Time To Shake Our Traditions?

During this series of blog posts, we’ve been looking at various aspects of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and the need for each disciple to be trained to make disciples who will, in turn, make more disciples.  But does this go far enough?  Will it get the job of completing the Great Commission during this generation, or any generation?  Is it time to shake up our traditional methods and see if we’re truly using the Biblical model.

So far, we have not addressed the urgency of the task.  As I think back over the concepts, teachings and trainings I have been exposed to concerning discipleship over the years, only one basic model seems to emerge.  There are many variations but the cycle generally works something like the following.

Look for opportunities to develop relationships with non-Christians or nominal Christians whose lives do no evidence a walk of growing faith in and obedience to Christ.  Seek to develop those relationships through activities together and demonstrated acts of kindness and faith. 

When appropriate, gently share what God has done for you.  (Earn the right to be heard.)  Take them to church services or lead them yourself to receive Christ as Lord and Savior when they are ready to hear.  Get them into a good Bible study and prayer group at the local church so they will grow spiritually.  When they have become mature in the faith, the church should encourage them to go lead others to Christ.  This process might take many months or even years.

The general pattern here is:  believe in Christ – mature in the faith – go serve.  This seems to be the accepted way.  Well, you might say, isn’t this the basic concept Jesus used to train his disciples, living with them for over three years?  Well, not exactly.  First of all, Jesus’ ministry was not primarily to evangelize and make disciples.  He came to fulfill the ancient scriptural prophecies of the coming Messiah and Suffering Servant and to reveal to Israel what God is really like.  His ministry was about proving His deity and showing His amazing love for all mankind through his ultimate sacrifice for sin on the cross.  His disciples were being prepared to serve as pillars of the future Church and the new covenant.

In addition, His three or so years of ministry are not marked with a robust growth in numbers of disciples.  On the contrary, during the latter part of His ministry many fell away from Him.  At Jesus’ final appearance to the Eleven (disciples) just before His ascension, the Scriptures tell us that even then some of them doubted.  It was not until the Holy Spirit was given on the Day of Pentecost that the Church became alive and began to grow exponentially.  That would seem to be a better place to look for a discipleship model.

So, what was the model for disciple making in the early Church?  How was it basically different from the general pattern above?  We need to look into the book of Acts to learn how the Church grew then.  One thing that we see, aside from a few notable sermons that jump started communities of believers, was the fact that “…the Lord was daily adding to their number those who were being saved”  (Acts 2:47b).  Note the continuing process. 

During the apostle Paul’s missionary journeys whole thriving churches sprang up from small beginnings.  One example was the church at Philippi that began from the household of the Philippian jailor and Lydia, the seller of purple fabric.  The message of the Gospel was introduced to a few and then it would go viral.

But could this happen today?  The answer is yes!  Where it is being applied it is happening.  The fundamental difference in this approach is a reversal in the maturing process.  Instead of believe, mature, then serve, the original pattern was: believe, serve, mature.  Here are some practical reasons why it is working well…

New believers are excited and eager to share about their newly found faith.

They learn a sense of urgency to share the Gospel with others who do not know Christ, and that sense becomes contagious with each succeeding generation of believers.

They still have a wide sphere of influence among many family, friends and other contacts who are non-believers who know and respect them.  After a year or so, this will shift to mostly other believers.

They tend to be eager learners and very teachable, and they understand their goal is to make disciples as they grow in Christ.

In being immediately obedient to what they have learned about making disciples of others they are maturing in the faith faster than those how merely sit in a class and absorb spiritual knowledge until some indefinite time when they are “ready” to
go out and serve.

I want to give credit for much of the foregoing thought on the early church model of disciple making to the authors of the book, T4T: A Discipleship Re-Revolution, Steve Smith and Ying Kai.

There are other significant differences between the early church model of discipleship and the traditional concept besides the maturing process.  I hope to share more of these with you next time.