese parable. The power of two (mathematically and relationally) is quite strong enough. In fact, it is what our relationship with God is built on.
So I wasn't rejecting discipleship - I was rejecting specifically the point that organized church can do much more than foster it through being a place that fosters relationships. And I frankly reject outright that church programs aimed at such things can do it at all - isn't that what we've had in abundance for the past 30 years, all ending in declining attendance across the board? My denomination alone has lost 400,000 members since the 1970s, but it has programs aplenty.
As I said, to me programs take a sort of industrialized, "mass production" approach to spiritual growth, and I just don't think it works that way. What works (sort of, kind of - if you think modern education "works") for teaching school age kids that way is because they're all at the same age and experience levels. Adults in church are not. Even if you split them into age-centered groups it still wouldn't work - by the time we are young adults are experiences are WAY to diverse to think we're all in the same place on the path. Yet that seems to be what most programs assume - that they're going to take a group of people from point A to point B. But some people might not even be to point A yet, and some may be WAY past point B, and some (like me) are going to look at the whole enterprise and say, "No, thanks."
I sometimes wonder if the best thing a pastor could do is simply ask people out for coffee. The ones that wanted to go would go. And if something clicked, they'd continue to grow. When the pastor's "coffee schedule" got full of one-on-one pairings (they wouldn't have to be weekly, it's time to plant a new church. Because ultimately I think small churches, like the one you're at, is WHERE IT'S AT, if churches are going to be meaningful at all.
Discipling is all about relationships. You can't have a relationship with a group. So I reject group programs as being effective discipling tools.
Does ANY of that make sense? It's still early and I am still waking up.
Jim,
I think I'm using the word "program" in a way that many people don't think of. Maybe I'm misusing the word, I don't know. When I talk with the leaders of my church, and I ask us to assess our programs, I'm not talking about any "12 week" models. Say, for instance, I thought the best way to make disciples was for me to have coffee with everyone individually. Then I would suggest that our church "program" itself to run that way.
Now, I happen to think small groups are VERY important when it comes to disciple-making/growth. I even know people whose lives have been completely transformed through 12-step programs. And I would question your assertion that you can't have a relationship with a group. While I agree with you that church and discipling are to be all about relationships - and I think there does need to be one-on-one mentoring done, I also think what stifles many people is that we don't know what it means to be part of the "community."
I guess, in a nutshell, when I talk about programs, what I mean is: our church is made up of disciples/Christians, and the programs we have are the way our "community" helps us grow and love God and love others and help others be transformed by Jesus too. So I want us to be intentional about (to program) small groups, mentoring relationships, learning to love the people we live with, work with, shop with, etc., and learning the disciplines of what it means to follow Jesus in community (as a church).
I don't know if this will help, but it occurred to me this morning as I was having coffee with someone that maybe I'm just using the words in a different way.
Peace.
Dan,
I can get behind everything you just said. "Nothing happens unless it happens on purpose." I think we maybe ARE bringing different meanings of the word "program" into play, so maybe we need something else. "Intentional action" sounds too weighty. Dunno.
I do note with the programs (my meaning) we have at church, they do try to keep the group size down - typically to about eight (in fact one such program was even called "Groups of Eight"). I would say that's about the max it could be to be effective, and I even wonder somewhat if that's a bit too big.
My model for meaningful relations is a dinner. A dinner between two people can be intimate and deep. A dinner of three or four can be fun, mind-opening, lots of conversation and ideas bouncing around. Somewhere around six or so, definitely by eight, it seems like it starts breaking down, and different "ends of the table" end up just talking amongst themselves, effectively taking it back to two parties of 3-4 who just happen to be seated at the same table.
Now, one may argue that is just the mechanics of table geometry, etc., but isn't that funny in and of itself? Restaurants seem pretty much designed around "parties of four". And if you go eat with a bigger group than that's it's a hassle, you have to wait while they push tables together, etc. But why would restaurants do that? Because it maximizes their floor space to their average customer mix. That is either going to be a "nuclear family" of 3-4 people, or it's going to be two couples out for the evening, or four friends, or whatever.
Timing, scheduling, group dynamics and all seem to cause issues as group sizes scale. So yes, I agree, you can have a relationship with a group. Where I differ is the size of the group. I think four would be about perfect, six a stretch. Anything larger and there are going to be people who "disappear into the crowd" and don't talk because they don't feel comfortable "speaking in front of a group". But they wouldn't have any problem talking as one of four seated around a dinner table.
Anyway, I DO get what you're saying, and as always you make sense. I just think I am coming at it from a different angle and experience set.
And boy, I wish our church wasn't so large that I could actually feel like I could invite my pastor out for coffee and not wonder what/who else I am causing him not to be able to get to that day.
Peace right back atcha! :-)
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