Master 233: Discipleship manual, Part 1 of 4
The following is something that I wrote up for the leadership team of my church on the topic of discipleship. I'm very thankful for the helpful feedback that I've already received on it. The document is dense and presupposes a great deal in terms of understanding of biblical ideas; fair warning to all prospective readers. My goal was to begin to connect the various dimensions commonly associated with discipleship and Christianity into a coherent picture. I was also responding to the particular proposal that my church leadership team has been considering, so my remarks are not completely general but tied to that particular context. Still, for those who are interested, I hope that these remarks will be helpful.
If you're interested in a more concise presentation of the main point, I would recommend reading "Is Christianity Hard or Easy?"--a chapter from C.S. Lewis' deservedly famous book, Mere Christianity. He sums up, in about six very accessible book-size pages, the basic point that I have tried to unpack in ten single-spaced 8.5" x 11" pages. I was absolutely floored when I read them last night.
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What follows is an attempt to expand upon and further develop a proposal made to the Missions Leadership Team of the Riverside Free Methodist Church. That proposal is to structure (and restructure) this church's ministry programs around a single process that is defined by and clearly articulates the way in which we want to see people grow and mature in their relationship with God as followers of Jesus Christ. The proposed process has three stages: loving God, transforming lives, and impacting community. In what follows, I want to try to get clearer about what each of these stages consists in, how they are related to one another, how they are related to the larger project of living and walking with God, and what moving through such a process might look like and involve practically.
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Part One: How should we think about a (the?) discipleship process?
There are a number of different ways in which we might structure a discipleship (or "people-flow") process. (A) We might do so in terms of the goals that we want to achieve: start by moving people into a loving relationship with God, then work on transforming their lives, and end by encouraging them and giving them opportunities to impact their community.
(B) We might structure the process in terms of the different programs that are available for them: start with the Sunday morning worship service, then move people into participation in smaller groups and Sunday school classes, and finally get them involved in long-term service projects.
(C) We might structure the process around the transition from being a passive recipient of teaching to an b in one's own walk with God: people begin by receiving teaching and instruction but later are encouraged to take some deliberate action steps, which may involve joining a class or study, a prayer group, or other more service-oriented activities.
The relationships between these different ways of structuring a discipleship process are complex and there's no straightforward way in which to layer them one on top of the other. For instance, developing a loving relationship with God does not correspond exclusively or exhaustively to the aim of the Sunday morning worship service. And transforming lives is not the special concern just of small groups.
Also, moving to a new stage in a discipleship process does not entail that one has completed or "mastered" the previous stage. Underlying the "process of discipleship" is a real and dynamic loving relationship with God. This relationship is to be ever-growing and ever-deepening. And given God's infinite, inexhaustible, and incomprehensible (in the sense that our minds are not able to grasp the totality of God) nature, we should expect that there will always be more to learn and experience at every level and regarding every facet of our relationship with Him.
This is an important dimension of the discipleship process that is not well-captured by a three-step or four-step sequential structure. That is not to say that we should avoid such structures. It is just to remind us that what we are aiming at is far more and far bigger than can be captured in such a series of steps. Impacting community may be the last step in our process, but it is not the final goal of discipleship. Impacting community (by itself or understood just in terms that the world would find intelligible) is a goal far too small and far below the high calling that God has placed on our lives. So we want to begin by trying to understand how discipleship fits into God's larger purposes and intentions.
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The goal of discipleship, like the goal of sanctification (of which discipleship may be seen as a part) and the goal of God's entire redeeming work (of which sanctification is a part) is nothing less than life in fellowship, community, and union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That may not seem a very "practical" definition, but I think it is important to keep in mind. At the very least, it may help us to guard against settling for inadequate means and confusing our interests and aims with those of the world.
Now this last point might lead some to worry that any discipleship process we come up with will inevitably appear inadequate when measured against that high calling and standard. And I think we should acknowledge that that is correct. No curriculum that we develop, no program that we set up, no process that we implement can be, in itself, adequate to the task of moving people into the life that God has and intends for us. Jesus said, "I am the way". (John 14:6) Jesus posited Himself as the path to God--not the things that He did, not any program that He set up, not any set of beliefs about Him, but the Person. He also promised to send the Holy Spirit, a Person, to help and teach us. So, I think, our discipleship process should focus on bringing people into interactive relationship with these Persons. No discipleship process, by itself, can transform people. Our goal in the first stage of this process, then, should be to bring people before the Person who can transform them.
What does that involve, one might wonder? Well, it must involve more than just a cold introduction (or its spiritual analogue): "Jeremy, meet God. God, meet Jeremy." Life-transformation, understood biblically, only happens in the context of a relationship with God. Our goal is relationship (fellowship, communion), and relationship involves some informed commitment on the parts of both individuals. To help facilitate the forming of such relationships then, at a very basic level, we will need to inform people about who God is and what He is like. We will need to talk about what He has done, including both the works of creation and of redemption. We will need to talk about His power and authority, His justice and righteousness, His grace, love, compassion, and mercy. We will need to talk about what He has done in the past and how He is working now, His relationship to this world, His desire for relationship with us, the sin that stands as a barrier to that relationship, and what God did in Christ Jesus to overcome that barrier. We should put the invitation to walk with God clearly before people, giving them the opportunity to know God, to come to love Him, and to decide to follow Him. Should they choose to take those steps, that will open up a setting in which God can work to transform those individuals' lives.
This first goal, and the steps involved in achieving it, may then be seen as roughly corresponding to the first stage in the discipleship structure: loving God. A lot more could be said about how to go about this, but I will say more about that in part two. (Also throughout the rest of this first part, I'll periodically make remarks connecting the later stages back to this first stage.)
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Biblical life-transformation (to be treated here and more extensively in part three) only happens in the context of a relationship with God. This relationship need not be long-standing or very mature, but there must be some relationship--some decision on the part of the individual to follow. But to what end? How should a person, so related to God, expect to change and be changed?
The goal of spiritual transformation is our becoming like Christ. I'll offer only a few indications here of what that looks like and will treat more of the details in the third section; but I want to get this big picture before our minds. God's desire is that we should become like Christ--that we should share in the family resemblance and live as His sons and daughters.
In our fallen condition the shape of our lives is naturally inconsistent and incompatible with God's character and nature. Indeed, the manner in which we have molded and structured our lives just is directed at the goal of living without God. We have devised various ways and methods for coping with this world and carving out our own place in it. These techniques are built on the following presumptions: (1) either that God does not exist or else that He has no claim on our lives, (2) that we are autonomous and independent, (3) that we are responsible for guiding our lives, and (4) that any chance of our surviving and thriving in this world depends on our own ability to manage resources, people, and ourselves. Certainly a life guided by these principles must fail to align with God's plans and purposes, as well as require us to act in ways contrary to His will.
