What’s Keeping Churches from Making Disciples?
Most churches know that discipleship is the main mission of the church. It’s in most mission statements. Yet, what kind of person does the church produce? The Christ-commanded product is a disciple who makes disciples.[1]
Disciples trust Jesus as Lord and Boss, and follow Him by imitating His life and obeying His teachings.[2] Jesus calls disciples to deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow Him. This means disciples have repented of sin, forsaken the world, and committed their lives to follow Him. Historically, being a disciple involved learning, studying, and passing along the master’s teachings.[3]
Is this what the church is making? Many would say no. To a great extent, I agree. Even back in 1988, Bill Hull said,
The evangelical church has become weak, flabby, and too dependent on artificial means that can only simulate real spiritual power. Churches are too little like training centers to shape up the saints and too much like cardiopulmonary wards at the local hospital. We have proliferated self-indulgent consumer religion, the what-can-the-church-do-for-me syndrome. We are too easily satisfied with conventional success: bodies, bucks, and buildings. The average Christian resides in the comfort zone of “I pay the pastor to preach, administrate, and counsel. I pay him, he ministers to me… I am the consumer, he is the retailer.”[4]
While churches are biblically mandated and should be structured to make disciples, many churches prioritize attendance and attractive programs over discipleship, which results in discipleship deficiencies. Discipleship involves more than mere head knowledge; it involves intentionally instructing Jesus’ followers to “observe all that Jesus commanded” and to become disciple-makers themselves.
So, Hull says, “The crisis at the heart of the church is that we give disciple-making lip service, but do not practice it.”[5] If that’s the case, what are some of the issues keeping churches from making disciples?
1. Cultural Values
The cultural air that we breathe has an imperceptible impact. Christian Smith does a good job explaining some of the cultural values that we can easily unknowingly imbibe in his book, Why Religion Went Obsolete.
David Foster Wallace once told this story:
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way. The older fish nods at them: “Morning, boys, how’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then one of them looks over at the other. “What the heck is water?”
It can be very difficult to be aware of our own culture and the impact that it is having on us.[6]
Our culture of consumerism and materialism is a big factor. So, Soong-Chan Rah, for example, has said,
Market-driven church that appeals to the materialistic desires of the individual consumer has resulted in a comfortable church, but not a biblical church. The church’s captivity to materialism has resulted in the unwillingness to confront sins such as economic and racial injustice and has produced consumers of religion rather than followers of Jesus.[7]
My point here is that our culture, even our church culture, does not place high value on discipleship. Although we may say we do. Our actions, or inaction, speak louder than our words.
We must let the Bible dictate our church culture, not culture.
2. Budgetary and Building Needs
Related to number one above, we have a church culture in America that is very dependent on buildings and budgets. We often think that for the church to continue, it has to “pack the pews” so the doors can stay open and the lights can stay on. Thus, the budgetary concerns can easily take precedence over all other concerns.
Here’s our thinking: What good can the church do if the church closes? Sunday comes quickly, and we need to have good sermons and programs if we hope to bring in the tithe or at least some form of giving.
Discipleship can easily take a back seat. Discipleship can be slow. Jesus walked, talked, and trained His disciples. This took time. Lots of time. Actual years. Yet, a movement of multiplication can happen when we make disciples.
We have conditioned ourselves for a type of fast-food or industrial revolution discipleship mentality. We want disciples quick, right off the express line. But that’s not how disciples have ever been made. But perhaps, especially now in our increasingly post-Christian, Bible-illiterate world.
We must care more about building up the actual body of Christ and not prioritize the church building (and budget).
3. Pastoral Identity Issues
Sadly, having been in pastoral ministry for 17 years and worked in various church contexts, sometimes there are pastoral identity issues that prevent pastors from investing in discipleship. It doesn’t feed a pastor’s ego if a lot of people don’t show up (however, “a lot of people” is defined). But Jesus didn’t always have a lot of people around Him. And sometimes when He did, He would say some very controversial things, and then many would leave. Christ’s goal was not a crowd, but “little Christs.”
A pastor’s ego is not fed when he equips others to do the work of the ministry, when he gives away ministry, helps others faithfully lead, shrugs out of the limelight, and pushes others towards success. But Christian ministry was never supposed to be about anyone’s ego.
