Category: Article

In my first post we explored the importance of centering discipleship in the gospel and structuring discipleship with flexibility. Then, we examined three primary environments for discipleship. In this post, we will take a close look at how to draw a line from what centers discipleship (a gospel-centered approach to Scripture) to what structures discipleship (various forms that can form a pathway).

The phrase “discipleship pathways” has become very popular with churches. It is typically used to express a desire to become intentional in making disciples of Jesus. This resolve is commendable but unless the pathway is robustly informed by Scripture, and centered in the gospel, our forms for disciple making will quickly become rigid, hyperspiritual, and legalistic, forming people away from Christ, e.g. being a disciple means observing these 9 habits, sharing the gospel in this particular way, being emotionally healthy. Therefore, it is critical to not only develop a discipleship pathway but ground it in the gospel of grace.

Centering our Structures

How do we center discipleship in the various church environments?

• Classroom: This environment informs the disciple. It is “teaching” them to observe all that Christ commanded, and Christ taught that the Law, the Psalms. and the Prophets have their fulfillment in him (Lk 24:44).
  • Bible Studies: The sermons, classes, and seminars need to be grounded not only Scripture but also in the person and work of Jesus. For example, it isn’t adequate to have a Bible Study on the Book of Daniel. We need to ground our hope in Son of Man, not in figuring out the “signs of the times.” Otherwise, people will attach their spiritual significance to cracking the end-time code rather than the return of the Son of Man.
  • Sermons: Many sermons contain exegetical insights, historical nuance, theological reflection, and still fall short of expounding the gospel. If the gospel is not in the text, it is always in the context. Thus, we should always examine a text in light of the greater gospel context. What is the passage saying about God and his saving grace? We are not making students but disciples of Jesus.
  • We can discern the gospel of grace in the text/context by looking for (For more on this see GCD, 146-150):
    • Person and work of Christ: the cross, resurrection, ascension, intercession
    • Gospel Metaphors: justification, adoption, new creation, atonement, & union with Christ, suffering servant, the Rock, pearl of great price, treasure in a field.
    • Actions of Christ: advocates, forgives, cleanses, transforms, obeys.
    • Types of Christ: 2nd Adam, David, Abraham. The true Temple, Lamb, etc.

• Community:. This environment integrates disciples with one another. It is teaching “them to observe” all that Christ commanded. We cannot obey Christ apart from the Body of Christ. His teaching requires meaningful relationship with others. We cannot love, forgive, encourage, serve, and so without a community. Thus, the community is the context in which we are formed together, where we get to witness the love, grace, power, forgiveness, and service of Christ at work among us. But how do we make community structures gospel-centered? Too many small groups settle for social groups, Bible knowledge groups, gossip groups.
  • Small Groups: Many churches provide sermon discussion guides that simply walk people through the sermon or biblical text without ever getting the gospel. As a result, the community can feel lifeless and academic. We have to intentionally structure the questions to get to the heart idols, concerns, and tensions. Only when these are surfaced can we apply the gospel to one another. This is when change happens! See resources like Gospel-Centered Life
  • One-on-One: One-on-one mentoring can often devolve into passing on best practices instead of a formative encounter with the person and work of Christ. In order for discipleship groups or mentoring to transform, the mentor or leader needs to intentionally connect life aspirations and struggles to the gospel of grace by: 1) Listening to their Story 2) Empathizing with their Story 3) Retelling the Story around Jesus.

• Culture: This environment invites us to intentionally spread the gospel. It is making disciples “of all nations” not “from all nations.” We aren’t sent to extract people from the world into a Christian enclave, but to take the gospel into a cultural context. However, some Christians attempt to do this combatively, trying to conquer secular people’s politics and ethics, leaving them stranded with words of condemnation but no salvation. Alternatively, Christians can respond to culture passively, simply absorbing the views of the world around them and smuggling them into the church. Instead of taking a combative or passive stance against culture, we must intentionally engage the people, beliefs, and values around us with the gospel of grace. I recommend an ARC approach:
  • Affirm: Validate cultural concerns and affirm secular values that align with Christianity. Build bridges not burn them.
  • Redeem: Redeem secular impulses and values with the gospel. Show the difference Christ makes on an issue.
  • Confront: Explain why a particular issue is not good for humanity and demonstrate how the biblical alternative is for their flourishing.