The return from our fallen condition back to relationship with God depends wholly on the grace of God--on His taking the initiative to reach out to us, even in the midst of our rebellion, and opening the way for reconciliation. Every stage of that reconciliation requires God's direct involvement, through the work(s) of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
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The first stage of a person's incorporation into this reconciliatory work comes in conversion. (Some theologians may point to earlier stages, but this should work for our purposes.) There are a number of elements connected with conversion. One is the acceptance of Jesus Christ's propitiatory and atoning sacrifice on the cross for our sins. Upon receiving this gracious gift, the convert is justified--declared righteous before God--and received into fellowship with God. But this is not the end of the story. The goal of God's redemptive work is not just that we should be forgiven of our sins and placed in good standing before Him. The goal of God's redemptive work is to bring us into fellowship, relationship, and life with Him. In the same way that marriage is just the first stage in a new kind of life, so also with conversion. It's import and implications necessarily reach beyond the limits of a single moment or a single act.
So conversion also involves deciding to make Jesus the Lord of one's life--to follow Him and submit to Him in obedience. It involves establishing a trajectory for one's life, the end-point of which is Christ-likeness, sharing the family resemblance, and living as sons and daughters of God.
The shape of our lives apart from God presupposed God's irrelevance to our lives and the idea that we must secure our own survival and success. So the shape of our lives with God should presuppose God's absolute relevance to (and preeminence in) our lives, along with the idea that the surety of our life and well-being rests in Him. Molding our lives in this new way will certainly require us to un-learn a number of the habits, techniques for living, and ways of thinking that we developed in our time apart from God. Some of that un-learning will have been accomplished through teaching at the first stage (see above and in part two), though that will also be an ongoing process. Some of the un-learning may be worked instantaneously by the Holy Spirit. But there are other (I would suggest, the majority of) elements of this process in which God invites us to be more actively involved.
How do we become actively involved in the process of life-transformation and sanctification? The answer being offered here is discipleship or apprenticeship to Jesus. What is meant by that is our following Jesus in order to become like Him; our learning from Him how to live as a son or daughter of God.
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Obviously I've used the label "discipleship" already to describe this entire process, including stage one (above). Why, then, am I also using "discipleship" to characterize this second stage in particular. In my view, this second stage is the heart of the work that we have to accomplish--with respect both to our own lives and the lives of those to whom we minister, contextualized within the larger redemptive work that God is accomplishing, with full reliance upon the gracious provision of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit--: this process of walking alongside Jesus, looking at His life, speaking to Him, listening to what He has to say, taking direction from Him, following His example, aligning our lives with His life, and so coming to share in the same dynamic love relationship that He enjoys with His Father and the Holy Spirit, along with all the fruits and outward manifestations of that relationship that we would expect to see. This is the stage at which deep life-transformation happens and the center of this entire process.
Once we get that clearly in view, we'll see that the first (above) and third (below) stages of this process are inextricably connected to it and really just moments in it. It is impossible for us to become disciples of Jesus without knowing and coming to love Him (see above and in part two). It is impossible for anyone to decide to follow Jesus into the second stage of this process if they have no idea who He is or don't really believe that His kind of life is a good one and worth pursuing. That's why the information conveyed and decision made at the first stage is so important. And one of the fruits of walking with Jesus and becoming like Jesus that we would expect to see is a love for and commitment to helping people around us, including our community (see below and in part four). These moments derive their significance from their connection to this second step. So it is right to say that this whole process is a "discipleship" process because the second and central stage of that process is all about "discipleship."
Remember, though, that "discipleship" is not just a general term for any process that moves people toward deeper relationship with God. Discipleship is not the same thing as sanctification. Discipleship is not the same thing as life-transformation. Discipleship is one aspect of the larger works of sanctification and transformation, but I think that it is a central one. If our goal is to become like Christ, to live in and enjoy fellowship and relationship with Him, His Father, and the Holy Spirit, our point of access can be none other than Jesus Himself. Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection opened the way, but it is in discipling (apprenticing) ourselves to Jesus that we actually learn how to walk in that way and live the kind of life that God intended for us.
Let me make one more point about the relationship of the first step (above) to what we are looking at now and one of its implications: Salvation and redemption come to us not just through what Jesus did, but through Jesus Himself--because everything that Jesus did, He did because of who He is and His relationship with God. So as we seek to facilitate the process of spiritual transformation, our focus should not be on what people do, primarily, but rather on who they are. Just as Jesus' actions--including His sacrifice on the cross--issued from His character and relationship with His heavenly Father, so our goal should be that the actions of the spiritually transformed person also arise from his or her character and relationship with God.
Many of the world's methods for transformation (and even the approaches of some "Christians") neglect this crucial element. They focus on the modification of external behavior without considering the character and internal condition of the person or his relationship to God. Such an approach is wholly incompatible with biblical teaching (Matthew 23:25) and largely ineffective for producing transformed individuals. This is why we must not neglect the first step (above) of this discipleship process. Modification of behavior motivated by social pressure, bare conformity to a set of precepts, and even appropriate fear of punishment (human or divine) is not the kind of transformation that Jesus offered. The successful modification of mere behavior is not the hope that the apostles celebrated.
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So how do we help to facilitate genuine personal transformation? How does that look in our church and congregation? Considering the various ways in which we have learned to cope with this world apart from God may serve as a useful starting point. At one level there needs to be some basic teaching about what God requires and expects of those who follow Him. His commands, as articulated in both the Old and New Testaments, should be made clear. But remember, our goal here is not just to secure conformity to a list of rules--and that wasn't Jesus' either. Becoming the kind of person who easily and routinely does what is good and right--that is the goal. Pursuing that requires a significant reorientation along with a high level of commitment on the part of the individual.
Here's an example to consider: how does one become the kind of person who easily and routinely speaks the truth--for whom open, honest, and loving words come naturally? First, the disciple will have to alter, fundamentally, her way of looking at the world. In a world and life apart from God, lying and deception are basic techniques for survival. Living in truth is dangerous because the truth is sometimes uncomplimentary, truth is sometimes uncomfortable, and truth can sometimes make life difficult. Living well apart from God depends upon our being able to mold our world in certain ways that are inconsistent with what is actually true. The techniques that we develop, in the world, for doing that are very deeply engrained. The tendency to try to manage our own lives and problems in this way comes very naturally to us. If we are to become the kind of people who easily and routinely speak the truth, all of this will have to change.