But you know what is fed when a pastor doesn’t feed his ego? The church is fed, and it thus grows in both size and maturity because it is functioning as Jesus always intended it to function. Not as a one-person show, but as the church body being loving light wheresoever the church body finds itself throughout the week.
The church is an immaterial reality, and it was never meant to be bound by a material building; it was always meant to find physical expression in the living and breathing, walking and talking (incarnate), temples of God that Jesus’ people are. Just as the word of God was not bound, although Paul was bound in prison, God’s church is not bound to a building.
It is most healthy when it’s out loving in the wild world. That’s what it was always meant for. The telos or purpose of a candle is to be a source of light in darkness. It’s the same with the church. The church is called to be light in darkness and salt in a world of rot and decay. Notice, Jesus did not give the church something aspirational when He said, “You are the light of the world.” Jesus said something ontological. He said what we are.
I’m concerned that many pastors’ call to serve the church is self-serving. Pastors are often concerned about “their” church, not the Church. Pastors, sad to say, can be more concerned about their building being full rather than heaven being full.
The church is to make much of Jesus the Good Shepherd and not exalt any human.
4. Lack of Leadership Diversity (APEST)
“APEST” stands for apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. The Lord of the church has given these varied gifts to the church so that it will be balanced and mature (see Ephesians 4). Sadly, however, these gifts often find expression disconnected from the other gifts.
(It’s important to note that when I talk about APEST, I am talking about gifting. Not office or authority.)
Churches with certain types of leaders will move in certain directions. Teacher types tend to be thinkers, writers, researchers, and theologians. Shepherds tend to be carers, counselors, and community builders. Evangelists tend to be recruiters to the cause, apologists, and networkers. Prophets tend to call people to change, have holy criticism, and care deeply about social issues. Apostles pioneer, innovate, and create new approaches and structures.[8]
It seems the most common type of church, at least in the West, is the shepherd/teacher church.[9] This often results in a “knowledge-based community where right doctrine is seen to be more important than rightdoing.”[10] There is often an overemphasis on the sermon and Sunday service, and community, discipleship, and evangelism are an afterthought.
Again, diversity and balance are important. “The one-dimensional teaching church attracts people who love to be taught and tends to alienate other forms of spiritual expression. This is seldom a good thing because such churches simply become vulnerable to groupthink or even mass delusion. This has happened way too often… witness the many one-dimensional charismatic/vertical prophetic movements of the last century. Or consider the asymmetrical mega-church that markets religion and ends up producing consumptive, dependent, underdeveloped, cultural Christians with an exaggerated sense of entitlement.”[11]
The fact that “we have sought to negotiate our way in the world without three of the five functions (by elevating teaching and shepherding and neglecting evangelism, the prophetic, and the apostolic) accounts for so many of the problems we face in the church.”[12]
5. Lack of Commitment to the New Testament Ideal
Many times, we don’t know what we’re aiming for when it comes to disciples. We often lack a clear definition, or it’s a knowledge-based definition. Churches often emphasize orthodoxy (right belief) over orthopraxy (right practice). This results in many churchgoers who know a lot but don’t necessarily do a lot. But the great commission doesn’t just say “teach.” Its aim is practice. The Great Commission says, “teach them to observe everything I have commanded” (Matt. 28:20).
The church body is made up of individual members who together and separately worship, reflect, and share. The church is not an institution or an event. It is a living and moving organism. It is embodied all over every sector of society. So, we must ask, are disciples being made who make disciples who know, grow, and go?
The New Testament ideal is every believer practicing the missional mandate. It’s not just about knowing, but about going and doing all that Jesus commanded. The church must have growth goals or metrics that match the mission that Jesus has given to the church.
6. Lack of A Model to Emulate
The Apostle Paul said, “Imitate me as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). Jesus is the New Testament ideal. We are to imitate Him. And “Jesus poured His life into a few disciples and taught them to make other disciples.”[13]
So, we have an example to emulate in Jesus and Paul. Christian leaders must also provide examples and practice what they preach.[14] If pastors, for example, are—intentionally or unintentionally—held up as the Christian ideal, there are certain implications. If pastors mainly study and teach publicly or mainly function as CEOs, then that’s what is being modeled to people. And not lived everyday discipleship.
