Discipleship Models
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Discipleship Models
Discipleship Models
There is no shortage of materials and resources on the topic of discipleship, and yet there isn’t clarity or consensus on what discipleship is. Each church or ministry operates with its own understanding of the biblical text. Author Michael Wilkins has identified five prominent models that shape how discipleship is understood today.13
Disciples are learners
Disciples are learners
The Greek word for “disciple,” mathētēs, comes from the verb to learn and was used to describe “one who puts himself/herself under the teaching authority of a great teacher though it has no reference to whether or not the person is a Christian.”14 The use of the term in Scripture seems to mean more than a learner, though, and includes a posture of following and personal devotion (e.g., ).
Disciples are committed believers
Disciples are committed believers
This view sees discipleship as a step taken after salvation. This model looks at Jesus’s challenge to “count the cost” and focuses on those who left all to follow Jesus in comparison to the crowds and “ordinary” believers.15 This model is commonly used today but also has some problems.
First, when Jesus invites others to count the cost, is it a call to salvation or to a deeper commitment (see and )?
Second, assuming this model implies that there are less mature Christians and more committed Christians, it is difficult to give biblical support for a “two-class system” of Christians.16
Disciples are ministers
Disciples are ministers
This model sees the disciples as those whom Jesus called to ministry, and so they are the ones called to serve others in ministry and missions. This model is prominent in church traditions that make a strong distinction between clergy (pastors) and laity and have a strong hierarchical structure. Wilkins says that this model has problems in that it too creates a two-tiered structure and is difficult to support with the use of “disciples” and other words in the New Testament.
Disciples are converts; discipleship comes later
Disciples are converts; discipleship comes later
This model separates salvation from discipleship. To “make disciples” means to make converts, and then discipleship is something that begins later. The problem is that the disciple-making commission also included “baptizing” and “teaching” in its command. Wilkins asks if it’s even possible to be a disciple without being involved in discipleship.
Disciples are converts who are in the process of discipleship
Disciples are converts who are in the process of discipleship
This model sees discipleship not as an optional second step but as what it means to be a Christian. As Jesus called others to him, he also sent people out to make other disciples, meaning,
“Growth in discipleship was the natural result of the new disciple’s life.”
“Growth in discipleship was the natural result of the new disciple’s life.”
This is a widely held view of discipleship, though the emphasis can vary among such things as a personal commitment, a disciple’s impact on society, growth within the community of believers, or a focus on missional ministry.
What model best characterizes the one you heard in church?
What model best characterizes the one you heard in church?
What model do you feel this church is best at?
What model do you feel this church is best at?
Which one resonates with you as you understand discipleship?
Which one resonates with you as you understand discipleship?
Why do you hold that view?
Why do you hold that view?
Perhaps the best way to start unpacking how we think about discipleship is to finish this sentence:
If someone is a true disciple of Jesus, then he or she . . .
If someone is a true disciple of Jesus, then he or she . . .
How we respond to this prompt is telling about how we think of discipleship and how we present its essence to others. This is especially true when we teach young people. We are quick to reduce complexities into short phrases so that they can be understood. When we do that, we may inadvertently be presenting a form of discipleship that may not be faithful to Scripture or that offers only a partial view.
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (pp. 10-11). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (p. 10). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (pp. 10-11). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
tells us that Jesus focused on Jerusalem where crucifixion, burial, and ascension would take place. Luke tells three consecutive stories where Jesus taught about the requirements of discipleship. Each time the word follow is used to invite persons to become disciples of Jesus. In the first story, a man promised to follow Jesus wherever he went (). In the second story, a man promised to become a disciple as soon as he said good-bye to his family (). In the third story a man told Jesus, “Lord, I will follow you as soon as my father dies and I settle his estate.” Jesus introduced this section with a lesson on discipleship and commitment: “And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it’” ().
tells us that Jesus focused on Jerusalem where crucifixion, burial, and ascension would take place.
Luke tells three consecutive stories where Jesus taught about the requirements of discipleship. Each time the word follow is used to invite persons to become disciples of Jesus.
In the first story, a man promised to follow Jesus wherever he went
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
). In the second story, a man promised to become a disciple as soon as he said good-bye to his family (). In the third story a man told Jesus, “Lord, I will follow you as soon as my father dies and I settle his estate.” Jesus introduced this section with a lesson on discipleship and commitment: “And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it’” ().
In the second story, a man promised to become a disciple as soon as he said good-bye to his family
To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.”