How do we change that? First we must bring the truth about reality before the disciple's mind. God is the one true source of life and well-being. He is the God of truth. We cannot walk with Him and fellowship with Him while hiding in the darkness of untruth. God is good and faithful, and He has promised to provide for us as the Good Shepherd and loving Father. This is the beginning of a teaching component but more will naturally be required. People may wonder, "But what about this situation...?" or "What if things don't work out...?" or "But if I were to tell the truth in that setting then this bad thing might happen." We should help people to understand how the concerns that they have (many of which arise from their being so thoroughly enmeshed in the world) are and should be related to what is truly good and valuable in God's sight. We should cite many, many examples, from the life of Jesus, and from the rest of the Bible and the history of the church, of men and women who lived in truth. We should hold those up as models and examples, being open and honest about the good and bad consequences that came from them. Our goal, in this, is to help people to see that the way of truth truly is the good way. In spite of the real bad consequences that may issue from it, but also because living in truth is part of living with a God who can and does act in our lives, living in truth is a good thing. This is an important foundation for bringing up people who not only tell the truth, but for whom telling the truth is the easiest and most natural thing.
There is no room for shortcuts at this stage, and any hints of coercion must be avoided. We want people to see that the way of truth truly is the good way. If they see that it is the good way, then they will want to live in that way and they will be (at least) open to doing what is necessary to move in that direction. But if they don't actually see that--if we just tell them that it is so or if we pressure them into verbally acknowledging that it is so, then the deep transformation will not work. We may get them to the stage where their external behavior matches up (or appears to match up) to what we expect, but there will not be the deep transformation that is the whole point of God's redemptive work, sanctification, and discipleship. We must lay the foundation first. (Some of this foundation will be laid in stage one (see above and in part two) and some in the course of activities (e.g. teaching) similar to those involved at stage one.)
Of course, even with this foundation, telling the truth will not come easily and naturally to people, especially at the beginning stages. Teaching is a part of working this deep transformation, but it is not enough. The people we are discipling will likely still work with, hang out with, and spend the majority of their time with people who don't value truth in this way. And it is hard to move against that grain. Still, if a person is to change in such a way that truth-telling comes easily and naturally, she will at some stage have to push against that grain. At this second stage, a person, recognizing that living in truth is the best thing (even if she has occasional doubts about that) must begin to actually speak the truth--even in difficult settings. But notice, at this stage, that such truth-telling is not yet the product of a transformed character but only an exercise--one step on the way to becoming a transformed individual. There is a danger is that we will look at a particular episode of truth-telling at this stage and just give approval or disapproval based on the action performed. If we fail to take each episode as a teaching opportunity, then we will just have fallen back into the project of reinforcing external conformity to rules. A person who struggles within herself to speak the truth in an uncomfortable situation may find that speaking the truth produces unexpectedly good results. That needs to be talked about and related to the teaching that went before. A person who struggles within herself to speak the truth in an uncomfortable situation may find that things go very badly as a result. That also needs to be addressed, because that experience will automatically tend to reinforce the worldly conviction that living in truth is actually detrimental to life and well-being. If, at this point, the young disciple is left to herself without the support of a loving community that will help to draw her attention back to what is true and real, we should expect that her commitment to truth will waver and wane.
Throughout this process we must be careful not to lose sight of that relationship with God--for which a foundation is supposed to have been laid at the first stage (see above and in part two) of this discipleship process. Apart from a relationship with God, there is no point in speaking the truth. Apart from a relationship with God, lies and deception are absolutely necessary for survival and success. If we push people to speak the truth while neglecting to emphasize their relationship with God, while neglecting to draw the connection between truth and relationship with God, and while failing to support and uphold them through this difficult learning process, then we will be pushing an incoherent (and unbiblical) agenda. (Many Christians have taken this route and so come to the point of abandoning the way of truth and settling for the mere appearance of truth-living.)
Apart from God, it is impossible to live in truth. Let me say that once more: apart from God, it is impossible to live in truth. So when we encourage and challenge people to speak the truth, even in uncomfortable circumstances, we should also encourage and challenge them to look for God in those same circumstances. If all the focus is on performing the action and none on where God is in the midst of that, then we should expect that a person will not be able to sustain life in truth. Even with that understanding, we should still expect that speaking the truth in the early stages of discipleship will be very difficult. But as the young disciple intentionally and deliberately seeks to follow Jesus--to walk alongside Him, look at His life, speak to Him, listen to Him, align her life with His life--we should also expect that Jesus would meet her, help her, speak to her. The witness of Scripture and testimonies of other people may go a long way, but nothing can replace God's entering into the life of the disciple. That is what reinforces and solidifies deep conviction in the goodness of God and the goodness of living in truth. The experience of this truly distinct and altogether supernatural kind of life is what will enable a person, even in the midst of this crooked and misguided world, to become and be the kind of person who easily and routinely speaks the truth in love.
My suggestion is that the basic model that I've illustrated in the case of truth-telling can be applied to the transformation of people's lives in connection with any number of issues--marriage, raising kids, overcoming addictions, controlling one's anger, coping with loneliness, finding freedom from greed and lust, dealing with enemies, conquering fear and anxiety, reaching out to the needy, building and rebuilding relationships, conflict management, mastering money, living with integrity, and impacting community. Teaching will have to be combined with opportunities for real practical application. Assessment and evaluation of how the disciple responded to those opportunities should be combined with encouragement and exhortation. The disciple should be encouraged to look for Jesus in all circumstances. And through this all, the church community must support that disciple as he or she deals with the consequences that come from altering the shape of his or her life to bring it into conformity with the life of Christ.
What will be called for or required with a particular individual in a particular situation may vary from case to case. I doubt that a single one-size fits all method can be made to work where discipleship and life-transformation is concerned. That will also be true for evaluation and assessment of a particular individual's progress. But hopefully this illustrative case gives an idea of some of the main contours of the process and a discipleship program can be built around those. Ultimately what we want is for a person's everyday conduct to be informed and motivated by his character and relationship with God--not just in the sense that he takes seriously God's commands as guiding his conduct, but also in the sense that His awareness of God's goodness and abiding presence with Him, promise of faithfulness and constant interaction, will serve as the foundation of his entire outlook on the world. That is certainly what Paul and Peter, the other apostles, and the early Christians had.
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Now we turn to consider the third stage of this discipleship process: impacting community. As indicated earlier, impacting community is not a further step in the process of discipleship (something that only long-time disciples can do, for instance), nor is it a goal or project altogether distinct from the earlier stages of this larger process. Impacting community is just one of the results that we should expect to see from the life of an individual who has been significantly transformed by the grace and redemptive, sanctifying work of God.