Conclusion
Good things often distract from the best things. And actually, some of the things churches do that they think are good only serve to create a culture of consumerism. Things must change. We must obey Jesus and make disciples who make disciples. We must make whatever structural and organizational changes are necessary to ensure we’re carrying out Jesus’ commission.[15]
I propose a new approach to “doing church” because, to a great extent, the way we’re currently doing church, at least in the West, is not working. We are not making disciples who make disciples in accordance with our Lord’s command. To a great extent, the church is making sitters. We must take our Boss’s words seriously and make structural and organizational changes.
Transformation happens less by argument and more by creating new rhythms and practices that shift not only people’s thinking but also their values and core commitments. We think, practice, and love our way into transformation. As Alan Hirsch has perceptively said, “The best way of making ideas have impact is to embed them into the very rhythms and habits of the community in the form of common tools and practices.”[16]
We need to stop just talking about discipleship and having programs for discipleship. We need something more radical. We need to scrap the old ways that allow for abstraction, and instead create regular rhythms that embody application.
Notes
[1] See Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor, 14.
[2] See Michael S. Heiser, What Does God Want? (Blind Spot Press, 2018), 94–95 and Ken Wilson, Finding God in the Bible: A Beginner’s Guide to Knowing God (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2005), 86.
[3] Robert B. Sloan Jr., “Disciple,” in Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ed. Chad Brand et al. (Nashville, TN: Holman Bible Publishers, 2003), 425.
[4] Bill Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor, 12.
[5] Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor, 15.
[6] Alan Hirsch, 5Q: Reactivating the Original Intelligence and Capacity of the Body of Christ.
[7] Soong-Chan Rah, The Next Evangelicalism, 63.
[8] There are a few Johns who stick out as teachers. John Calvin, Jonathan Edwards, and John MacArthur. Here are some other examples: George Whitefield (evangelist/apostle), John Piper (teacher/prophet), Charles Spurgeon (evangelist/prophet), Mother Teresa (shepherd) Richard Baxter (shepherd/teacher), Teresa of Avila (prophet/teacher), St. Patrick (apostle/shepherd) John Wimber (apostle/evangelist), David Platt (teacher/prophet), Hudson Taylor (apostle/evangelist), Catherine Booth (apostle), Dietrich Bonhoeffer (prophet/teacher), Billy Graham (evangelist), and Martin Luther King Jr. (prophet).
[9] “The church is actually perfectly designed by shepherds and teachers to produce shepherding and teaching outcomes. The organizational bias of the inherited form of church organization is in a real sense a reflection of the consciousness of the people who designed it in the first place!” (Alan Hirsch, 5Q).
[10] Hirsch, 5Q.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Spader, Four Chair Discipling, 36. “These few disciples, within two years after the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost, went out and “filled Jerusalem” with Jesus’ teaching (Acts 5:28). Within four and a half years they had planted multiplying churches and equipped multiplying disciples (Acts 9:31). Within eighteen years it was said of them that they “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17;6 ESV). And in twenty-eight years it was said that the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world” (Col. 1:6). For four years Jesus lived out the values He championed in His Everyday Commission. He made disciples who could make disciples!” (Ibid.).
[14] Jesus had a specific method which we would be wise to observe and follow. See, for example, Matthew 9:35-39: “Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.'” Jesus went, taught, proclaimed, healed, saw, and had compassion. He equipped disciples and sent them out into the harvest. He didn’t want them to sit in a building or do ministry in a building. What’s needed and what Jesus told us to pray for is laborers sent into the harvest.
[15] “Not much will change until we raise the issue and create controversy, until the American church is challenged to take the Great Commission seriously” (Hull, The Disciple-Making Pastor, 15).
[16] Hirsch, 5Q.
*Photo by Nellie Adamyan
The Explosive Potential of Discipleship
The Explosive Potential of Discipleship
Not only did Jesus disciple and tell us to disciple,[1] there is potential for explosive Kingdom growth when we focus on discipleship. If we want to be about the work King Jesus has called us to, we must not be about brand building, but discipleship building; we must be about discipleship, not entertainment.
