What is a Disciple?
Disciples are those who intentionally engage with Jesus and other fellow-travelers in a transformational cycle that carries out the work of King Jesus, extending the reign and rule of his Kingdom through their actions. As they do so, the Holy Spirit brings about spiritual formation in their lives.
Every individual disciple has a responsibility to ask themselves these questions regularly.
Households have the opportunity to be on this journey together, providing the foundation for the community of faith. In the household, members learn to relate to one another and to Jesus. They share their individual and collective stories, discern his will together, obey him, learning to be a community of faith in the process, and growing in their knowledge of God.
The community of faith, or church, begins to function when two or more disciples or households engage in this cycle together. Over time the body matures and becomes increasingly prepared for works of service to the King, as it relies on the gifts given to the body to carry out his will in the world.
This transformational cycle radiates the fruit of the Spirit, more specifically increased faith, hope and love.
In the “traditional church” paradigm, individuals are taught how to become a Christian but are rarely taught how to be disciples. Becoming a Christian involves going through the transformational cycle once; being a disciple means staying on the transformational journey for a lifetime.
Definitions
This document considers that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus and the Spirit of Christ all refer to same person of the Trinity.
“Spiritual transformation,” or becoming more like Jesus, is the byproduct of walking with Jesus through the transformational cycle as the Holy Spirit forms within us the resurrection life of Christ.
“Disciple making” is the process of mentoring someone into the long obedience associated with knowing and following Jesus.
This document uses a “centered set” definition for the word “disciple.” A disciple is one who is learning from Jesus, discerning his will, obeying, and reflecting on the process. By the same token, anyone who is not learning from Jesus, discerning his will, obeying or sharing is not his disciple. (See Paul Hiebert’s article, The Category Christian in the Missiological Task.)
Within this document the term “body of Christ” refers to the organic, spiritual/relational entity of disciples connected by the power of Christ to carry out his will in the world, extending his Kingdom. The word “church” refers to the traditional, institutional entity. These are not necessarily in conflict, but they are not the same. Hopefully, in every “church” the “body of Christ” is present and functioning.
“There is one body” (Eph 4). This “one body” operates in many forms and places as the “dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph 2:22). This body should be able to gather, connect and interact, regardless of institutional church affiliation. In contrast, the term “local church” often implies that each church is distinct and disconnected from others.
Culture is a combination of patterns that include products, behaviors, cognitive assumptions, affective assumptions and value assumptions. Positive patterns are those that reflect the image of God in individuals and in the community. The fallen patterns are the “world forces of darkness,” sustained by the “spiritual forces of wickedness” (Eph 6).
A household includes the people who are in an intentional daily relationship with one another.
Values
Jesus is King. He is in charge. He knows what to do. He leads disciples in making disciples. He is the head of the body, and he is the King whom we are sworn to learn from, obey, and serve as his disciples.
Jesus is the Living Word—as John says, the Logos that has come from heaven (Jn 1:14). Although he most often speaks to us through the written Word, he also uses circumstances, people, emotions, and other ways to communicate with us. What we hear through these other means must be in alignment with his written Word. As “learners,” we need to develop eyes that see, ears that hear, hearts that understand (Matt 13).
The Father “gives us” the people with whom he wants us to work in making disciples. These people are often not the ones that we might choose ourselves (Jn 17: 2,6).
Creativity runs through everything with which Jesus is involved. The work of the Holy Spirit is unique with every person and every “dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Eph 2:22). He rarely does the same thing twice, just as he doesn’t create two humans who look exactly alike or have the same DNA. No matter the context or culture, the Holy Spirit can guide towards the next right step towards making disciples of Jesus.
The learning process of becoming a disciple begins long before one understands enough to proclaim him as Lord and continues until we come face to face with him and come to know him just as well as he knows us (I Cor 13:12). Peter and the other apostles were learning of Jesus for well over a year before the spiritual light pierced through the darkness to their hearts and Peter proclaimed Jesus as “the Christ, the son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). Even then, they had a lot to learn before he would be ready to release the future of the redemptive enterprise into their hands and hearts.