But if that is the case, one might wonder, why are we giving special attention to this particular fruit of transformation as opposed to one of the others. Why is the third stage in this discipleship process "impacting community" and not "speaking the truth," or "controlling one's anger"? One reason why it is appropriate to focus on impacting community is that doing so draws our attention back to a value that is at the very center of God's overarching purpose and plan for human beings, and that is love. In fact love is the distinguishing and defining attribute by which Jesus says people will recognize His followers. "By this all men will know that you are My disciples," He says, "if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)
In Colossians 3, Paul gives instructions about how members of the church should conduct themselves having put on the new self (i.e. having been transformed). He says, "Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. ... [P]ut them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another... . [A]s those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you." (excerpts, vv. 1-13) Then, in v. 14, he writes: "And beyond all these things put on love, which is the uniting bond of perfectness." The Amplified Bible puts it this way: "And above all these put on love and enfold yourselves with the bond of perfectness which binds everything together completely in ideal harmony." Here love is presented as the supreme virtue that holds together and completes all the others.
1 Corinthians 13, where Paul addresses himself to a church that was very rich in spiritual gifts but poor in love, is another place where the preeminence of love is emphasized.
I said earlier that the goal of discipleship, sanctification, and God's entire redemptive work is to bring us into life in fellowship, community, and union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Also, I said that God's desire is that we should become like Christ, that we should share in the family resemblance and live as His sons and daughters. But actually God's vision for us extends even farther than that. In His high priestly prayer, Jesus offered this request to His Father:
"I do not ask in behalf of these [the apostles] alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me." (John 17:20-23)
Jesus was not only concerned with our individual relationships with God but also with our relationships with other people. Actually, what Jesus is talking about here seems not so much to be something separate from fellowship with the Trinity as an extension outward of that Trinitarian fellowship.
The point is that love is at the very center of God's intention for human beings--not just love of God but also love of people. In fact, the two are inextricably connected. (1 John 4:20) We were created to live in loving relationships with God and people. So we should expect that the person who has been transformed into Christ-likeness will be one who not only loves God but also loves people.
[I will address more directly, in part four, the question of whom we should love. Jesus' teachings in Matthew 5:43-48 and Luke 10:25-37, for instance, clearly indicate that our love should extend beyond the community of faith. But I am concerned that some people who emphasize this point have been sloppy in their use of Scripture. My purpose in citing the above Scripture passages in this summary is just to emphasize the importance of love of people to God's purpose for human beings. Working out the details of that point will come later.]
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But, of course, we can't assume that loving others is just going to happen automatically in the course of transforming all the other areas of our lives. To become the kind of person who loves in the way that Jesus loves should be one of the goals that we pursue--just as we pursue becoming the kind of person who naturally speaks the truth and controls his or her anger. How do we do that? We should follow the same model as that illustrated in the case of truth-telling. We will need to begin by looking at what love is. The world has all kinds of mixed-up notions about what love is, and for those of us who have grown up in the world and developed all the habits and techniques for coping with the world apart from God, those confused ideas about love have become deeply embedded. Once we begin to understand what true love (agape) really is, I expect all of us will be forced to acknowledge that we are really no good at loving. Through teaching and instruction then, we want to help people come to see that the life of love really is the good life. By looking at Jesus' example and the lives of His followers (past and present) we want to bring people to a point where they can make the decision: I want to become a loving person.
Practice and exercise will enter at this point. People should be moved into situations where they are challenged to love people and to do what is loving. This will involve engagement with people both inside and outside of the church. Assessment of the results of those experiences and further teaching and instruction should all be part of building up a person in such a way that, eventually, the most easy and natural thing for him to do is love people and act in loving ways. If a person is transformed in this way, that will certainly result in the lives of the people around him being affected. That is one place where community impact comes in.
But community impact is not just one of the results of transformation, it is also one of the arenas in which discipleship training happens. A person cannot learn how to love people without actually interacting with them, just as a person cannot learn to serve people without actually doing stuff for them. So we should expect that reaching out to and touching the lives of people will be as much a part of the second stage (above) of this process as the third. But we must also keep in mind how the community impact at these different stages differs.
There is a big difference between (1) helping someone as part of a training program for becoming a loving person, (2) helping someone as an automatic expression of one's mature loving character, and (3) helping someone as a way of conforming to some standard of right conduct or just in order to make people believe that one is loving. Again, we must not confuse these. Actions like (3) have no place in a biblically-grounded discipleship program and are no part of the fruit of such a discipleship program. And if we confuse (1) and (2), we will probably fail to help and support young disciples in their journey toward maturity and true loving character.
Further reflection on (3) should remind us to carefully guard against watering down our understanding of what is involved in community impact. It is possible to (positively) impact a community without loving the people. It is also possible to (positively) impact a community without loving God. But neither of these can be part of the life of a person who is mature in Christ. This is just to return to the point that loving God, knowing God, and relationship with God (discussed in connection with the first stage of this process, above, and in part two) are absolutely indispensable to this process of biblical discipleship and biblical life-transformation. While there is an important sense in which we should expect that community impact will be one of the fruits of a transformed life, it is still the case that impacting community (even though it is the third step in the process) is not the goal of this discipleship process. This is especially true if impacting community is understood in a way that is wholly intelligible to and compatible with a worldly sensibility.
Within the context of a discipleship program, then, there are basically two reasons for a person to be reaching out to and touching the lives of people: (1) these forms of outreach express a mature life with God and (2) these forms of outreach are part of growing into a mature life with God. How we set up our discipleship process should be sensitive to this point. More will be said about how impacting community relates to the discipleship process and how to get people to that stage in part four.
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We've already covered a lot of ground. (And this was supposed to be the summary introduction to the more extensive treatments.) My goal was to get a bit clearer on what each of the stages in the proposed process consists in, how they are related to one another, and how they are related to the larger project of living and walking with God. My special concern with the last of these aims has led me to repeatedly emphasize the centrality of the disciple's relationship with God to every stage of this process. In the three remaining sections, I want to expand on all these points and look in more detail at what each stage might look like and involve practically. I'll close this section, then, just by reiterating these few foundational points:
The goal of the discipleship process (also sanctification and God's entire redemptive work) is nothing less than fullness of life in loving fellowship, community, and union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where that community (by God's gracious design) has been extended to include all who have been adopted as His sons and daughters. The goal of discipleship is that we should become like Christ, that we should share in the family resemblance, possess His loving character, and live as sons and daughters of God. This life in us will manifest itself in all sorts of outward fruits and actions. We will come to put on the loving character of Christ (that is, of sons and daughters of God), in part, through intentional discipleship and apprenticeship to Jesus Christ--which includes taking up particular practices and activities. What that looks like practically will be treated more extensively in the following three sections, as we look more closely at each of the three stages that compose the proposed discipleship process: loving God, transforming lives, and impacting community.
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Part Two: How can we help people to come to Love God?
