Theology of Discipleship: Part 4

Discipleship is Spiritual, Relational and Missional

The thread started here.

Previously, I’ve proposed that discipleship begins with the central commandments of Christ: Love the Lord your God and Love your neighbor as yourself. This provides the central guidelines for how God wants us to relate to him: in love. God is seeking lovers who will be in relationship with Him in a relational way (read, pray, worship, praise, meditate to KNOW Him) not in a task way (read, pray, worship, praise, meditate to EARN His favor). God has given us 5 billion neighbors who we can practice loving as ourselves (we better start memorizing names).

This brings us to community. We need community of various styles, formal and informal, large and small, multi-generational/heterogeneous and homogeneous, with the same gender and with both. Within the context of these communities – which may be as organized as a church service or a small group and as natural as just some friends or a close friend – we can care for each other and help each other along the journey to love God and love others.

So, now that we know the basic guidelines and we’re together trying to live it out, here’s some thoughts about some elements for our discipleship.

Spiritual

Since our discipleship is primarily about knowing Jesus and loving Him, our discipleship is spiritual. We discover God in many ways (Gary Thomas, Sacred Pathways) but there are some central ways that God has given to all of us to know Him and to relate to Him: The Holy Scriptures, prayer, silence, meditation, fasting and I’m sure that I’m missing some others). Thus, our spiritual discipleship is about these. These don’t fit that well in our task-oriented world, but God wants lovers primarily – like Mary who sat as Jesus’ feet rather than Martha who worked for Jesus. My discipleship and the help I give to others must have the spiritual as an element.

Relational

“Everything we claim about Jesus is unproven until tested in the midst of relationships.” My friend Loren quoted another Bible teacher one night in a Bible study on Ephesians 5 and I quickly wrote it in the margin of my Bible. We are relational people who live in the midst of many others all around us. Even though I live in a rural area with only about 50,000 people in our county, I am surrounded by people – work, neighbors, connections at my kids’ schools, while shopping, etc.

Relationships are a great struggle for many people today. Marriages dissolve or people live in hurtful homes. Parents and children, siblings and friends “break up” and don’t talk or get together for years – or ever. Things get even worse with the many ways that some abuse others and often these others live in it – not knowing how to escape.

Discipleship is also about learning to love others as Christ loves us. It’s learning about acting out the teachings and example of Jesus with our neighbors. It’s about being the Good Samaritan. It’s about turning the other cheek. It’s about loving those who don’t love us. It’s about forgiveness. It’s about peacemaking. It’s about a style of relating that is clearly Christlike. Since this is not natural to us, we must become disciples of Christ in how we relate with everyone around us.

Missional

God has given us a Great Commission to make disciples – that others would start the journey of loving God, loving others within the context of community. Therefore, it must be a part of the discipling process that we be missional – sharing the mission of Christ to the world. As Christ came to reconcile all to Himself, so we are ambassadors of this reconciliation (2 Cor 5).

Mission isn’t just oversees and cross-cultural (but it certainly is those things). Mission isn’t just for the super Christian. It’s for Christ’s followers. Integrating mission into our sense of discipleship locally and globally (Acts 1:8) is following Christ’s command for making disciples.

NEXT Time: Organic Model for Discipleship

-Derek