In the third story a man told Jesus, “Lord, I will follow you as soon as my father dies and I settle his estate.”
And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.”
Jesus introduced this section with a lesson on discipleship and commitment:
And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
“And he said to all, ‘If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it’” ().
These three stories demonstrate a few of the typical responses to teaching about discipleship. Jesus instructed about the commitment necessary to be a disciple. Teaching informs discipleship.
Teaching also organizes discipleship. The apostle Paul expected discipleship to be replicated from generation to generation.
2 Timothy
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (p. 12). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (p. 12). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
When a disciple is taught in the context of a relationship that is not agenda driven but one that has a love motivation, like a parent to a son or daughter, the lessons move down from the head to the heart,
From “learned” to “firmly believed.”
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (p. 12). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Teaching truths from Scripture gives the disciple wisdom that points to faith, and the text is trustworthy for the development of the disciple.
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (pp. 12-13). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Be an example but, be an example of Scripture not opinion.
How would you change the way we do discipleship?
How would you change the way we do discipleship?
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
Diligently is translated from the Hebrew word shanan which actually means to whet or sharpen. Like wetting a sharpening stone with the intention of bringing a cutting edge.
Do you do discipleship that way?
Do you do discipleship that way?
Do we do it that way?
Do we do it that way?
As noted by Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann,2 the formation of faithful followers of God is framed by the sacred canon of Scripture through a people sharing and engaging a Holy God who is deeply mysterious yet available to us. The gathering together of the Old Testament into Torah, Prophets, and Writings was a framework around which the people of faith were to be centered in their collective understanding of what it means to grow deeper in their life journey with God ().
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (p. 15). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Discipleship, therefore, should be grounded in and through a way of life that is embodied rather than merely an “idea in my brain.”
Christian theology needs, therefore, to be moving communities more and more toward “transformation models for truth”6 where action as ethical people of character is the goal rather than agreeing to and memorizing good ideas that have no requirement for living out the call of Christ’s gospel in the world.
Discipleship should have as its goal, transformed lives not just transformed knowledge.
Through service learning, mission trips, internships, peer leadership, and other forms of living out our faith for others, students move into an arena for “experiments in truth”11 that will show that any theology of education must take seriously the challenge and opportunity found in a call to reconciliation in the midst of the world’s brokenness.
Eugene Peterson underscores this point:
We [have] become avid for spirituality: we long to be in community, experiencing love and trust and joy with others. We are fed up with being evaluated by how much we can contribute, how much we can do. We hunger for communion with God, something beyond the satisfaction of self, the development of me. We are fed up with being told about God. We go to our leaders for help, and they don’t seem to know what we are talking about. They sign us up for a program in stress management. They recruit us for a tour of the Holy Land. . . . When we don’t seem interested, they talk faster and louder. When we drift somewhere else, they hire a public relations consultant to devise a campaign designed to attract us and our friends. . . . But they don’t attract us. We are after what we came for in the first place: intimacy and transcendence, personal friends and a personal God, love and worship.15
Peterson’s reminder to us is that a theology of education is a movement into community, but not a community that neglects “what we came for in the first place.”
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (p. 19). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (pp. 17-18). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (p. 20). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Returning to the call on God’s people found in , the people of God should walk along the road together, talk with one another, write reminders of God’s goodness on the walls and doorposts of their homes, train the next generation to ask questions, and dialogue in unity and intimacy. These movements and conversations happen in the context of deep relationships.
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (p. 20). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Community in the context of discipleship is not merely a collection of individuals who remain neither unchanged nor unchallenged in their relationships. To be in community is to be transformed more and more into the image of God with others in deep unity.
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (p. 20). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Each of us, and all of us, are to be a part of the discipleship process and helping to disciple others.
Abba Poemen, used the analogy of water dripping slowly on a hard rock to describe the process by which a disciple is transformed by the Word of God: “The nature of water is soft, that of stone is hard; but if a bottle is hung above the stone, allowing the water to fall drop by drop, it wears away the stone. So it is with the Word of God; it is soft and our heart is hard, but the [one] who hears the word of God often, opens his heart to the fear of God.”16
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (pp. 20-21). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
What role do the “by faith” stories of others play in your own spiritual formation? What have they taught you?
What role do the “by faith” stories of others play in your own spiritual formation? What have they taught you?
Terry Linhart. Teaching the Next Generations: A Comprehensive Guide for Teaching Christian Formation (pp. 23-24). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.