The Blog of E. Dale Nixon

Discipleship in Southern Baptist Churches has undergone several stages of metamorphosis in my lifetime; Training Union, Discipleship Training, and Church Training (to name the specific emanations I remember.) I’m not currently aware of any particularly programmed denomination-wide approach to Christian Discipleship.

While this concerned me for years, perhaps there may be some latent wisdom in recognizing the wide variety of discipleship needs represented in most churches today. Generic programming simply doesn’t have the capacity meet those diverse needs.

Recently, it came to my attention that one of the new church members has only nominal background experience for understanding the church or Christianity. Yet he exhibits a genuine urge to learn all that he can. Every sermon, every Bible Study provides a renewed wealth of information to assimilate as his life is transformed day to day by what he is learning.

In the same church, sitting only a few pews away most Sunday mornings, a former deacon and Sunday School teacher is hearing the same thing, but he’s heard it before and taught it several times in recent years. In fact the temptation he faces each week is to just stop participating—he finds more spiritual satisfaction hanging out informally with a small group of former members who have already quit attending their traditional church.

It causes me to wonder, how do we unite a Church in a common discipleship ministry, in a way that does not overwhelm the novice, yet provides challenges to those who have been faithful and learned the basics of Christian faith many years ago?

I think the answer is locked up in our understanding, or perhaps misunderstanding, of the Gospel message….I wrote the following for my local church newsletter:

Practicing Our Faith

There are more than a few difficult truths taught to frequently confused New Testament disciples. I’m almost certain some of same confusion lingers to this very day among 21^st century disciples like you and me. Think about these a moment…I think you will agree:

• The way to glory is through humility.
• The way to freedom is through submission.
• The way to victory is through surrender.
• The way to life (growth) is through death.

The real challenge of living faithfully as a Christian, however, goes far beyond our brief contemplation—living The Jesus Way…to glory, freedom, victory and the abundant life will not happen without significant personal commitment and divinely initiated spiritual transformation. The visionary question I want to raise is this:

“What does this look like?”

While the premises may look familiar, I’m not so confident that we have successfully assimilated the essential humility, submission, surrender and even death into our daily lives. We teach people to be saved by grace, but how much effort is given to teaching them how to live gracefully?

Discipleship Development as a Customizable Process

Take 2

Church Discipleship needs an overhaul. Not just the processes, the very idea!

Okay, I’ll admit that statement is radically subjective, but when I read about how Jesus transformed ordinary men into world-changing disciples, I just want to figure out what we’re doing wrong. Jesus made relatively outrageous declarations about his ability to transform people—For example: “If any of you is thirsty, come to Me and drink. If you believe in Me, the Hebrew Scriptures say that ‘rivers of living water will flow from within you’ ” (Jn.7.37-38; Is.58.11).

Not everyone is thinking “Wow!” right now, but it deserves that kind of reaction. Think! What would it mean for you to have ‘rivers of living water’ flowing from within you?

Jesus said that he came so that “we might have life, and experience it in all it’s originally intended glory” (Jn.10.10); and if that doesn’t spark some interest, I doubt much will. Now, this life is not something that we are able to produce on our own. In fact, it’s best that we keep it clear that the kind of life Jesus refers to is not the kind of life we are familiar with anyway. That’s why we must die to the mortality that prevents us from experiencing it and become new creatures that thrive in the context of Christ’s immortality which is imputed to us by God’s grace.

So, before I get in over my head and run out of time, what do you think?