Continuing on the discussion of discipleship, I want to talk about what I call the “Jesus and dot dot dot” syndrome. This means that we have often been discipled (and are thus discipling others) by learning to follow Jesus… and… something in addition. We follow Jesus… and… the set of doctrines that our church teaches in order to “protect” the Gospel. We follow Jesus… and… the rules (mostly unspoken) that we must follow to fully belong to the Christian culture we are a part of. We follow Jesus… and… the teachings of our pastor who works hard to make Jesus relevant and understandable. We follow Jesus… and… the latest pop-teacher that we are listening to. We follow Jesus… and… the core teachings of our denomination. We follow Jesus… and… the instructions of our latest church-leadership guru (even house-church-leadership guru).
The problem is not that we are listening to good teachers, or learning from others. The problem is that, in our own insecurity or anxiety around being a pure follower of just-Jesus, we take comfort in following others who interpret what it means to be a follower. This provides us with an easier path and gives us a sense of security in the journey. The result is that we end up putting this alternative body of information/teaching right up there alongside of Jesus. We look to Him, yes, but then we look to others to make sure that we are interpreting Him correctly. We end up seeing Him through the lenses of others. We end up with human mediators between us and Jesus. We end up with a watered-down experience of daily following just-Jesus.
The “Jesus and dot dot dot” syndrome leads to two significant (as in huge) problems:
- We, ourselves, lose sight of what it means to radically follow the untamed Jesus.
- We make the issue of discipling others far too complicated, difficult, and inaccessible.
Let’s briefly look at each of these.
When Jesus said that man does not live by bread alone (which meets our daily physical needs) but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, he was pointing to a daily followership. We digest, grasp, listen to, and walk out what God is speaking to us each and every day. Yesterday’s digested word will not provide direction for our lives today. That he meant to lead us in such a consistent, radical way is further seen by his challenges to wannabe-disciples who first want to bury a father or say good-bye to their family before following Jesus in-the-now (Luke 9).
The prospect of actually facing Jesus head-on, in daily followership, leads to a radical, obedience-oriented, undomesticated lifestyle. If this prospect does not make us tremble somewhat (both fear and excitement), then we may have lost our taste for it. Instead, we prefer to look at the lifestyles of those who have interpreted Jesus to us and do our best to emulate them or implement their understanding of the Jesus-lifestyle. This is so much safer (seemingly) though the consequences may leave us far from the mark of a true disciple.
Terry Eagleton says:
“[Jesus] is presented [in the Gospels] as homeless, propertyless, peripatetic, socially marginal, disdainful of kinfolk, without a trade or occupation, a friend of outcasts and pariahs, averse to material possessions, without fear for his own safety, a thorn in the side of the Establishment and a scourge of the rich and powerful.” (Quote taken from Frost & Hirsch, ReJesus, p. 20)
My own life-as-a-disciple hinges on this question: Do I really want to listen to, today, and wrestle with, today, that Jesus (as he reveals himself in his own word) and make the decision, today, to fully be his follower.
This issue takes on even greater significance as we turn our attention to discipling others. Why? Because it takes a great deal of human effort and energy to “properly” disciple someone to follow Jesus and to understand all that needs to be explained and interpreted so that the new disciple can follow Jesus “properly” (according to whatever comes after the dot dot dot). We commit ourselves (remarkably) to gargantuan efforts to make sure that new disciples are properly taught a Christian worldview (how to think), a Christian theology (what to believe), and a Christian culture (how to behave). Yet in this massive knowledge-focused download, we often sidestep the central issue of discipleship: what is Jesus showing you (speaking to you, revealing to you by his word) today and how are you going to walk that out?
When discipleship becomes truly focused on following Jesus today, the new disciple can pick this up almost instantaneously when it is modeled by a practitioner (discipler who is also following daily).
This does not mean that there is no purpose in walking alongside of new disciples. But it does mean that we shift the heavy lifting from the shoulders of the discipler (imparting all of the necessary knowledge and information about thoughts, beliefs, and behavior) to the shoulders of the Holy Spirit who actually is big enough to transform those who are choosing to listen and follow daily. Furthermore, the activity of the Holy Spirit in this process is not primarily facilitated by the “gifted” efforts of the discipler, rather the Holy Spirit is engaged as the new disciple picks up the task of discovering God’s communication to her daily and then wrestling with how to apply it in her life.
We have made discipleship far too complicated (the need to impart massive amounts of information in transformative ways—as if we can do that) yet also too comfortable (not requiring the discipler and disciple to follow Jesus radically. By turning this around, discipleship does become far more challenging in terms of our own followership, yet also far easier, simpler, more transferable and accessible as we simply invite others to learn how to do the same.