Jesus had just three years to launch a global movement, the length of His public ministry. Just three years to reach people that would eventually reach the ends of the earth.[2] What would He do? There was no social media, no radio, no television, and public transportation was nothing like what we know. How would God’s plan to bless all nations through Messiah Jesus ever happen?
Jesus chose to invest heavily in just a few people and help them to become like Himself. That was His big cosmic plan. And it was utterly time-consuming. “But within seventy years, the cadre of people around Jesus had taken His good news into every corner of the Roman world. Do we have better efficiencies in mind?”[3] (If so, we’re foolishly not following the One who is Wisdom incarnate).
Westerners are in love with well-packaged mass marketing of the gospel. In church, as in advertising, growth is a numbers game about getting as many impressions as possible out to the masses. Mass communication and evangelism may have their place, but they show no signs of dramatically transforming the world. But Jesus gave almost all of His attention to intentionally discipling just twelve men, especially focusing on four of them. The results speak for themselves. Can we do better, investing in Christian mass messaging and once-a-week preaching services?[4]
What did Jesus’ discipleship look like?
Dann Spader identifies the major discipleship methods in Jesus’ life and ministry. Jesus tells us to make disciples and He shows us how to make disciples.
- Jesus was deeply committed to relational ministry.
“Every aspect of Jesus’ ministry was relational. To Jesus, relationships were not a strategy; they were part of being full human.”[5]
- Jesus invested early in a few.
He started slow to go fast.
- Jesus often slipped away to pray.
“More than forty-five times in the Gospels, Jesus escaped the crowds to pray.”[6]
- Jesus loved sinners profoundly.
- Jesus balanced His efforts to win the lost, build believers, and equip a few workers.
“Jesus poured His life into a few disciples and taught them to make other disciples. Seventeen times we find Jesus with the masses, but forty-six times we see Him with His disciples.”[7]
Discipleship is about Obedience, Not Knowledge Acquisition
The Great Commission says, “teaching them to obey everything I have commanded,” not “teaching them to know a bunch biblical data.” Knowledge certainly has it’s place but it’s condemning if not applied (see Matt. 28:20). Knowledge should have its effect, for one, it should humble us. We must be mindful of our minds. Yet, sadly, “There is a misconception that if people know what is right, they will do what is right. Experience tells us that this is not the case, yet we function as if it is.”[8] We need more apprenticeships and less classrooms.
The Discipleship of a Few Led to the Discipleship of Many
Jesus did not just choose the educated and the especially gifted to be His apprentices. He chose common people like you and me. Yet within two years after the Spirit was given at Pentecost this ragtag group “went out and ‘filled Jerusalem’ with Jesus’ teaching (Acts 5:28). Within four and a half years they had planted multiplying churches and equipped multiplying disciples (Acts 9:31). Within eighteen years it was said of them that they ‘turned the world upside down’ (Acts 17:6 ESV). And in twenty-eight years it was said that ‘the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world’ (Col. 1:6). For four years Jesus lived out the values He championed in His Everyday Commission. He made disciples who could make disciples!”[9]
Despite the harassment and persecution the Church faced across the decades the movement continued to grow to some “1000 Christians in 40 AD, about 7 to 10,000 in 100 A.D., about 200,000 or a bit more by 200 A.D., and by 300 A.D. perhaps 5 to 6,000,000.”[10] People were discipled to follow Jesus and they did and the Jesus movement spread like wildfire.[11]
As Michael Green in his classic book, Evangelism in the Early Church, says,
It was a small group of eleven men whom Jesus commissioned to carry on his work, and bring the gospel to the whole world. They were not distinguished; they were not well educated; they had no influential backers. In their own nation they were nobodies and, in any case, their own nation was a mere second-class province on the eastern extremity of the Roman map. If they had stopped to weigh up the probabilities of succeeding in their mission, even granted their conviction that Jesus was alive and that his Spirit went with them to equip them for their task, their hearts must surely have sunk, so heavily were the odds weighted against them. How could they possibly succeed? And yet they did.[12]
How did they succeed? Well, it was clearly through the power of the Holy Spirit. He empowered these early Jesus followers to practice passionate discipleship.
