What in the Word is a "Better Disciple?"
A day rarely goes by that I don't shiver when I reflect on these words of Jesus:
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophecy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me you evil does.'"
Don't we have to believe that?
Don't we have to believe, based on the word of Jesus Himself that on the day people stand before Him that many who call Jesus their Lord--many in our congregations, many whose hands we shake on Sundays and who backs we slap, many whom we hug--are going to be sent away from Him into eternal punishment?
I do believe that and I am humbled.
I've said a few things about the CGGC Mission Statement in the past. One thing I've said is that it stands in judgment on us. We claim its high ideals but are not striving to live them out. Paul says in Romans 14:23, "...everything that does not come from faith is sin." I believe that the Mission Statement, because we don't live it out, declares us sinners and brings judgment on us.
I've also said that, while I embrace most of the Mission Statement, I don't embrace all of it. The part of it I don't embrace is the part that claims, "...we commit ourselves to make more and better disciples..."
It's the notion that there are degrees of discipleship that I disagree with. I think the very idea opposes what Jesus taught about discipleship.
More to the point, I believe that in suggesting that there can be such a thing as "better disciples" we are guaranteeing that many of our people will hear Jesus say to them on that Day, "away from me you evildoers."
Based on what Jesus taught, I can't see how one can become a better disciple. According to Jesus, discipleship is an ultimate commitment. It is already a best. There can be no better than discipleship.
Luke makes it clear that on a day when the numbers traveling with Jesus were large Jesus turned to the crowd and spelled out what the minimum requirement is to become His disciple. He said, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother,, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes, even his own life--he cannot be my disciple."
In His next statement, Jesus described the life of the person who remains His disciple. He said, "And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."
After some parables describing the great amount of care one should take in committing to follow Him, Jesus said, "...any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple."
John quotes Jesus describing the necessity that disciples' lives produce fruit. Jesus said, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing...This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples."
What is a better disciple?
What is better discipleship than loving Him so much that your love for others seems like hate? What's better than carrying your cross and following him? What's more than giving up everything you have? What's better than producing much fruit?"
When the CGGC first conceived the phrase, "more and better disciples," discipleship was defined as contributing to a CGGC congregation's average worship attendance over the course of a year. According to Jesus, that's not discipleship.
We allow people who are not disciples to think they are. We teach people that they are disciples when, according to Jesus, they cannot be His disciples.
We are setting people up for that Day when Jesus will say to many who call Him "Lord," "Away from me you evildoers."
It is a vile and dangerous error to suggest that there is such a thing as a "better disciple."
posted by bill Sloat at 11:40 AM
13 Comments:
Maybe the silence speaks volumes...or maybe people are just busy. Guess you'll just have to write something new, pb. Hint hint, nudge nudge. Aaaaand, go. :)
Many of the things Bill posts here are examples of disfunctional structures. Absoultely no one can make a better disciple until we know how to tell what a better disciple is! Jesus said we are to make disciples of all nations. Tell me what a better disciple is?
Anonymous,
Do you mean dysfunctional structures in the way Natural Church Development describes "Functional Structures?"
We blogged a while back about what a disciple is, since our Mission has to do with making disciples. Clearly, there is nothing close to a consensus on this blog about what a disciple is.
And, as I've said, when the phrase 'more and better disciples' was born in the CGGC it defined the idea in terms of the average number of people who attend CGGC "worship services."
You are right. We can make neither more nor better disciples until we have an understanding of what a disciple is.
I don't know if better is the best term, BUT. at lesst in some real sense, I'd say that Peter was a 'better' disciple after pentecost then he was when Jesus first called him.
I think more mature is what we are trying to get at with 'better.' More mature, more faithful, more missional, better lovers of God and others, more consistant in bringing the whole of their lives under the Lordship of Jesus.
I think that 'more and better disciples' was someone's best attempt to say that we want to see more new followers of Jesus and those who are following Jesus to grow in their maturity and faithfullness to Jesus and His mission for us.
M,
I don't know if better is the best term, BUT. at lesst in some real sense, I'd say that Peter was a 'better' disciple after pentecost then he was when Jesus first called him.
Absolutely.
What concerns me is that the way we behave and count things shows that we think that people who attend our Sunday morning worship shows are disciples.
So, when we first spun the slogan, "More and Better Disciples," we defined it: "35,000 in Worship..."
We think that 'better' disciples are people who not only attend the show but come early for the Sunday School class and/or attend a Small Group. There is no authority for that way of thinking in the Word.
But the New Testament truth is, according to the One we call Lord:
"Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me."
'Better' starts there. It does not start with attending a Sunday morning Church Show.
The New Testament message about what it means to be a disciple is clear: To be a disciple is to make a radical decision to repent and to love Jesus as Lord with all one's heart, soul, mind and strength.
We are mindlessly stamping a lot of tickets for a ride on the train that guarantees an eternity of weeping and gnashing teeth because we allow people who are not disciples to think they are.
Woe to us.
Does anyone really think that someone is a disciple because they show up on Sunday morning?
I'd like to see somebody admit to that.
M,
Does anyone really think that someone is a disciple because they show up on Sunday morning?
You're taking us a huge point.
No.
No ONE probably does think that someone is a disciple because s/he attends the Sunday morning worship show.
(Actually, I think I know some who do but if you pressed them, they'd be ashamed to admit it.)
But, tell me, Dan: What do you think
More and Better Disciples: 35,000 in Worship by 2000
means?
