What is the best program for making good disciples? In other words, how can a person be adequately trained and prepared to be a follower of Jesus?

If you check with the local Christian bookstore, you will find that the most common way to disciple someone is to take them through some sort of discipleship manual. This book or workbook is designed to teach the person some basic biblical and theological truths as well as some instruction on basic Christian disciplines like praying, reading the Bible, attending church, and tithing. This is why discipleship almost universally takes place in a “discipleship class” and is often a subset of the “Christian education” department.

I’m not against such methods…except that they don’t seem to work. Very few people who go through such programs actually end up acting much like Jesus. If the goal of a discipleship program is to help a person act like Jesus, then our discipleship programs are failing.

Discipleship = Serviceship
The best discipleship program is one that follows the actual method Jesus used in making disciples. Did He teach His followers the Bible, how to pray, and what to do with their money? Absolutely. But unlike most discipleship programs today, Jesus always taught His followers within the context of service. They would go feed 5000 people, and then He would teach them. They would go heal the sick and then He would teach them. He sent them out two by two, and when they came back, He would teach them. Teaching was almost never isolated from mission and service.

You want life transformation to result from your discipleship programs? Add mission. Add service. Don’t just teach; obey (Matt 28:20). I have often thought that a better word for discipleship might be serviceship, or better yet, apprenticeship. How does an apprentice learn best? By doing.

All Together Now!
And this service and mission is not a later stage or second step to discipleship. It’s not (1) learn, then (2) serve. Ideally, learning and service go together. However, we often banish new believers off into the endless cycle of Bible studies so they can learn basic Christian doctrine before we let them serve. And instead of taking the class, and then going out and serving, they often just move from one class to another. They emerge thirty years later with a well-worn Bible, bloodshot eyes, and a hyper-critical, judgmental, puffed-up personality and ivory-tower attitude that is no longer useful for service.

To maintain a soft heart, a proper discipleship program trains both the head and the hands.

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this short series on the Future of the Church, I wrote about how the church needs to escape the attractional, church-growth model of the church, and become more missional. Doing so will enable us to prepare for the world-wide reawakening of the church that is coming.

In this post, I want to focus on a process by which you personally can prepare for this reawakening.

1. You must reimagine the church as the body of Christ. Forget everything, and I mean everything, you know or think you know about the church, what it is supposed to be, do, and look like. Then, start reading the Gospels with the understanding that Jesus is showing by example and teaching with words and works how His followers are to live and act. I believe that Jesus’ life is God’s dream for the church. If we are the body of Christ, then we must be the body of Christ now as He was 2000 years ago. When people say they want to get back to the early church the way it was in Acts, I believe they have not gone far enough back. They need to get back to the way Jesus lived and acted. He is our church model.

2. Follow up this study by reliving the life of Christ. In other words, try to live like Jesus lived. But here’s the key: You can’t do this by yourself, because you are not Christ, and you are not the Body of Christ. It is only “we” who believe in Him and follow Him who are His body, and so we can only live as He lived, and do what He did, in concert with other members of the body. So, find some other like-minded people, and together, start trying to be Jesus to the world. As the body, you can help the poor, set captives free, help the blind to see, heal the sick, feed the hungry, and show people the way back to God. And I don’t mean with miracles, though I don’t rule miracles out. It is amazing what a few people can do together who share a common desire to help others.

3. Don’t revert! When people start to join with you, and your numbers begin to grow, and people start coming to faith in Christ, resist the urge to protect what you have gained by reverting to more safe and common ways of doing church. Trying to become safe and protected is the beginning of decline and ineffectiveness. I’ll let you decide what this looks like in your context.

When you embark upon this process, you’ll notice that once you are able to discard everything you think you know about church, and begin the adventure of reimagining church (step 1), your life begins to spiral upward in some new and interesting ways (step 2), which then causes you to both seek more from Scripture (step 1) but also desire to run from risk and return to what is safe and known (step 3). So this is a constant process of going back and forth between reimagining (step 1) and reliving (step 2), while warding off the temptation of reverting (step 3).

I know because I’m right there. It’s a terrifying and thrilling place to be.

Thanks to a comment by Brad on yesterday’s post, I found the Missional Church Network blog. (See? Posting comments on someone else’s blog does work! If you make comments on the blogs of others, it helps people find your blog.)

I love everything written by Alan Hirsch, and so when I saw a post containing a YouTube Video by Alan from the Exponential Conference, I had to watch it. I have embedded it below, but here is what Brad wrote about the video:

When asked about church planting in America as compared to planting efforts in the UK or his own Australian context he states that church planting in the United States is ”too bonded to the church growth movement.” He goes on to say that the church in the West has not yet adequately considered the missionary nature of the church. 

In other words we in the West are too centered on how to get our individual churches to grow, primarily through attractional means, rather than seriously considering how to think as a cross-cultural missionary focused on reaching those who have no interest in attending our church functions.

I can’t agree more. As we embrace a more missional stance to our culture, we will start to see some staggering results (more on that tomorrow). Thanks Brad (and Alan)! Here is the video:

Tomorrow I will share a vision of where I think the North American church (and the worldwide church) is going, and how you can play a part.