Church of The Shallow Soil?

Craig Groeschel said the following on his blog yesterday… “Salvations and baptisms would surely be celebrated in heaven, but these celebrations should be the beginning of success and not the end goal.”

With this in mind, I realized how much I have recently been pondering what “discipleship” might/could/should look like. Here’s some rough thoughts of the tri-emphasis of discipleship that wholistically contribute to a persons ongoing development of faith.

1.  Relationally Discipleship … this is discipleship and growth which takes place in the context of community.    It is the personal development that happens because you are doing life with other people, living in a certain degree of accountability with them, and receiving care and comfort when needed.  This happens best when it is largely organic in nature.  A large part of where the church struggles is trying to be the matchmaker for people and yet many who attend want the church to serve this role.  “Help me connect”, “I need friends”, and “I am tired of being isolated” are common complaints.  Funny how we won’t demand that sort of connection in any other area or context of our lives.  We tend to do pretty well elsewhere naturally connecting and making friends, but the church has always seemed to work really hard to help that process along or even twist arms if necessary to make it happen.

2.  Serving Discipleship … this  is discipleship that happens in the midst of helping and assisting others.   It is the tapping into the part of you that wants to make a difference, change the world, and affect someone elses life.  As we enter into this process, we are changed.  We are usually filed with perspective and a greater sense of purpose.  The process of serving in the context of faith  (and relationship) extends the love of God beyond our own felt needs and wants.  It also brings a strong maturity to our lives and a healthiness to our perspective.

3.  Maturity Discipleship … this final area is the one that gets the bulk of the attention.  It could be called the “knowledge” slice of the discipleship pie as it is in this area that we gain a greater understanding of God and what it means to be His follower.  However, this is the most difficult to navigate with a healthy perspective as knowledge tends to corrupt pretty easily.  However, it is also this slice that the contemporary church has largely been weak in.  We have pushed back against some largely ineffective models from our childhood and/or youth consisting of indoctrination techniques and in the process have neglected to truly build the necessary knowledge that will lead to growth and greater understanding.

What if we celebrated growth, not just first steps?

~ by Lee Coate on May 26, 2009.