We could wrap up by looking at some tools for this, but sometimes we take tools and use them as shortcuts. Perhaps we just need to focus, for now, on the basic issue of being a follower today.
Comments
11 responses to “Discipling Followers of Jesus”
This surely gives an insight and something like ‘wake up call’ to let us know where SHOULD we stand or Where should we BE. Enlightening one. Liked it while reading. As far as my perception is concerned, I am more like an advocate to the thought of ‘Communication-with-God’ as compared to the disciples. If you are good at communicating then you remain SATISFIED and REJOICED.
How does community fit in with this vision of a simple relationship with God and me. Do we not need the counsel of other men? No man can be an island unto himself. Proverbs teaches, and Jesus models living in community with one another. I am not discgreeing woth you mind you, just wnating to knwo if we all follow the spirit as it speaks to us in our discipleship, this we are not follwoing a cetraol vision or doctrine or brand of church or whatever words you want to use. Are we not left to wonder without direction?
Hi Terry, I think you answered your own question when you said that Jesus models living in community with one another. Thus a Jesus-follower will follow Him in that way and live a life of “one-another” community.
Rodger
I guess my confusion comes in with the church I attend there are unspoken rules and a church culture, and core values. All of which I embrace, except the unspoken rules of course.
So my wife and I desire to follow Jesus not people, but we do have people in our midst, people with expectations, and I guess the problem is trying to follow Jesus and not ‘…’ We will in community with these people and our church has events and functions and lots of things that would not fall in line with our vision of following Jesus. Not that they are not following Jesus, rather their focus and goals are different, as they are doing the ‘Jesus and …’.
Does that make sense?
Hi Terry, I guess I am not clear on what your question is. We do all live within a Christian culture or church culture, the issue is our own focus and priorities. It is when our religious culture keeps us from our own radical Jesus-following that we want to be concerned.
Exactly. That is the question. How do you handle it, or deal with it when in your culture you are not engaging in activities that you see as distractions, or “…”, and others begin to question your commitment or involment in the church body, or the church vision?
I am a visionary type guy and like to think in these broad strokes as well as you do, but I also need to understand how this plays out in real life.
I mean it’s good to talk about this stuff philosophically speaking but eventually you have to live it out. That is where I am going in my comments and questions.
It seems like we each have to answer this question on our own as we follow Jesus: whether to remain in our present Christian community as an influence or to venture out into new expressions of community.
I understand, but that was not the answer I wanted. Good to talk with you. I enjoyed reading your writings, and look forward to future posts.
terry
I have sent you my email address in the event that that will make it easier to converse. Blessings.
Terry
I cannot resist this one. I KNOW exactly what you are talking about. I have gotten myself in serious trouble with bloggers because I keep pressing for stories and practical ways to begin to live this out. The blogging world is not that place because it is being lived out in books and discussion. What we need is a forum where we can talk with each other for encouragement and questions and examples of how other people are doing this.
Keeping this in the abstract will eventually kill any chance of a movement…. There are great questions to be asked but no where to ask them.
Roger is there any kind of forum that can be set up where a few of us, can get together and discuss these things on a regular basis (once a month or so). A conference Skyping or something (where we can see each other). I have no computer savvy so….
Is there anyone out there who has making disciples on their hearts and who has the computer savvy to set something up? (When I think of making disciples I am talking about the likes of Neil Cole, Floyd McClung, Victor Choudrie and what Roger is doing in Kenya).
Sorry for the impatience but I am all abstracted out.
I think Roger noted the key here in his original write-up. We make discipleship difficult, it is not. Discipleship is simply following Jesus, it simply is getting people to listen and follow Jesus, to listen and obey the Holy Spirit!
Quote from Roger:
“We have made discipleship far too complicated (the need to impart massive amounts of information in transformative ways—as if we can do that) yet also too comfortable (not requiring the discipler and disciple to follow Jesus radically.”
The problem is Jesus is not satisfied with lukewarm followers he wants us to radically following him!
Most of us, having grown up in our lukewarm pewsitter churches have deteriorated into Presumer performeter, but God requires seeker followers!
http://thebigpicmin.wordpress.com/2009/03/12/are-you-a-presumer-performer/
So often we have trouble hearing. I’m not sure but it seems that whenever I’m having trouble hearing, my worldlness is the problem. Remember being friends with the world makes us enemies of God!
http://thebigpicmin.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/seeing-straight-seeing-with-spiritual-eyes/
May God Continue to Guide and Protect Us!
Glenn