The most influential entity on the planet is the body of Christ, following the will of Christ, in the power of Christ—as long as it is working together in unity under him (Eph 1). Service, humility, weakness, loss, and sorrow, often characterize this power.
Our identity is not found in what we accomplish (meritocracy), but who we are: disciples who together learn from Jesus, do what he tells us, and bear fruit for the Kingdom.
The fundamental unit of the body of Christ is the household. Equipping and empowering parents to be spiritual leaders of their households is a primary building block for making disciples. All members of a household, especially the children, can learn from Jesus, discern his will, obey, and bear the fruit of that obedience in love. The role of parents is not only to teach the Bible but more importantly to lead the children in learning, discerning, following and loving like Jesus.
In the body of Christ, good leaders can be identified by recognizing good followers. A leader’s function may be to lead, but their primary identity remains that of follower of Jesus.
The body of Christ does not require buildings, programs, and budgets to exist. It can function equally well in the marketplace, the rural town center or any urban high-rise where two or more disciples gather in his name.
Problems Addressed
Evangelism and mission are part of the nature of Jesus in his premier role as apostle and evangelist. They occur as a part of the obedience of the body when we journey with Jesus and are equipped by those who are gifted as apostles and evangelists. When evangelism and mission are developed outside of the context of being and making disciples, they become distorted and ineffective.
In the western, evangelical world the gospel has too often been reduced to just a message to be believed by individuals to experience forgiveness and be assured of a place in heaven when one dies. The Gospel of the Kingdom is much more than that and, with Jesus as King, results in new creation through a process of transformation of the world that Jesus carries out through his death, burial, resurrection, ascension and giving of the Spirit to His church. This understanding of the Gospel forms the basis and context for the discipleship process that we describe.
Western style, institutional models of church and church planting have become largely infertile and are in significant decline (Patrick Johnstone, The Future of the Global Church). The worldview combination of self-actualization and meritocracy continually growing within Western culture have driven many in ministry to achieve personal success through metrics such as buildings, attendance, and budgets, leaving many potential disciples more disconnected from the body than ever before.
Kenyan leader, Duncan Olumbe has said: “To the extent that churches in the global South have adopted Western, institutional patterns, their collapse will be much more precipitous.” Or, as one TEAM missionary has put it, “We have planted congregations, rather than making disciples.” Sooner or later the emptiness will become apparent, and when it does, the entire system will fail.
The funding model for mission agencies has broken. Church donations and investment income have diminished consistent with the decline of the Western church, so increased growth in income for agencies can only come from more individuals in the organization. In the drive to get more people, missionaries are being sent with less preparation and the spiritual nature of “calling” is minimized or neglected altogether. We expect people to go and make disciples when they have not first learned to be disciples themselves.
We live in an era of methodological mix and match that is spiritually bankrupt.
Methods, methods, methods. Usually someone develops a new method because they are desperate for progress, and so they look to God. When God graciously answers them, and they are able to make disciples effectively, the next person hears about their success and tries to imitate that method rather than asking God what he desires them to do in their unique context.
Mass production motives. Many of our methods come from the desire to mass produce disciples, like an assembly line, but God never makes disciples that way. He is always uniquely involved, knowing exactly the right moment and circumstances for each individual.
Pragmatism. Often our desire to find the next and greatest method is to find “what works,” inadvertently inserting pragmatism as the means of discovering God’s will. Often, doing God’s will does not appear to “work” from a human perspective, but it does produce fruit in the long run.
God is always pruning and creating, but we rarely want either. Scott Bessenecker in his book, Overturning Tables, has aptly pointed out that the Western models of church and mission have been trapped within a corporate institutional model. These models may give longevity to an organization but cannot produce continual fruitfulness.