And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”—Matthew 28:18-20 (ESV)
When we think about the primary purpose of the church, I say it has to be that we glorify God by making disciples. Of course with this famous “Great Commission” passage that is the exact command Jesus gives us—make disciples; and Jesus even tells us how: go, baptize, and teach. Now as churches we must take this and apply it to our situations and cultures in order to bring about discipleship. Here is one of the areas that I think we have freedom in the “how” so long as our methods fit with go, baptize, and teach.
So, I’m curious, as a matter of discussion—what does your church do to make disciples?
As a pastor, discipleship is my primary purpose in ministry. However, even though I grew up in church, the concept did not appear on my radar screen until halfway through college. As a kid I was involved in “Discipleship Training” which was like Sunday School before the evening service and went away in the late 80’s (at least in my experience). Other than that, I don’t remember anyone speaking about the word or the concept other than the rare sermon on Matthew 28, which was usually turned into a treatise on global missions.
Then my junior year of college when I transferred to the University of Oklahoma, I got involved in the Baptist Student Union where discipleship was everything—even to the point us upperclassmen were challenged to endure suffering (okay, no one ever used that term in this way, it just sounded good!) by living in freshman dorms to minister to and mentor the campus newbies. The church I attended also placed discipleship at the forefront.
Fast-forward to now being a pastor…I also try to bring discipleship to the forefront. Some of the methods the BSU and church taught me still apply, while I have modified others for my present context. But I’ve learned that a lot of churches are like the one I grew up in—the people know disciple is a biblical term, but there’s little thought as to the how, what, and why. A gentleman in my church asked me what discipleship meant and when I told him he said: “I’ve always basically been taught that I go to Sunday School and church and it’s the teachers’, deacons’ and preachers’ job to teach the Bible and help people grow spiritually. I’ve never been taught that I’m learning so I can go mentor and teach others as well.”
Most recently, I’m trying to get the ball really rolling church-wide. In two weeks I’ll be starting a short sermon series introducing the concept to the congregation as a whole. We also recently changed our purpose statement to reflect a discipleship process: We exist to honor Jesus by living the truth, building community, and pursuing missions. “Go” is bound in pursuing missions, “baptize” is the entryway into community, and “teach” is what we do to help people live the truth as they build community.
We emphasize living the truth through corporate and individual worship including prayer, Bible study, and good stewardship of our money, time, jobs, and families. We emphasize building community through fellowship, encouragement in Christian living, and accountability. And we emphasize pursuing missions through serving others and witnessing with the gospel in our community and throughout the world. And the process encourages reproduction, movement, and growth as living the truth leads to building community which leads to pursuing missions to expand our community which leads to helping others to live the truth, and the cycle continues.
As a church, we are still in the beginning phases, but after much thought, some teaching (with more to come), and talking to people, this is the direction I’m leading my church as we seek to put our own process to go, baptize, and teach. Will it work? Check back in a few years and we’ll see what the progress is like. But like I said, as we start this process I’m curious: what does your church do? And, is it effective in helping people know Jesus and become more like Jesus?
Jeff and Mike have both written good articles reminding us about the importance of discipleship. I guess that is the topic for today!
How can a church effectively disciple its people?
I have one perspective on this. I think that the most effective “discipleship program” of the church is an expository, biblical sermon at worship. God’s Spirit uses the proclamation of the Word to do his work in God’s people.
When we discuss discipleship, I don’t think we should overlook the fact that Sunday Morning worship, done right, can be tremendously effective in this.
Dave- I have to disagree with you completely. I think that a Sunday morning sermon is minimalism at best. Can sermons be discipling? Yes. But, the Sunday morning sermon has more to do with the evangelistic sermons recorded in scripture. Those were public proclamations not sermon’s in a church. I’m not saying that sermons should only be evangelistic or that they should be removed from the Sunday morning worship service. I’m just saying that it isn’t good discipleship. Unfortunately that is all the discipleship that most people have ever known. And the result is that the average pew-sitter (regardless of… Read more »
I’m not saying the sermon is all we need, Greg. If all I did was show up on Sunday morning and preach a sermon, there might not be an effect.
But I am saying that the act of preaching is the fundamental “discipleship program” in the church.
I believe that the scripture has a power – enabled by the Holy Spirit – to accomplish God’s work.
I’ve seen it work.
Note: I’m talking about solid, exegetical, expositional preaching. there is nothing minimal about feeding people the Word of God. It is the milk and meat that makes people grow.
Sorry Dave… I think I tripped over my soapbox and my baggage on my way to the computer.
I’ve just had some not so pleasent experiences with pastors who thought the sermon. and more importantly, Sunday School WERE/ARE discipleship. Every attempt to do more or something different was quashed as taking away from Sunday School.