Part Three: How can we facilitate the process of Life-Transformation?
Part Four: How does biblical life-transformation lead to Loving and Impacting Community?
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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
If you're interested in a more concise presentation of the main point, I would recommend reading "Is Christianity Hard or Easy?"--a chapter from C.S. Lewis' deservedly famous book, Mere Christianity. He sums up, in about six very accessible book-size pages, the basic point that I have tried to unpack in ten single-spaced 8.5" x 11" pages. I was absolutely floored when I read them last night.
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What follows is an attempt to expand upon and further develop a proposal made to the Missions Leadership Team of the Riverside Free Methodist Church. That proposal is to structure (and restructure) this church's ministry programs around a single process that is defined by and clearly articulates the way in which we want to see people grow and mature in their relationship with God as followers of Jesus Christ. The proposed process has three stages: loving God, transforming lives, and impacting community. In what follows, I want to try to get clearer about what each of these stages consists in, how they are related to one another, how they are related to the larger project of living and walking with God, and what moving through such a process might look like and involve practically.
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Part One: How should we think about a (the?) discipleship process?
There are a number of different ways in which we might structure a discipleship (or "people-flow") process. (A) We might do so in terms of the goals that we want to achieve: start by moving people into a loving relationship with God, then work on transforming their lives, and end by encouraging them and giving them opportunities to impact their community.
(B) We might structure the process in terms of the different programs that are available for them: start with the Sunday morning worship service, then move people into participation in smaller groups and Sunday school classes, and finally get them involved in long-term service projects.
(C) We might structure the process around the transition from being a passive recipient of teaching to an b in one's own walk with God: people begin by receiving teaching and instruction but later are encouraged to take some deliberate action steps, which may involve joining a class or study, a prayer group, or other more service-oriented activities.
The relationships between these different ways of structuring a discipleship process are complex and there's no straightforward way in which to layer them one on top of the other. For instance, developing a loving relationship with God does not correspond exclusively or exhaustively to the aim of the Sunday morning worship service. And transforming lives is not the special concern just of small groups.
Also, moving to a new stage in a discipleship process does not entail that one has completed or "mastered" the previous stage. Underlying the "process of discipleship" is a real and dynamic loving relationship with God. This relationship is to be ever-growing and ever-deepening. And given God's infinite, inexhaustible, and incomprehensible (in the sense that our minds are not able to grasp the totality of God) nature, we should expect that there will always be more to learn and experience at every level and regarding every facet of our relationship with Him.
This is an important dimension of the discipleship process that is not well-captured by a three-step or four-step sequential structure. That is not to say that we should avoid such structures. It is just to remind us that what we are aiming at is far more and far bigger than can be captured in such a series of steps. Impacting community may be the last step in our process, but it is not the final goal of discipleship. Impacting community (by itself or understood just in terms that the world would find intelligible) is a goal far too small and far below the high calling that God has placed on our lives. So we want to begin by trying to understand how discipleship fits into God's larger purposes and intentions.
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The goal of discipleship, like the goal of sanctification (of which discipleship may be seen as a part) and the goal of God's entire redeeming work (of which sanctification is a part) is nothing less than life in fellowship, community, and union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That may not seem a very "practical" definition, but I think it is important to keep in mind. At the very least, it may help us to guard against settling for inadequate means and confusing our interests and aims with those of the world.
Now this last point might lead some to worry that any discipleship process we come up with will inevitably appear inadequate when measured against that high calling and standard. And I think we should acknowledge that that is correct. No curriculum that we develop, no program that we set up, no process that we implement can be, in itself, adequate to the task of moving people into the life that God has and intends for us. Jesus said, "I am the way". (John 14:6) Jesus posited Himself as the path to God--not the things that He did, not any program that He set up, not any set of beliefs about Him, but the Person. He also promised to send the Holy Spirit, a Person, to help and teach us. So, I think, our discipleship process should focus on bringing people into interactive relationship with these Persons. No discipleship process, by itself, can transform people. Our goal in the first stage of this process, then, should be to bring people before the Person who can transform them.
What does that involve, one might wonder? Well, it must involve more than just a cold introduction (or its spiritual analogue): "Jeremy, meet God. God, meet Jeremy." Life-transformation, understood biblically, only happens in the context of a relationship with God. Our goal is relationship (fellowship, communion), and relationship involves some informed commitment on the parts of both individuals. To help facilitate the forming of such relationships then, at a very basic level, we will need to inform people about who God is and what He is like. We will need to talk about what He has done, including both the works of creation and of redemption. We will need to talk about His power and authority, His justice and righteousness, His grace, love, compassion, and mercy. We will need to talk about what He has done in the past and how He is working now, His relationship to this world, His desire for relationship with us, the sin that stands as a barrier to that relationship, and what God did in Christ Jesus to overcome that barrier. We should put the invitation to walk with God clearly before people, giving them the opportunity to know God, to come to love Him, and to decide to follow Him. Should they choose to take those steps, that will open up a setting in which God can work to transform those individuals' lives.
This first goal, and the steps involved in achieving it, may then be seen as roughly corresponding to the first stage in the discipleship structure: loving God. A lot more could be said about how to go about this, but I will say more about that in part two. (Also throughout the rest of this first part, I'll periodically make remarks connecting the later stages back to this first stage.)
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Biblical life-transformation (to be treated here and more extensively in part three) only happens in the context of a relationship with God. This relationship need not be long-standing or very mature, but there must be some relationship--some decision on the part of the individual to follow. But to what end? How should a person, so related to God, expect to change and be changed?
The goal of spiritual transformation is our becoming like Christ. I'll offer only a few indications here of what that looks like and will treat more of the details in the third section; but I want to get this big picture before our minds. God's desire is that we should become like Christ--that we should share in the family resemblance and live as His sons and daughters.
In our fallen condition the shape of our lives is naturally inconsistent and incompatible with God's character and nature. Indeed, the manner in which we have molded and structured our lives just is directed at the goal of living without God. We have devised various ways and methods for coping with this world and carving out our own place in it. These techniques are built on the following presumptions: (1) either that God does not exist or else that He has no claim on our lives, (2) that we are autonomous and independent, (3) that we are responsible for guiding our lives, and (4) that any chance of our surviving and thriving in this world depends on our own ability to manage resources, people, and ourselves. Certainly a life guided by these principles must fail to align with God's plans and purposes, as well as require us to act in ways contrary to His will.