If we make disciples as Jesus told us and showed us it may not look “sexy” or effective but at times Jesus’ ministry didn’t look successful either.[13] “A lot of disciple-makers feel successful when they have a large crowd of people listening to their teaching and following their lead. Catalyzing Disciple-Making Movements, however, requires disciplemakers to give up the spotlight.”[14] It’s about Jesus’ fame, not ours. It’s about making disciples, not fans.
We need to change our perception of success. We need to measure the number of leaders we train, the number of leaders those leaders identify and train, the number of people who are sent out to start groups, and the number of groups that replicate.[15] We need to be about building the Kingdom, not our kingdom.
Simple church structures that facilitate discipleship our essential. We need to do away with as much of the trappings of religion as we can. We must not sell Christianity as “cool.” If we make Christianity simply “cool,” what happens when and where it’s not “cool”? Cuddling Christians must also go. Jesus said, “If you lose your life, you will find it” (see Matt. 16:25; Lk. 9:24; Jn. 12:25). He didn’t say, “Following Me is a cool bonus.” Jesus is life and loving and following Him is what life is about.
Notes
[1] And note that the “going” Jesus is talking about in the Great Commission (Matt. 28:16-20) is not a special event, such as a mission trip. Instead, we are to make disciples as we go to work, as we go to school, as we go out into our neighborhood” (Dann Spader, 4 Chair Discipling, 36-37).
[2] Jerry Trousdale, Miraculous Movements, 40.
[3] Trousdale, Miraculous Movements, 40.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Dann Spader, 4 Chair Discipling, 30.
[6] Spader, 4 Chair Discipling, 14.
[7] Ibid., 36.
[8] Watson, Contagious Disciple Making, 204. “Transmitting information in the discipleship process is imperative, but it is not the most important aspect of the disciple-making process. Disciples do not just know what the Master requires; they do what the Master requires in every situation regardless of the consequences.” (Watson, Contagious Disciple Making, 204)
[9] Dann Spader, 4 Chair Discipling, 36.
[10] Larry W. Hurtado, Destroyer of the gods: early Christian distinctiveness in the Roman world, 3.
[11] Rapid Church growth is still possible. J.D. Payne notes in his book, Discovering Church Planting, that when Francis Asbury, the Methodist minister, began his work in America there were some 600 Methodists in America, but at the time of his death there were over 200,000. Here’s a summary of some of what can be gleaned from early Methodism: 1) Abundant Gospel Sowing, 2) Evangelistic Zeal, 3) Contextualization, 4) Sacrifice, and 5) Simple Organization.
[12] Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church, 13.
[13] Jesus didn’t have a building or apparently much of a budget and He would often say things to disturb the masses to the point that they would leave. Yet, now reportedly 31.6% of the world’s population affiliates with Christianity.
[14] Watson, Contagious Disciple Making, 112.
[15] Ibid., 113.
What if we believed Jesus was Lord, not just Savior?
What if church were different? What if we believed Jesus was Lord, not just Savior? There was a long debate on this very topic. It’s known as “the Lordship controversy.”
It is true that faith alone saves, but the real genuine faith that saves is never alone. If Jesus is Savior, He is also Lord (Eph. 2:8-10). We prove Jesus is our Savior by showing that He is our Lord (Matt. 7:21; Jn. 8:31; 15:8). He is no Lord if He does not reign. We indeed struggle and we strive as we follow our Savior. In Christ Jesus, we are all simultaneously saints, sinners, and sufferers, seeking to conform our likeness to Jesus.
But I fear that we as contemporary Christians have picked over what is known as Christianity and have taken what we think agreeable and ignored what we consider unpleasant. It is much the same way that a two-year-old eats. The child eats what it feels it will enjoy and pitches everything of seemingly no value. The problem with this is that any baby on its own will not eat as it should and will, therefore, become malnourished, sick, and run the risk of death. I fear this is a problem in the US Church today.
