I was reading a little this morning and came across a section in Exponential by Dave and Jon Ferguson where they explain why they choose to use the term "apprentice" rather than "disciple." It is their assessment that the word disciple is a "ruined word" that often doesn't mean what it meant to Jesus.
Their assertion is this: "Discipleship in the church today has more to do with consuming and absorbing cognitive content than it has anything to do with missional action. Being a disciple is more about an individual and his/her ability to get a passing grade on the subject matter, and less about being a follower of Jesus who lives in community with others for the sake of Christ's mission."
The more I think about discipleship resources that I've looked at and been through, the more I would have to say I agree with this, for the most part. I think most of the time discipleship is talked about in terms of Bible study and the cognitive formation that happens through interaction with the word of God. I do think some take it the next step and include an emphasis on prayer, fasting and other spiritual disciplines and this is typically where I would probably be guilty of leaving it as well.
Unfortunately, that would still fall short of the missional context of the word and the full meaning of what Jesus was trying to birth in his followers. Was he interested in them being disciplined in their pursuit of personal growth? Absolutely. But more so, he was interested in the fruit that would come out of the relationship developed with the Father. He was interested in how their growth would spill over into those they came in contact with as they walked in obedience in the Spirit.
This poses a few challenges for me personally:
1) What impact will this realization have on any kind of "discipleship" processes that I implement or oversee? It's easy to teach someone spiritual disciplines, it's more challenging (and time consuming) to help them recognize and engage in mission.
2) How will this be communicated in our leadership structure (I'm thinking primarily in small group structure right now) so that people that are engaged as apprentice leaders understand a larger missional focus that includes not only those that they are called to serve as small group leaders, but also those that come alongside them to learn as they are preparing to become leaders themselves?
These are really just initial thoughts and I'm sure more will follow.
2 comments:
Hi Matt --
Interesting that you'd call "Discipleship" a ruined word. The other day the concept of discipleship (and the lack of it) came up in a passage that our small group was reading.
There were a lot of questions along the lines of: "What does discipleship mean? What does it look like?" Sure, we could all define "discipleship" but it was impossible to pull some solid examples to back it up.
Whatever the answer, it requires more than a Sunday-morning commitment! Imagine trying to learn a new instrument by watching someone else play it once a week.
Such are my thoughts... thanks for blogging!
Grant Wentzel
Thanks, Grant. You're definitely right in it taking a bit more to really flesh it out in practice. I don't know if I'd go as far as the authors that I've been reading in asserting that it's a ruined word, but I do think their desire to choose a different word is probably not a bad one. Sometimes choosing to change our verbiage is a quicker way to convey an idea than trying to recapture terminology that has come to mean something different over a period of time.
I do think that in the current context of American Christianity, discipleship is most often associated with intellectual pursuit and the quality of our spiritual practices. In that way, it is probably more akin to the spiritual practice of the Pharisees than to the holistic, heart, mind, soul and strength kind of pursuit that I believe Jesus is calling us to.
The challenge now is to learn a new way of communicating these ideas in a way that captures the heart of what discipleship is meant to be instead of what we have made it.
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