The return from our fallen condition back to relationship with God depends wholly on the grace of God--on His taking the initiative to reach out to us, even in the midst of our rebellion, and opening the way for reconciliation. Every stage of that reconciliation requires God's direct involvement, through the work(s) of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
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The first stage of a person's incorporation into this reconciliatory work comes in conversion. (Some theologians may point to earlier stages, but this should work for our purposes.) There are a number of elements connected with conversion. One is the acceptance of Jesus Christ's propitiatory and atoning sacrifice on the cross for our sins. Upon receiving this gracious gift, the convert is justified--declared righteous before God--and received into fellowship with God. But this is not the end of the story. The goal of God's redemptive work is not just that we should be forgiven of our sins and placed in good standing before Him. The goal of God's redemptive work is to bring us into fellowship, relationship, and life with Him. In the same way that marriage is just the first stage in a new kind of life, so also with conversion. It's import and implications necessarily reach beyond the limits of a single moment or a single act.
So conversion also involves deciding to make Jesus the Lord of one's life--to follow Him and submit to Him in obedience. It involves establishing a trajectory for one's life, the end-point of which is Christ-likeness, sharing the family resemblance, and living as sons and daughters of God.
The shape of our lives apart from God presupposed God's irrelevance to our lives and the idea that we must secure our own survival and success. So the shape of our lives with God should presuppose God's absolute relevance to (and preeminence in) our lives, along with the idea that the surety of our life and well-being rests in Him. Molding our lives in this new way will certainly require us to un-learn a number of the habits, techniques for living, and ways of thinking that we developed in our time apart from God. Some of that un-learning will have been accomplished through teaching at the first stage (see above and in part two), though that will also be an ongoing process. Some of the un-learning may be worked instantaneously by the Holy Spirit. But there are other (I would suggest, the majority of) elements of this process in which God invites us to be more actively involved.
How do we become actively involved in the process of life-transformation and sanctification? The answer being offered here is discipleship or apprenticeship to Jesus. What is meant by that is our following Jesus in order to become like Him; our learning from Him how to live as a son or daughter of God.
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Obviously I've used the label "discipleship" already to describe this entire process, including stage one (above). Why, then, am I also using "discipleship" to characterize this second stage in particular. In my view, this second stage is the heart of the work that we have to accomplish--with respect both to our own lives and the lives of those to whom we minister, contextualized within the larger redemptive work that God is accomplishing, with full reliance upon the gracious provision of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit--: this process of walking alongside Jesus, looking at His life, speaking to Him, listening to what He has to say, taking direction from Him, following His example, aligning our lives with His life, and so coming to share in the same dynamic love relationship that He enjoys with His Father and the Holy Spirit, along with all the fruits and outward manifestations of that relationship that we would expect to see. This is the stage at which deep life-transformation happens and the center of this entire process.
Once we get that clearly in view, we'll see that the first (above) and third (below) stages of this process are inextricably connected to it and really just moments in it. It is impossible for us to become disciples of Jesus without knowing and coming to love Him (see above and in part two). It is impossible for anyone to decide to follow Jesus into the second stage of this process if they have no idea who He is or don't really believe that His kind of life is a good one and worth pursuing. That's why the information conveyed and decision made at the first stage is so important. And one of the fruits of walking with Jesus and becoming like Jesus that we would expect to see is a love for and commitment to helping people around us, including our community (see below and in part four). These moments derive their significance from their connection to this second step. So it is right to say that this whole process is a "discipleship" process because the second and central stage of that process is all about "discipleship."
Remember, though, that "discipleship" is not just a general term for any process that moves people toward deeper relationship with God. Discipleship is not the same thing as sanctification. Discipleship is not the same thing as life-transformation. Discipleship is one aspect of the larger works of sanctification and transformation, but I think that it is a central one. If our goal is to become like Christ, to live in and enjoy fellowship and relationship with Him, His Father, and the Holy Spirit, our point of access can be none other than Jesus Himself. Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection opened the way, but it is in discipling (apprenticing) ourselves to Jesus that we actually learn how to walk in that way and live the kind of life that God intended for us.
Let me make one more point about the relationship of the first step (above) to what we are looking at now and one of its implications: Salvation and redemption come to us not just through what Jesus did, but through Jesus Himself--because everything that Jesus did, He did because of who He is and His relationship with God. So as we seek to facilitate the process of spiritual transformation, our focus should not be on what people do, primarily, but rather on who they are. Just as Jesus' actions--including His sacrifice on the cross--issued from His character and relationship with His heavenly Father, so our goal should be that the actions of the spiritually transformed person also arise from his or her character and relationship with God.
Many of the world's methods for transformation (and even the approaches of some "Christians") neglect this crucial element. They focus on the modification of external behavior without considering the character and internal condition of the person or his relationship to God. Such an approach is wholly incompatible with biblical teaching (Matthew 23:25) and largely ineffective for producing transformed individuals. This is why we must not neglect the first step (above) of this discipleship process. Modification of behavior motivated by social pressure, bare conformity to a set of precepts, and even appropriate fear of punishment (human or divine) is not the kind of transformation that Jesus offered. The successful modification of mere behavior is not the hope that the apostles celebrated.
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So how do we help to facilitate genuine personal transformation? How does that look in our church and congregation? Considering the various ways in which we have learned to cope with this world apart from God may serve as a useful starting point. At one level there needs to be some basic teaching about what God requires and expects of those who follow Him. His commands, as articulated in both the Old and New Testaments, should be made clear. But remember, our goal here is not just to secure conformity to a list of rules--and that wasn't Jesus' either. Becoming the kind of person who easily and routinely does what is good and right--that is the goal. Pursuing that requires a significant reorientation along with a high level of commitment on the part of the individual.
Here's an example to consider: how does one become the kind of person who easily and routinely speaks the truth--for whom open, honest, and loving words come naturally? First, the disciple will have to alter, fundamentally, her way of looking at the world. In a world and life apart from God, lying and deception are basic techniques for survival. Living in truth is dangerous because the truth is sometimes uncomplimentary, truth is sometimes uncomfortable, and truth can sometimes make life difficult. Living well apart from God depends upon our being able to mold our world in certain ways that are inconsistent with what is actually true. The techniques that we develop, in the world, for doing that are very deeply engrained. The tendency to try to manage our own lives and problems in this way comes very naturally to us. If we are to become the kind of people who easily and routinely speak the truth, all of this will have to change.
How do we change that? First we must bring the truth about reality before the disciple's mind. God is the one true source of life and well-being. He is the God of truth. We cannot walk with Him and fellowship with Him while hiding in the darkness of untruth. God is good and faithful, and He has promised to provide for us as the Good Shepherd and loving Father. This is the beginning of a teaching component but more will naturally be required. People may wonder, "But what about this situation...?" or "What if things don't work out...?" or "But if I were to tell the truth in that setting then this bad thing might happen." We should help people to understand how the concerns that they have (many of which arise from their being so thoroughly enmeshed in the world) are and should be related to what is truly good and valuable in God's sight. We should cite many, many examples, from the life of Jesus, and from the rest of the Bible and the history of the church, of men and women who lived in truth. We should hold those up as models and examples, being open and honest about the good and bad consequences that came from them. Our goal, in this, is to help people to see that the way of truth truly is the good way. In spite of the real bad consequences that may issue from it, but also because living in truth is part of living with a God who can and does act in our lives, living in truth is a good thing. This is an important foundation for bringing up people who not only tell the truth, but for whom telling the truth is the easiest and most natural thing.