A survey The Barna Group conducted in 2006, found that
“Faith commitments sometimes play a role in what people do – but less often than might be assumed. In comparing the lifestyle choices of born again Christians to the national norms, there were more areas of similarity than distinction… In evaluating 15 moral behaviors, born again Christians are statistically indistinguishable from non-born again adults on most of the behaviors studied.”[1]
This should not be the case. 1 John 2:3-6 states,
“We know that we have come to know [Jesus Christ], if we keep His commandments. Whoever says ‘I know Him’ but does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps His word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way in which He walked.”
James, similarly, tells us, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (1:22).
Jesus said, “Why do you call Me ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I tell you?” (Lk. 6:46). If Jesus is Lord, and He is, He demands and deserves our full allegiance. We are commanded by the Lord Jesus to make disciples, it’s not an option. That’s not all though. We are told to teach the disciples to observe all that Jesus has commanded. We’re called to do much more than make converts, we are essentially commanded to multiply little Christs.[2]
Notice also that the Lord, who has all authority in heaven and on earth, has said, “Teach them to observe all that I have commanded them.” He didn’t say, “Teach them to understand everything I have commanded them.” Obedience is first. We often get that backward. We often focus so much on understanding every little jot and title that we don’t have any time or energy left to do what our Lord has given us to do.
When I was in Army boot camp and the drill sergeant told me to do something, I did it. I did it quickly. I didn’t ask why. I didn’t ask for a definition. I just did it. And I screamed “Yes drill sergeant! Moving drill sergeant!” I listened and I obeyed. The drill sergeant deserved and demanded respect and it was given. The drill sergeant was the boss and so there was obedience.
Jesus is the boss for whom every being in the entire universe will bow. He is the Creator, we are creation. What He says, we must do. Jesus is the Lord, not just the Savior.
Notes
[1] “’Born again Christians’ are defined as people who said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also indicated they believe that when they die they will go to Heaven because they had confessed their sins and had accepted Jesus Christ as their savior. Respondents are not asked to describe themselves as ‘born again.’” The Barna Group, American Lifestyles Mix compassion and Self-Oriented Behavior, February 5, 2007. From: http://www.barna.org/donorscause-articles/110-american-lifestyles-mix-compassion-and-self-oriented-behavior on 6-15-10.
[2] Many passages tell us to be like Christ. For example: Matt. 16:24; 19:21; Jn. 13:14-15, 34-35; 17:18; 20:21; 1 Cor. 11:1; Eph. 5:1-2; Phil. 2:5-11; 1 Peter 2:21; 1 Jn. 2:6; 3:16; 4:9-11.
Why Consumerism Harms Church Discipleship
What if church were different? What if we disciple instead of entertain? I recently read this striking description of church: “Sunday services are essentially a bunch of people gathered to sing along with a worship cover band.”[1] But church was always meant to be much more than an entertaining sing-along.
Jesus talked about the cross yet we encourage and support consumerism. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk. 9:23). What if the church growth method of coddling Christians is backfiring? Perhaps our emphasis on entertainment over discipleship is partially at fault for this startling statistic: “51% of Churchgoers Don’t Know of the Great Commission.”[2] Clearly, being a churchgoer is not the same as being an apprentice of Jesus.[3]
It seems like at least many of the biggest and brightest churches across America are the most successful vendors of “religious goods and services.”[4] As Kenneth Woodward said, “Some of the least demanding churches are now in the greatest demand.”[5] Yet, as has often been said, “What you win them with, is what you win them to.” Of course, most churches will not be able to compete with the world when it comes to amazing entertaining experiences, but “even if we could produce cool church events, we would create a generation of Christian consumers who look to the church to entertain them.”[6]
Plus, the church has what the world can never duplicate. We foolishly put the emphasis on the wrong thing if we put it on entertainment. America is drowning in entertainment. We are “amusing ourselves to death.”[7] We have the bread of life, if the world has butter, why are we offering more butter?! They need bread! They may not know it, but they’re desperately hungry for substance.
Further, when we entertain and coddle Christians, is it any wonder why Christians don’t want to take up their crosses as Jesus commands? Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in The Cost of Discipleship, said, “When Jesus bids a man, He bids him come and die.” We, instead, offer entertainment and amusement. The church often tries to compete with what the world offers all the while Jesus is calling us to put to death what is earthly in us. I’m not saying all entertainment is wrong, but entertainment as a church growth model is problematic for discipleship.
