I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Being a disciple was (and is) more than just learning your masters teaching, but it also involves learning his character and following in his ways. Which is making me wonder, am I really following in all the ways of Jesus?

Am I:

• Teaching and brining up other leaders who can teach?
• Serving the poor regularly?
• Visiting the sick regularly?
• Seeking out the most lost people in every city I visit and developing a real relationship with them?
• Living what I read in scripture as fully and completely as I can?

I do only a few of these things, and I do none of them well. I’m going to keep thinking on this. My list is incomplete, but my goal is to live as Christ. It isn’t easy, but it’s essential to following Him.

Any thoughts?

Warning: This post is half rant, half well thought out article. So beware, this will step on some toes…

I have been passionate about discipleship for years. It is crux of the church and makes the difference between being a people that impact the world and being a people that only impact each other. It is also the most neglected and belittled component (or worse, program) in most churches, which makes me sad. But we have to ask, why has discipleship suffered so greatly in America when it should be at the very foundation of who we are as followers of Jesus? I think the answer is found in the greatest American Idol (not the TV show, the idol), which is consumerism.

We can’t seem to make disciples based on a commercial approach to the faith. We plainly cannot consume our way into discipleship. All of us must become much more active in the equation of becoming lifelong followers of Jesus. Consumption is detrimental to discipleship.
-Alan Hirsch, The Forgotten Ways

I love that last line, consumption is detrimental to discipleship. I have heard too many people say they are leaving one church and going to another because they can “learn better” at the new one, or because the new one “suits their tastes” better, and honestly, I want to yell at those people. If you are going to leave one church for another it better be for a good reason like feeling that you are better able to serve at the new church, or even perhaps because God is moving you there so that He can use you, not be consumed by you.

All the worship wars, teaching wars, and preference issues are moot; what matters is that we are in churches of all types, shapes, and sizes where we are able to serve and make disciples. I think somehow Americans have bought into the lie that church is actually about them, its not. The Church is the bride of Christ and as His bride it lives for and loves Him above all else, even above individual preference.

Once the Church finally has that “light bulb moment”, realizing that its just not about us, then, and only then, can we begin to fulfill the calling to make disciples. Once we get over ourselves and are willing to sit next to the dude that smells like booze and smoke and once we are able to approach the gay couple and ask them into our home for lunch, maybe then we are taking our first steps toward the type of radical living and disciple making that Jesus practiced.