There is no room for shortcuts at this stage, and any hints of coercion must be avoided. We want people to see that the way of truth truly is the good way. If they see that it is the good way, then they will want to live in that way and they will be (at least) open to doing what is necessary to move in that direction. But if they don't actually see that--if we just tell them that it is so or if we pressure them into verbally acknowledging that it is so, then the deep transformation will not work. We may get them to the stage where their external behavior matches up (or appears to match up) to what we expect, but there will not be the deep transformation that is the whole point of God's redemptive work, sanctification, and discipleship. We must lay the foundation first. (Some of this foundation will be laid in stage one (see above and in part two) and some in the course of activities (e.g. teaching) similar to those involved at stage one.)
Of course, even with this foundation, telling the truth will not come easily and naturally to people, especially at the beginning stages. Teaching is a part of working this deep transformation, but it is not enough. The people we are discipling will likely still work with, hang out with, and spend the majority of their time with people who don't value truth in this way. And it is hard to move against that grain. Still, if a person is to change in such a way that truth-telling comes easily and naturally, she will at some stage have to push against that grain. At this second stage, a person, recognizing that living in truth is the best thing (even if she has occasional doubts about that) must begin to actually speak the truth--even in difficult settings. But notice, at this stage, that such truth-telling is not yet the product of a transformed character but only an exercise--one step on the way to becoming a transformed individual. There is a danger is that we will look at a particular episode of truth-telling at this stage and just give approval or disapproval based on the action performed. If we fail to take each episode as a teaching opportunity, then we will just have fallen back into the project of reinforcing external conformity to rules. A person who struggles within herself to speak the truth in an uncomfortable situation may find that speaking the truth produces unexpectedly good results. That needs to be talked about and related to the teaching that went before. A person who struggles within herself to speak the truth in an uncomfortable situation may find that things go very badly as a result. That also needs to be addressed, because that experience will automatically tend to reinforce the worldly conviction that living in truth is actually detrimental to life and well-being. If, at this point, the young disciple is left to herself without the support of a loving community that will help to draw her attention back to what is true and real, we should expect that her commitment to truth will waver and wane.
Throughout this process we must be careful not to lose sight of that relationship with God--for which a foundation is supposed to have been laid at the first stage (see above and in part two) of this discipleship process. Apart from a relationship with God, there is no point in speaking the truth. Apart from a relationship with God, lies and deception are absolutely necessary for survival and success. If we push people to speak the truth while neglecting to emphasize their relationship with God, while neglecting to draw the connection between truth and relationship with God, and while failing to support and uphold them through this difficult learning process, then we will be pushing an incoherent (and unbiblical) agenda. (Many Christians have taken this route and so come to the point of abandoning the way of truth and settling for the mere appearance of truth-living.)
Apart from God, it is impossible to live in truth. Let me say that once more: apart from God, it is impossible to live in truth. So when we encourage and challenge people to speak the truth, even in uncomfortable circumstances, we should also encourage and challenge them to look for God in those same circumstances. If all the focus is on performing the action and none on where God is in the midst of that, then we should expect that a person will not be able to sustain life in truth. Even with that understanding, we should still expect that speaking the truth in the early stages of discipleship will be very difficult. But as the young disciple intentionally and deliberately seeks to follow Jesus--to walk alongside Him, look at His life, speak to Him, listen to Him, align her life with His life--we should also expect that Jesus would meet her, help her, speak to her. The witness of Scripture and testimonies of other people may go a long way, but nothing can replace God's entering into the life of the disciple. That is what reinforces and solidifies deep conviction in the goodness of God and the goodness of living in truth. The experience of this truly distinct and altogether supernatural kind of life is what will enable a person, even in the midst of this crooked and misguided world, to become and be the kind of person who easily and routinely speaks the truth in love.
My suggestion is that the basic model that I've illustrated in the case of truth-telling can be applied to the transformation of people's lives in connection with any number of issues--marriage, raising kids, overcoming addictions, controlling one's anger, coping with loneliness, finding freedom from greed and lust, dealing with enemies, conquering fear and anxiety, reaching out to the needy, building and rebuilding relationships, conflict management, mastering money, living with integrity, and impacting community. Teaching will have to be combined with opportunities for real practical application. Assessment and evaluation of how the disciple responded to those opportunities should be combined with encouragement and exhortation. The disciple should be encouraged to look for Jesus in all circumstances. And through this all, the church community must support that disciple as he or she deals with the consequences that come from altering the shape of his or her life to bring it into conformity with the life of Christ.
What will be called for or required with a particular individual in a particular situation may vary from case to case. I doubt that a single one-size fits all method can be made to work where discipleship and life-transformation is concerned. That will also be true for evaluation and assessment of a particular individual's progress. But hopefully this illustrative case gives an idea of some of the main contours of the process and a discipleship program can be built around those. Ultimately what we want is for a person's everyday conduct to be informed and motivated by his character and relationship with God--not just in the sense that he takes seriously God's commands as guiding his conduct, but also in the sense that His awareness of God's goodness and abiding presence with Him, promise of faithfulness and constant interaction, will serve as the foundation of his entire outlook on the world. That is certainly what Paul and Peter, the other apostles, and the early Christians had.
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Now we turn to consider the third stage of this discipleship process: impacting community. As indicated earlier, impacting community is not a further step in the process of discipleship (something that only long-time disciples can do, for instance), nor is it a goal or project altogether distinct from the earlier stages of this larger process. Impacting community is just one of the results that we should expect to see from the life of an individual who has been significantly transformed by the grace and redemptive, sanctifying work of God.
But if that is the case, one might wonder, why are we giving special attention to this particular fruit of transformation as opposed to one of the others. Why is the third stage in this discipleship process "impacting community" and not "speaking the truth," or "controlling one's anger"? One reason why it is appropriate to focus on impacting community is that doing so draws our attention back to a value that is at the very center of God's overarching purpose and plan for human beings, and that is love. In fact love is the distinguishing and defining attribute by which Jesus says people will recognize His followers. "By this all men will know that you are My disciples," He says, "if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)
In Colossians 3, Paul gives instructions about how members of the church should conduct themselves having put on the new self (i.e. having been transformed). He says, "Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which is idolatry. ... [P]ut them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another... . [A]s those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you." (excerpts, vv. 1-13) Then, in v. 14, he writes: "And beyond all these things put on love, which is the uniting bond of perfectness." The Amplified Bible puts it this way: "And above all these put on love and enfold yourselves with the bond of perfectness which binds everything together completely in ideal harmony." Here love is presented as the supreme virtue that holds together and completes all the others.