Please forgive me.
Nothing to forgive. Discussion implies I say something. Someone disagrees. We discuss it.
Sometimes, in the exchange, we call people dirty names like “Red Sox Fans” or something horrible like that.
I disagree…sort of. Well, not really, but I don’t think the sermon is so much of a discipleship program as one of the things a sermon could do is develop a hunger for the word of God in the listener. Like, you get up there and preach the snot out of the book of Romans. You’re giving it to ’em and laying it out there and people see the glory and majesty of the word of God as it is preached. They begin to feel like “Hey, I want more of this” and start to study more indepth for themselves.… Read more »
Red Sox Fan!
Greg, now I am going to disagree with you completely. It is the Word of God that makes disciples, not the work of the minister. Discipleship is not “relationship and life investment”… that is not what Jesus told his disciples to do. No he said “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations…” (Matt. 28:19). And again in Acts 18:11 Paul did not spend his time as a missionary in Corinth building relationships and life investment… No the Word says “And he continued there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.” If you are not preaching… Read more »
Discipleship is not “relationship and life investment”… The way I look at it is discipleship is teaching and relational investment. I don’t think you can look at the way Jesus worked with the 12, or how Paul spoke to the Corinthians and come up with teaching but not relationship and life investment. Yes, Paul might have spent a year and some months teaching among the Corinthians, but when he writes to them, he admonishes them as “dear children” (1 Cor 4:14) and urges them to follow his example (11:1)–both of which demand relationship and life investment to make sense. I… Read more »
Maybe we have set up a false dichotomy. I think that an expository sermon is the basis of all discipleship. It is not the end of the process.
We need to go beyond the simple act of preaching. But I think we are hamstringing the discipleship effort if we do not give well-studied biblical messages that call people to obedience.
Both/and not either/or
I like that ‘both/and’, DAVID.
Agreed.
Hi Mike, It is truly a refreshing to read your post. Here’s an excerpt from our website that may be of help. Think Small. Live Christ Deliberately & Radically… Jesus made disciples by selecting a few into whom He devoted His life. Yes, Jesus ministered to the crowds, but as Greg Odgen writes, “These were the same ones who cried out “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday and shouted “Crucify Him” just five days later on Good Friday.” Jesus purposely invested His ministry with just a few everyday, normal people. We must realize that disciples cannot be mass produced. Much like parenting,… Read more »
Mike- GREAT post!!! Your story mirrors my own in some ways: grew up in church, Sunday school, RAs, went to Baylor (a supposedly bapitst university. I had learned a great deal more about my faith from a class on Eastern Orthodoxy @ Baylor than I learned from any church experience. My first true discipleship experience was going through seminary with my friend Dan Barnes. It was more than just learning facts and references and theology, it was friendship, relationship, challenging each other, correcting each other, sharpening each other. We still communicate through e-mail, phone calls, and IM, but I miss… Read more »
Mike, I enjoyed reading your take on this subject. I am in agreement with you that making disciples is our primary command. I think we have the go and baptize parts down pretty good for the most part, it is the teaching to obey all the Jesus commanded bit that seems to give us fits. Many tend to think of this teaching as a “classroom exercise,” hence the old DT classes on Sunday night or the Bible studies that we offer. The problem with that model is that the classroom method is probably the least effective way to teach most… Read more »
I think that there needs to be an intentional combination of the two – the teaching and the catching.
I absolutely agree. Discipleship has to be highly intentional. Teaching and giving place for that teaching to be lived out in real life are both important. I tried to touch on that in my article from yesterday. I think the intentionality factor is the place where we have struggled more. In order to make disciples who can make disciples, we have to be able to understand what we are aiming for (i.e. what a “fully-formed” disciple looks like) as well as where the people we are discipling fit in that picture. Then we know better what needs to be taught… Read more »
You might want to examine the history of the early Christian Church as to how the catechumens were taught. I think such a study might provide some insight as to what the Church did for the catechumens, how they did it, the time frames involved, the different stages of preparation, and the actual reception of the catechumens into ‘the community of the faithful’.
This is interesting. So many definitions of “discipleship.” I actually have an academic minor in NT discipleship. It is not a ccoincidence that discipleship and disciplines have the same Latin root. The Greek has a different root but basically the same meaning.
Discipleship means to practice the disciplines of faith (after conversion). Most Baptist do not fully appreciate the “disciplines, such as prayer (outside of Wednesday), Scripture memory, fasting,etc.
Without the disciplines, Christianity is reduced to a proposition.
