Discipleship
Matthew 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
This page is under development
Discipleship is a popular word in most biblical churches these days, yet there seems to be no idea or perhaps, a cloudy idea of how to implement it. I see three spheres of discipleship: personal or individual, family, and church. It is my goal to help you understand what each of these spheres are and how to implement discipleship for each one.
Jesus Christ tells us, in what we call The Great Commission, to go make disciples of all nations. We must understand that at the most fundamental level that any follower of Jesus is by nature a disciple. We must be disciples who disciple in order to be the most basic of Christians. There are a number of ideas concerning what discipleship in the Christian faith truly is. If you boil it down into the simplest of terms discipleship simple means to be a student of something, and in this case, a student of Jesus Christ. Now if you are reading this and consider yourself to be a Christian I want you to ask yourself, perhaps a not so simple question: Am I a disciple of Christ even in the simplest of terms? Let’s break this question down further: what is a student? In this context a student would be someone who studies the work, life, doctrine, and theology of God. As we all know, there are good students and there are bad students. There are complacent students and there are highly motivated students. There are distracted students and there are focused students. Now, ask yourself: which one am I? Do I study the Scriptures? Do I study theology? Do I want to better understand the attributes of God? I believe that any reasonably astute person who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit as a child of the King will not be fully satisfied in your current progress as a disciple, unless, of course, you have misunderstood the gospel of Christ and have fallen into the pit of self-righteousness. There are certain qualities that an individual requires in order to progress in their journey through progressive sanctification. Of course, the first is being a Christian. A Christian is already indwelt by God, and that is who is propelling you to want to grow in being a student or disciple of Christ. That is a given, you must be saved! Aside from that you must have a desire to be a student and you must be under good instruction from godly teachers and elders in a local body of Christ. Now, each of these things (desire and good administration) are within themselves something that could fill volumes of books alone, so many individuals and church leaders do not know where to begin. If you are an individual who does not have good leadership available to you, click the Personal Discipleship button below. I believe that the desire to grow can be taught by good leadership, so I want to begin there.
If you are in leadership, you will probably find yourself in one of three positions: 1. Being successful at discipleship. 2. Having a desire for discipleship but not understanding why people don’t have the same desire that you have. 3. Being unconcerned with discipleship. Let me address the former first. If you are unconcerned with discipleship, you should ask yourself two questions: Am I burned out at the moment? (Or) Am I sure that I am qualified to lead the body of Christ? Now that must be addressed. There are many people in the leadership of churches today who should never have been placed into that role. If you have no desire to be discipled or disciple others then I will say here, absolutely, that you are not qualified to lead God’s people, and in fact you need to find someone who preaches the gospel and listen until you understand. I do not say that to be rash, but I say that to be real and to be concerned for your soul and the souls of those you have been leading or teaching in the church. Now, if you have once had a desire to be discipled and to disciple, then ask yourself the question that plagued the church at Ephesus: why have I lost my first love? Ministry is difficult and the cost can be great, yet we must never loose site of what Christ has done, who He is, and the eternal perspective.
Now, if you have been and are being successful at discipleship, congratulations! Keep up the good work! Reach out to me and share the ways you have had success; I would love to hear them. I still have rescores for you on this page for you to consider. If you fall into other categories, whether individual or as a leader, I hope the resources on this page can help you understand what discipleship truly is and how important it is for you to be obedient to Jesus's command.
This page is best used by clicking through the buttons that will lead you deeper into the category selected. For instance: if you are focused on Family Discipleship, click on the button (Family Discipleship). When you land on that page and want to go deeper click on the button (Where to Start). When you are in that page you will have additional buttons to help you find different recourses.