1 Corinthians 13, where Paul addresses himself to a church that was very rich in spiritual gifts but poor in love, is another place where the preeminence of love is emphasized.
I said earlier that the goal of discipleship, sanctification, and God's entire redemptive work is to bring us into life in fellowship, community, and union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Also, I said that God's desire is that we should become like Christ, that we should share in the family resemblance and live as His sons and daughters. But actually God's vision for us extends even farther than that. In His high priestly prayer, Jesus offered this request to His Father:
"I do not ask in behalf of these [the apostles] alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me. And the glory which Thou hast given Me I have given to them; that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me, and didst love them, even as Thou didst love Me." (John 17:20-23)
Jesus was not only concerned with our individual relationships with God but also with our relationships with other people. Actually, what Jesus is talking about here seems not so much to be something separate from fellowship with the Trinity as an extension outward of that Trinitarian fellowship.
The point is that love is at the very center of God's intention for human beings--not just love of God but also love of people. In fact, the two are inextricably connected. (1 John 4:20) We were created to live in loving relationships with God and people. So we should expect that the person who has been transformed into Christ-likeness will be one who not only loves God but also loves people.
[I will address more directly, in part four, the question of whom we should love. Jesus' teachings in Matthew 5:43-48 and Luke 10:25-37, for instance, clearly indicate that our love should extend beyond the community of faith. But I am concerned that some people who emphasize this point have been sloppy in their use of Scripture. My purpose in citing the above Scripture passages in this summary is just to emphasize the importance of love of people to God's purpose for human beings. Working out the details of that point will come later.]
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But, of course, we can't assume that loving others is just going to happen automatically in the course of transforming all the other areas of our lives. To become the kind of person who loves in the way that Jesus loves should be one of the goals that we pursue--just as we pursue becoming the kind of person who naturally speaks the truth and controls his or her anger. How do we do that? We should follow the same model as that illustrated in the case of truth-telling. We will need to begin by looking at what love is. The world has all kinds of mixed-up notions about what love is, and for those of us who have grown up in the world and developed all the habits and techniques for coping with the world apart from God, those confused ideas about love have become deeply embedded. Once we begin to understand what true love (agape) really is, I expect all of us will be forced to acknowledge that we are really no good at loving. Through teaching and instruction then, we want to help people come to see that the life of love really is the good life. By looking at Jesus' example and the lives of His followers (past and present) we want to bring people to a point where they can make the decision: I want to become a loving person.
Practice and exercise will enter at this point. People should be moved into situations where they are challenged to love people and to do what is loving. This will involve engagement with people both inside and outside of the church. Assessment of the results of those experiences and further teaching and instruction should all be part of building up a person in such a way that, eventually, the most easy and natural thing for him to do is love people and act in loving ways. If a person is transformed in this way, that will certainly result in the lives of the people around him being affected. That is one place where community impact comes in.
But community impact is not just one of the results of transformation, it is also one of the arenas in which discipleship training happens. A person cannot learn how to love people without actually interacting with them, just as a person cannot learn to serve people without actually doing stuff for them. So we should expect that reaching out to and touching the lives of people will be as much a part of the second stage (above) of this process as the third. But we must also keep in mind how the community impact at these different stages differs.
There is a big difference between (1) helping someone as part of a training program for becoming a loving person, (2) helping someone as an automatic expression of one's mature loving character, and (3) helping someone as a way of conforming to some standard of right conduct or just in order to make people believe that one is loving. Again, we must not confuse these. Actions like (3) have no place in a biblically-grounded discipleship program and are no part of the fruit of such a discipleship program. And if we confuse (1) and (2), we will probably fail to help and support young disciples in their journey toward maturity and true loving character.
Further reflection on (3) should remind us to carefully guard against watering down our understanding of what is involved in community impact. It is possible to (positively) impact a community without loving the people. It is also possible to (positively) impact a community without loving God. But neither of these can be part of the life of a person who is mature in Christ. This is just to return to the point that loving God, knowing God, and relationship with God (discussed in connection with the first stage of this process, above, and in part two) are absolutely indispensable to this process of biblical discipleship and biblical life-transformation. While there is an important sense in which we should expect that community impact will be one of the fruits of a transformed life, it is still the case that impacting community (even though it is the third step in the process) is not the goal of this discipleship process. This is especially true if impacting community is understood in a way that is wholly intelligible to and compatible with a worldly sensibility.
Within the context of a discipleship program, then, there are basically two reasons for a person to be reaching out to and touching the lives of people: (1) these forms of outreach express a mature life with God and (2) these forms of outreach are part of growing into a mature life with God. How we set up our discipleship process should be sensitive to this point. More will be said about how impacting community relates to the discipleship process and how to get people to that stage in part four.
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We've already covered a lot of ground. (And this was supposed to be the summary introduction to the more extensive treatments.) My goal was to get a bit clearer on what each of the stages in the proposed process consists in, how they are related to one another, and how they are related to the larger project of living and walking with God. My special concern with the last of these aims has led me to repeatedly emphasize the centrality of the disciple's relationship with God to every stage of this process. In the three remaining sections, I want to expand on all these points and look in more detail at what each stage might look like and involve practically. I'll close this section, then, just by reiterating these few foundational points:
The goal of the discipleship process (also sanctification and God's entire redemptive work) is nothing less than fullness of life in loving fellowship, community, and union with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where that community (by God's gracious design) has been extended to include all who have been adopted as His sons and daughters. The goal of discipleship is that we should become like Christ, that we should share in the family resemblance, possess His loving character, and live as sons and daughters of God. This life in us will manifest itself in all sorts of outward fruits and actions. We will come to put on the loving character of Christ (that is, of sons and daughters of God), in part, through intentional discipleship and apprenticeship to Jesus Christ--which includes taking up particular practices and activities. What that looks like practically will be treated more extensively in the following three sections, as we look more closely at each of the three stages that compose the proposed discipleship process: loving God, transforming lives, and impacting community.
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Part Two: How can we help people to come to Love God?
Part Three: How can we facilitate the process of Life-Transformation?
Part Four: How does biblical life-transformation lead to Loving and Impacting Community?
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God is in this place,
And that reality, seen and understood by the grace of God in Christ Jesus through the work of the Holy Spirit, makes all the difference in the world.
posted by Metaphysician_delta | 9:51 AM
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