Dave, I have to disagree with one thing you said, “I think that the most effective ‘discipleship program’ of the church is an expository, biblical sermon at worship.” Would you agree that we all have different spiritual gifts (1 Cor 12:2 & 14:1, ff)? I would agree that a preacher gifted in the area of expository preaching can effectively be discipling believers through his preaching. But there are those whose preaching gifts lie in a different direction. I, for instance, am a storyteller, from a long line of storytellers. Hence, while some of my sermons have an expository element, others… Read more »
Based on Ephesians 4, (pastor-teacher – descriptive of one office) that pastors should and must be teachers.
Yes, I believe we have different gifts, but the pastoral office is the office of a teacher.
I have watched this for 30 years. As I consistently teach the Word of God to people, those people tend to – over time – begin to understand and apply that word. they grow.
God’s Word + time = spiritual growth. That’s my belief and my experience.
Uh. . . yes, I agree. But that was not where I was going. To put it in these terms, I suppose I would say that preachers should teach, but expository preaching is not the only possible way to teach. And if a preacher has a gift to preach in some other style (than expository), and a commitment to teach the Bible through his messages, then teaqching will take place through his messages. My only disagreement was with what I percieved as your statement that the preaching had to be expository, not that there should be a teaching/discipling slant to… Read more »
I’m having trouble figuring out your comment. Expository preaching IS teaching/discipling. That’s the difference between expositional as opposed to topical type preaching. You are teaching God’s Word.
Honestly, I’m a little confused. You stated disagreement with what I said. However, there is a problem either with your disagreement or my understanding of it.
If I understand what you are saying, I don’t disagree with it.
What I’m saying is (I think) pretty simple. All cows are four legged animals–but not all four legged animals are cows. For sake of argument, let us agree that expository preaching is teaching/discipling (I actually would put some limits there, that the text has to be correctly exegeted and presented in such a fashion that it keeps the people’s attention–a preacher can be boring and loose the congregation’s attention regardless of the style, that sort of thing). My point is simply that there are other methods of preaching that also teach and provide discipleship for the hearers, with the same… Read more »
Norm (AKA bapticus hereticus): Some excellent points have been made, especially about not expecting too much from the worship service as a discipling mechanism, which is not surprising given its purpose. And I also think it is an excellent point that discipleship has both a known and hidden curriculum in the church; that is, its curriculum is both implicit and explicit, which generally, orientation notwithstanding, is in need of greater attention by church leaders. Properly or more sufficiently understood, discipleship is embedded in the socialization processes of the church, thus it behooves us to, as one as stated, to be… Read more »
Norm, socialization is not the same as discipleship. Discipleship is learning the commands of Christ so we can walk in more complete obedience. Socialization is a human process.
Discipleship is the study and application of God’s perfect and powerful word in the lives of those who follow Jesus.
Dave: Norm, socialization is not the same as discipleship. Discipleship is learning the commands of Christ so we can walk in more complete obedience. Socialization is a human process. Discipleship is the study and application of God’s perfect and powerful word in the lives of those who follow Jesus. Norm (AKA bapticus hereticus): Agreed. Socialization is a broader concept than discipleship, which, as stated, is embedded in the socialization processes of the church; however, either are or can be, as process theology would assert, influenced by God. Socialization processes, like discipleship, is concerned with the attainment of values, attitudes, and… Read more »
What IS involved in Christian formation for a candidate before baptism in the Southern Baptist faith?
And what is involved in the Christian formation for that person following their baptism?
What IS the Southern Baptist procedure for Christian formation?
Christiane, I can’t speak for others, but I didn’t want you to think your question is being ignored. You ask a great question and if I may be so bold, the reason that both this post and the one I wrote that was posted the day before exist is because there isn’t a single “SBC procedure” for Christian formation. In many places, based on my own experience, discipleship (or spiritual formation) is left up to the disciple’s personal pursuit rather than being pursued by someone determined to take them under their wing and disciple them in the faith. Strictly speaking… Read more »
Thank you for your reply.
I was thinking along the lines of some sort of ‘organized’ lessons.
So your reply does give some insight into why there are none.
My own Church has a program that lasts minimally one-year, and can last to three years or beyond, in something called RCIA.
I was wondering if there was any ‘organized’ program, or at least an agreed-upon philosophy among Southern Baptists.
Your explanation is enlightening. Thanks again.
Corporate worship, that includes preaching, is fruitful for corporate unification. Singing the same songs is a shared experience and messages from the pulpit to the congregation, while they affect individuals, are reference points for the congregation. This is where preachers are to ground the identity of the church in the truth of the scriptures. For small group or focused needs, we have Adult (as well as youth and children) Sunday School, Wednesday night classes, a variety of small groups and ministries (because doing ministry is instructive). For individuals, we use the Campus Crusade’s Life Builder’s materials – primarily because one… Read more »