It means that if we have 35,000 in worship we have accomplished both goals. We have made both more and better disciples.
In that day, there was no other measure of the goal than the number of people we could entise into contributing to our average attendance at the Sunday morning show.
When I talk about the need for macrorepentance, that's what I'm talking about.
On the corporate level--and by that I mean, on the level of what we all do together as a whole body--we are unspiritual and unscriptural.
Corporately we do practice the conviction that a person is a disciple for attending the show. The Cadillac of all CGGC statistics is Sunday Morning Show Attendance. It was then. It still is. And, while there is conversation about changing what we count, I'm told it will continue to be.
If we don't force a change in the culture, we will never make disciples and we will fail to obey our Lord's command.
"More and Better Disciples: 35,000 in Worship by 2000"
If (when) we put all that together as one mission/goal, it seems to me that one of the following must be the case.
1. We do in fact assume that Sunday morning attenders are genuine disciples. Upon thinking about, this is probably want more people do think/or thought. Probably because a weakening of 'disciple'
2. It is two separate goals, mistakenly combined.
I am not against having more people in worship gatherings - trust me - but if attendance is it, we need to get Joel Osteen to our conference because he has single handedly done more than our whole body.
This is probably a separate conversation, but I personally want as many people as possible, because I know that those who are not followers of Jesus will witness the testimony of those who are, hear God's Word and a challenge from it...and they won't do that sleeping in.
But I would never count the butts in the seats and equate that number to discipleship.
M,
Does anyone really think that someone is a disciple because they show up on Sunday morning?
I'm going to retract my first answer.
Yes. Many, many, many people thing that attending a church 'service' makes them a disciple. If your setting is similar to most, there are even some people who sit in those pews who think that. I believe that there are still some at Faith who, in their heart, still believe that even though I and others who speak words of revelation, knowledge, prophecy and instruction in our congregation say over and over again that it is not so.
It is essential to the Christendom--church centered--view of the church that attending church is an act of discipleship.
Our 35,000 in worship idea didn't come out of the stratosphere. It was not controversial. I was in the Holy City during the height of that program. Trust me, all of the machas in the CGGC bought into the value that 35,000 in worship equated to making better disciples, not only more of them.
I suppose we have just so devalued the term disciple that it means any person who says they believe it Jesus.
I don't see God's being gathering together to sing and pray and read the Word to be antithetical to discipleship. It is something that many disciples of Jesus do.
It is an imperative that we make it clear to people gathered that their gathering does not necessarily make them disciples.
However, i find the gathering and scattering to be a helpful rhythm of the Christian life,
I don't really have a problem with 'more and better disciples' It's the definition of disciple that's the problem.
M,
However, i find the gathering and scattering to be a helpful rhythm of the Christian life.
Since I began to read the Word with missional eyes, I discovered that there's a lot less emphasis on the 'gathering' part of that rhythm than the Christendom model of the church would want you to assume.
There is not a single statistic on Jesus followers being 'gathered' in the New Testament. Little counting was done in the New Testament but there is nothing close to an interest in counting people in so-called worship in the New Testament.
There is only one description of a New Testament gathering and that's the story of the kid falling out of the window, not a teaching about disciples gathering.
When Jesus talks about what will cause people to be blessed on 'that day,' He does, indeed, mention what they do when they are 'scattered.' He doesn't not mention participation in being gathered.
Hebrews 10:25 seems to suggest that it was very much a normal thing for early disciples to forego gathering. That they did so is not praised. However, the rationale for gathering is that disciples could be encouraged and 'provoked' (literally) to good deeds.
I think, based on what the New Testament says, that this gathering thing is something that we put an inappropriate amount of emphasis on.
In fact, according to Jesus, He'll welcome people on judgment day without reference to their participation in gatherings.
I think you downplay the amount of references to gatherings in the N.T. Really only one? I'll work on it...
I would agree that the 'scattered' missional ministry is the mark of disciples. I think the first century church probably gathered often - daily? - but not anything close to a 'worship service.'
I'm not sure that discipleship is possible alone. How else today are God's people going to be encouraged to live as disciples? To face the challenges in their lives? Not by themselves. In community. Gathering together - in groups of 2, 3 and more.
Gathered to celebrate and be challenged to go and live lives as disciples in the 24/7 of everyday life.
M,
For me to say that attending the Sunday morning show is not discipleship is far from saying that discipleship is possible alone.
I know that what I'm saying seems whack but I've been looking at the New Testament to see what is actually there and doing the best I can to strip away the assumptions that a church-centered understanding of discipleship imposes on us.
My eyes opened up some time ago when I did a word study of "worship" in Paul's letters in the (now old version of the) NIV and found that several of the hits were on passage headings in the NIV. And, I discovered that no form of the word 'worship' was in the Bible passage that had the word 'worship' in the heading.
What we call worship, the early church didn't.
I suspect that if you study these things from the Bible itself, you'll be as surprised--and shaken to your withering Christendom roots--as I was.
By the way, Faith went into Lancaster city again this week to feed the hungry and homeless.
And, once again, far more people participated in our recognition of Jesus' promise that on the Day He separates the sheep from the goats that He will say, "I was hungry and you gave me something to eat..." than were present for our Sunday morning show two days earlier.
Note that He never offers blessing to those by saying, "You gathered to worship Me."
The Great Commission contains the word 'go,' not the word 'come.'
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