Christ tells us to take up our cross but we’re often worried about our coffee. Jesus tells us to lay our life down but “the sermon didn’t really speak to me.” This mindset is problematic and prevalent. And it’s been bred in our churches in America. Alan Hirsh has said,
Ninety percent or more of the people who attend our services are passive. In other words, they are consumptive. They are the passive recipients of the religious goods and services being delivered largely by professionals in a slick presentation and service. Just about everything we do in these somewhat standardized services and ‘box churches,’ we do in order to attract participants, and to do this we need to make the experience of church more convenient and comfortable. It is the ultimate religious version of one-stop shopping-hassle-free. But alas, all we are achieving by doing this is adding more fuel to the insatiable consumerist flame. I have come to the dreaded conclusion that we simply cannot consume our way into discipleship. Consumerism as it is experienced in the everyday and discipleship as it is intended in the scriptures are simply at odds with each other.[8]
We have so distorted the radical call of Jesus that the standard for Christian faithfulness has become somewhat frequent church attendance or checking out the church’s livestream. It is such the norm for pastors to pander to the middle classes’ desire for safety and security, comfort and convenience, that it’s hardly ever seen for what it is. It’s just the way it is, the way it’s always been. Pastors will run themselves ragged, be chewed up, and spit out, all the time catering to the church’s perceived “needs.” The pastor can feel good because he sacrificed himself—and probably his family—for the “good” of the church. But what if “good of the church,” is equal to “sufficiently coddled and entertained”?
A major threat to the viability of Christianity in America is consumerism. Revelation warns Christians of the beast and Babylon. Perhaps American Christians are unaware that one of the evils of Babylon is its consumerism. Consumerism and following Christ are contradictory, they are positive and negative magnets, they repel each other. Again, “We plainly cannot consume our way into discipleship.”[9] In part, because “The task of the church is not to make men and women happy; it is to make them holy.”[10]
Entertainers provide popcorn and reclining chairs. Coaches provide water to replenish sweat and bandages to stop bleeding. Fans sit in their seats and buy hot dogs. Players lay it all on the line on the field. When we entertain we make fans. When we coach we make players. Fans may not sweat and bleed from the stands but are often overweight and unhealthy.
When we overprotect and provide, we stunt growth. In this way, people and plants are both byproducts of their environments. Biosphere 2 was built in Arizona to test the possibility of creating an ecological system that would support plant and human life in outer space. Everything was thought of; everything was perfect—too perfect. The trees in Biosphere 2 appeared strong and healthy until they collapsed.
The trees did not experience the stress of real life outside their perfectly designed environment. There was no wind, which resulted in a weaker cellular structure and roots that did not grow as deep. Perfectly curated environments hinder actual maturity. In the same way, an emphasis on entertainment is antithetical to an apprenticeship with Jesus. Curated comfortable environments can curb our conformity to Christ.
Notes
[1] Justin Sarachik, “Everybody Loves a Good Cover,” 48 in Common Good
[2] https://www.barna.com/research/half-churchgoers-not-heard-great-commission/
[3] Being a disciple of Jesus is much more than knowledge but what we believe is very important. When we look at the beliefs of “evangelical Christians” there is much reason for concern. The 2022 Ligoniers State of Theology found that 43% of evangelical Christians agree with this statement: “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God” and 56% agree with this statement: “God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam” (See https://thestateoftheology.com).
[4] Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 110.
[5] Charles Colson and Ellen Vaughn, Being the Body, 22.
[6] Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, Everyday Church: Gospel Communities on Mission, 49.
[7] See Neil Postman’s book with the same title: Amusing Ourselves to Death.
[8] Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 110.
[9] Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways, 45.
[10] Colson and Vaughn, Being the Body, 26.
We Must Make Disciples (Part I)
The goal of the Great Commission is not just for someone to pray a prayer, rather the goal is discipleship. The emphasis in the Great Commission is not on “go,” but on “make disciples” by teaching them to obey all Jesus commanded.[1]
“The participle [“go”] is probably better translated ‘when you go’ or ‘as you go’”[2] and thus it is a command for all of us in all the phases of our lives to make disciples. “The commission is not fundamentally about mission out there somewhere else in another country. It’s a commission that makes disciple-making the normal agenda and priority of every church and every Christian disciple.”[3]
We can read the Bible because faithful men did not let the chain of discipleship be broken; even with great distress and peril to their lives. But the question is: are we going to be faithful? Are we going to pass on the gospel and the message of radical discipleship? Or are we going to be the weak link? Will we make disciples as the Great Commission commands?
