Discipleship Practices

One of the things we are most excited about in coming to Rotterdam is LEEF!’s dedication to a philosophy of replicating leadership in the context of discipleship. Now many of you are perhaps thinking that discipleship is hard enough, and adding replicating discipleship is simply too hard! To help with that Theo asked me to come and share some of the experiences Brynne and I had in discipleship in our previous work in Slovakia.

I hope to show that discipleship can be something very natural, in fact you are probably discipling somebody right now and you don’t even know it!

One of the ways that God worked most powerfully through us during this time was in bringing a young man to faith named Marek (or Mark). When we first met him, only a few weeks after we had arrived to Slovakia, we could not speak Slovak, and he only knew enough English to say bad words and quote Beatles lyrics.

One of the ways that God worked most powerfully through us during this time was in bringing a young man to faith named Marek (or Mark). When we first met him, only a few weeks after we had only arrived to Slovakia, we could not speak Slovak, and he only knew enough English to say bad words and quote Beatles lyrics.

Fast forward 12 years and Mark is a mature believer in Christ, married to a godly young woman, and serves the church as a church planter in his own country.

How did this happen? I should emphasize that it is not because I am such a super spiritual, awesome Christian. In fact it is a testimony to the power of Christ in him that despite being discipled by me he is a strong believer! The answer, as we’ll see, is all because of Jesus.

It’s important at this point to define our terms. What do we mean by discipleship? There are many good definitions, but tonight I will be working under this definition:

“Discipleship helps transition the believer from understanding God on their terms to understanding God in terms of what he tells us through the bible.” I’ll get to this later.

Before we begin, I would like to emphasize a few things:

~Everybody will disciple others in a way that is completely unique to them.

~Because of this fact, I will not be presenting a ‘how-to’ or a 10 step program for discipleship, but rather I will show three characteristics of what replicating discipleship can look like. These three are not, of course, the only three elements!

The three characteristics I want to highlight this evening are that discipleship is 1) Flexible and intentional, 2) Shared, and 3) Points towards Christ’s finished work for us. (repeat)

If we look at how Jesus led his disciples, we see that he was very opportunistic in how he taught and trained his men to be his disciples. There’s nothing wrong with a regularly scheduled meeting (I am, after all, speaking to a largely Dutch audience!) But we need to see that we cannot compartmentalize our discipleship!

It is very important then that we maintain flexibility and intentionality in how we pursue a disciple.

When Mark was still not a believer, he had a job delivering flyers for grocery stores. This job involved him walking around for a few hours putting flyers in mailboxes. I saw this as an opportunity to literally walk beside him as we talked about the Christian faith, so I asked him if I could join him as he made his deliveries, and he gladly said yes!

This took being intentional and flexible. I didn’t have to wait until Marek’s schedule fit mine, I fit my life into his life!

Does it surprise you to hear that you can begin discipling somebody who is not yet a believer? You can! One way to look at it is to imagine a fireplace. The fireplace is the person you are discipling, and you are putting firewood into the fireplace by sharing the truth of the Gospel with them, testifying to what Jesus has done for you, and explaining the basics of the faith to them. It is the Holy Spirit’s job then to ignite the fire with the wood you have placed there.

You can be intentional in your discipleship by seeking out people in your daily life to pursue in this way. Learn the names stories of people you encounter regularly. God has not placed you in their lives by accident!

Over the past few months I’ve been getting to know the cashier at our local grocery store; learning her story and learning who she is.

My hope and prayer is not just to know things about her, but to eventually invite her to our home for a meal. I pray this gives us the opportunity to share the gospel with her!

So we’ve seen how one mark of discipleship is that it is flexible and intentional, now we will see that it is also shared.

We can see how Paul in emphasizes that we grow as disciples best in the context of shared discipleship.

English Standard Version Chapter 4

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

Here Paul lists different leaders in the church who are directly involved in the discipleship of believers. And why is that? We see in verses 13 and 14.

As Marek became a believer he was also discipled by other teammates of mine. Marek’s mom is not a believer so Miriam became his spiritual mother. I am not as skilled at teaching theology, so Kris discipled Marek in that way.

Our tendency in such a situation is to be possessive, saying, “No, he’s my guy, hands off!” But by choosing to share our discipleship, we actually trust what Jesus said when he told us he would build his church. Jesus intends to use the many gifts he has given to many of his people to disciple many!

so we’ve seen that discipleship is flexible and intentional, and shared. Now we come to the third characteristic, that discipleship points to the finished work of Christ.

I know I said earlier that these three characteristics were not the only characteristics, but I will say this: every true discipling relationship will have this characteristic!

If this is not true of us and our discipling relationships, we need to question whether we truly understand discipleship. It is far too easy to point people we are discipling to ourselves, by encouraging them to simply copy us and our practices. By doing so, however, we ensure discipleship will not be replicated. If I make 10 spiritual Bo Lancasters, I’ve not made Christ followers, but a Bo follower, and that, friends, is not a good thing! The world does not need more Bo, it needs more hearts changed by the living God in the name of his eternal son Jesus.

Disciples in Christ naturally want to tell and disciple others in Christ. Disciples of men will only be able to replicate the checklists that were given to them by their teachers. It is important to note that only the greatest discipler, Jesus, was able to say to his disciples, “Follow me.” Not follow these best practices, this method, or way, but follow me, a man. We can’t do that. We must also point our disciples to follow Jesus.

I do want to say that it is not wrong to teach and admonish our disciples into deeper spiritual disciplines and practices. But we should be doing so in order to fulfill what says, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

It is out of this fulness of Christ where we will see true self-replication. Pray as you seek out disciples that you would point them to Christ, as a one beggar tells another beggar where he found some bread.