Can You Be A Christian Without Being a Disciple?

The Elephant in the Room.

I ran across a Lecture by Dr. Greg Ogden, who’s ministry is all about Discipleship. In this lecture he asks the same question that we are looking at today. He starts it off with “the elephant in the room”. But I wonder if it really is? To call it the elephant in the room it would need to be an obvious issue, and I’m not sure that it is obvious. It is an issue, but how clear it is within the Body of Believers I do question. I do agree with what Dr. Ogden says and agree that the lack of true Discipleship has drained the life out of the American church. I’m just not sure many people know it is a problem. I’m not even sure most “Christians” notice the irony in the question.

I see this more as a string that if we look at it, and pick at it, can unravel much of the improper emphasis and actually set many believers free. I see a great need in Discipleship in the body as a whole. Not in individual fellowships and local churches specifically, but universally. As a WHOLE we have sidelined discipleship and even worse have made it a subtopic of Evangelism. In many cases we have gone so far as to make it optional and separate from Salvation.

Going back to how Dr. Ogden has framed the question. “Can you be a Christian Without Being a Disciple?”. So in Today’s session we are going to cover.

<Under Review>

Understanding the Command of Matt 28:19 of “Make Disciples”

To look at this Command as the “Mission” for every Believer and Church

Define Discipleship

Define the Theological Challenges and Answer them.

</under Review>

<source>

Missional Mandate

Biblical Model

Tested Method

</source>

The Mission of the Church

We interchange the terms purpose and mission.

Purpose: being / essence 1pe2.9

Mission : focus / activity