The fields are white for harvest and God promises that if we ask Him for laborers He will send them; however, we must be faithful to teach them. Gospel work is not meant to be done by one person. We are called to work together and make disciples who in turn, make disciples themselves.
If there was a lot of work to be done in harvesting a field, wouldn’t it make sense to recruit help? Would not more work get done with many hands? Many hands make light work or, at least, more work accomplished. It is not only thoroughly biblical to make disciples, it is also logical.
Imagine a farmer was given the task by the king of the land to sow enough seed and harvest enough crops to feed the entire kingdom. How foolish would it be if he sought out to sow the seed and bring in the harvest all by himself? He would fail miserably. Even if he worked terribly hard he would still not be able to cultivate enough food to feed the entire kingdom. The farmer needs fellow laborers but he must also equip them for the task. He must teach them and give them tools.
What would the king’s response be if the farmer failed to bring in enough food because he failed to recruit or equip the laborers he did recruit? The king would surely be outraged. The farmer would be found unfaithful because he did not train the labors so that he could complete the task. Will we hear this same indictment from the King?
Ezekiel 33:6 warns against the watchman that does not blow the trumpet and warn the people that the sword is coming. If we have the gospel, we are responsible to share it. We are responsible to warn men and women of the sword of God’s wrath which is to come. We are also responsible to share the blessed hope that we have in the cross of Christ by which that wrath of God has been diverted from us to Jesus.
Not long after Ezekiel cautions those who would not warn against the sword to come another warning is issued. A warning against those who would not feed God’s sheep, “Should not shepherds feed the sheep?” (Ezek. 34:2). The implied answer is, yes, they should. That is what shepherds do; they feed and take care of sheep. Later it says,
“You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up… So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for the wild beasts” (Ezek. 34:3-4).
That is the horrible result of a shepherd not taking care of and feeding his sheep. They become food for beasts. It is an eye opening picture for us. Imagine being a shepherd in a field and lapsing for one moment only to awake and find one of your sheep slaughtered, bloodied, ripped from limb to limb. Just a short lapse and a wild beast has destroyed what has been entrusted to your care.
We, the mature in Christ, not just pastor-shepherds, have been entrusted with being Christ’s under shepherds and faithfully caring for and feeding His flock. God wants us to be faithful and present every member of his body (every sheep) fully equipped lacking in nothing built up into Christ which is the head (Eph. 4:12; 15).
Although, most believers will not hold the office of pastor and may never teach from a pulpit,[4] everyone is responsible to grow up in the faith and thus be able to teach, disciple, and minister to others (Eph. 4:11-13; 15; Col. 3:16; Titus 2:2-4; 1 Peter 4:10-11). Stephen is also an example of this (Acts 6:5; Ch. 7) and Timothy was taught by his grandmother as a child (2 Tim. 1:5). In Titus it says that older women are to teach what is good and so train the young women to love their husbands and children (2:3-4).
It is not just official pastors that these warnings from Ezekiel come to. It is all those that are called to faith in Christ, God’s royal priesthood. The sheep must be fed. Who will feed them? The call for discipleship has been issued to every believer. Each Christian must play their part.
Will you? Will you be faithful to make disciples?
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[1] That, however, in no way negates the fact that we must make disciples of all nations: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the utter most parts of the world (Acts 1:8). See for example: Lk. 24:47, Matt. 28:19 (“all nations”), Rom. 1:5 says “for the sake of his name among all the nations,” and Ps. 96:3 says, “Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!”
[2] Colin Marshal and Tony Payne, The Trellis and the Vine (Kingford, Australia: Matthias Media, 2009), 13.
[3]Ibid., 13.
[4] See qualifications for shepherd/pastor/elder: 1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-11. Everyone is to strive to meet the qualifications even if they are not called to be in the office of pastor.
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