Discipleship Or Lack There Of

So I am sitting here contemplating what it means to truly disciple someone and the only thing that I can think of is duplicating yourself. This was Jesus’ entire goal in what He was doing with His disciples. So the question I have is why aren’t we doing this in the church? This is not to point out any church in particular because I believe this is an epidemic not an isolated infection.

Several observations will illustrate my point. If you were to ask the average member in a church how their time alone with God is they will more than likely say they struggle because the Bible is hard to understand. Ask them to pray and it will probably sound like something from Meet the Fockers. Ask them when the last time they shared their faith or to explain the Gospel and they will probably say never or they are not sure. Ask them how their prayer life has been and they will say it could be a lot better. Ask them who they are discipling and there will be no one because they are not even sure what that means.

I think the church is doing a pretty good job at introducing people to Jesus but once that commitment to follow Him has been established we leave them on their own to try and figure out how to know God intimately and deeply. After all, it is a “personal” relationship so our responsibility is over. It’s sort of like “Hey bob this is Jesus, Jesus this is Bob. Alright see yall later.” I think this is where the church needs to rethink their responsibility in how to grow their congregations. We need to be teaching people how to read the Bible and pray and how to share their faith and help new believers know God more intimately and pour into others what has been poured into them. But here is the kicker, this does not happen from the pulpit! Discipleship does not start and finish with the pulpit; it begins and ends in a personal relationship. That is how Jesus did it and that is how we need to do it.

The problem that I see is that leaders are too busy with other things to invest the time it takes to disciple someone or they have become lazy. Excuses like I have a wife and family or I already spent 40 hours in the office this week or I just don’t have the time begin to surface. Regardless of the excuse we must be making time to spend alone with one or two people pouring into them like Jesus did the disciples. This is not easy to do and I believe it is why leaders are no longer doing this. It takes time and sacrifice and they just aren’t willing to sacrifice anymore.

We need to be sitting down with people and teaching them how to listen when they read the Bible. After all, it is more than just the words on the pages that speak to us. We need to teach them how to make observations and connections in the text. One of the helpful Bible study methods that I have been introduced to is called “Lectio Divina.” It means holy or divine reading. It is the process of reading a passage over and over listening and observing different things you are hearing while praying for God to speak to you as you contemplate what you are reading. My professor from Trinity College of Florida introduced me to this. Over the semester at the beginning of class we would read Luke 11 and everyone would have to point out something they heard God speaking to them. 30 times we read that passage over the semester with 15 students’ making new observations every time. It was a very spiritually challenging semester for me.

Leaders have an obligation because of the position they are in to reproduce themselves and they must be investing time in someone else’s life in the so they can in time let that person go so they can do the same thing to another. It may sound cheesy but it is the pay it forward method. It may take time for this to be effective but we have to start somewhere. So the question is this. Who are you investing time in teaching how to read the Bible, pray, evangelize, disciple, do missions…?