Discipleship is a catch-all term. It can mean 1-1 mentoring, theological instruction in the local church, an intentional spiritual formation plan, personal sanctification, apprenticeship to Jesus, and more. When Jesus modeled how to make disciples with the twelve, his disciples experienced all of these things. The challenge is to carry this forward in the context of local churches.

Good pastors aim to take responsibility for Jesus’ commission to make disciples by “teaching them to observe all that Christ commanded.” Elders and deacons want their ministry to result in “presenting every person mature in Christ Jesus.” So what should discipleship in the local church look like?

Centered and Flexible

In the New Testament, ecclesiology is centered and flexible. Biblical ecclesiology is centered on the person and work of Jesus Christ, which supported by the appointment of godly, qualified elders and deacons, stitching God’s people together with the threads of love and truth. However, the New Testament does not identify how we are to structure the church: house churches, small groups, missional communities, a specific liturgy or size of church.

The Bible contains descriptions of churches that gather in large and small spaces. There are halls for instruction and mounts of open air proclamation. But these descriptions never become prescriptions. Theology and leadership are centered in a gospel-centered grasp of the Bible but the forms of church remain flexible.

Therefore, it is wrongheaded to become dogmatic about what structures the church yet flexible on what centers the church. But in a consumer culture preoccupied with pragmatics it is tempting to place the accent in the wrong place. Conferences, churches, and authors (!) insist that we should adopt their model to have guaranteed outcomes: everyone needs a discipleship pathway, apprenticeship to Jesus looks like this; you must have missional communities.

How then should we go about discipleship in the local church?

3 Environments for Discipleship

If being a disciple of Jesus shapes not just our beliefs but our behaviors in all of life, then we need to approach it holistically. Discipleship happens at work, in the home, in small groups, on Sundays, at happy hour, on vacation. Therefore, instead of articulating a narrow discipleship around, say, spiritual disciplines, we need a broad conception of discipleship that helps us be intentional in all of life.

There are three primary environments in which we are formed: the classroom, the community, and our culture. For discipleship to have integrity, we need to be able to draw a line from what centers the church to what structures the church. We need a robust understanding of the gospel, and Scripture, to permeate the various environments in which disciples are made. More on this later. For now, here are the three environments.

• The Classroom: This is a category that accounts for instructing disciples, “teaching all Christ commanded.” This environment takes serious the handing down of the faith, the particulars of Bible study, doctrine, and practical theology. This is where the disciple is informed. That’s not to say they aren’t also transformed, but the accent is on teaching.

• The Community: This is a category that accounts for the relational dimension of making disciples. We learn through meaningful relationships with one another. Jesus’ disciples always come with other disciples attached. This is where the disciple is integrated. It is where theology comes to life, where doctrine is broken-in, where Scripture gains ground in life. It is following Jesus into other peoples’ lives.

• The Culture: This category accounts for the missional dimension of discipleship. It is the sent environment of being and making disciples, e.g. the workplace, vacation, neighborhood, apartments, villages, suburb, town. This is where the disciple is intentional. It is where we carry out our responsibility and privilege of sharing the gospel with others.

If local churches only focus on one or two of these environments, discipleship will become malformed. For instance, a church that focusses on classroom and culture will lack the robust environment of community where disciples can grieve, grow, and rejoice together. Discipleship will become highly intellectual and missional: brains and bluster, without real meat on the bones.

If a church focuses on community and culture, they may be relationally rich but spiritually poor. Disciples will lack the depth necessary to address the problem of evil and suffering, to grasp the immensity and holiness of God, and deal with pressing cultural issues, e.g. transgenderism, AI.

Thus, we need to articulate discipleship holistically and structure our churches intentionally, accounting for all three environments in which disciples are formed. Doing this will result in disciples that are theologically informed, relationally integrated, and culturally intentional.