What is a disciple?

The Great Commission commands churches to go into the world reaching people for Jesus Christ and leading them into a life of discipleship. Today, many churches are not reaching many people for Christ and even fewer are successfully developing disciples. Churches are full of baptized persons who have remained baby Christians years after their baptism. As a judicatory minister for 14 years I was involved in numerous church problems, none of which were caused by spiritually mature people.

One of the problems we have with discipleship is few churches have determined exactly what a disciple of Jesus Christ should be like. What is it we are to help produce in people? We often substitute education for discipleship. We offer Sunday school classes, mid-week studies, small groups, men's breakfast Bible studies, etc. thinking that educating people about the Bible will automatically produce a disciple. I remember hearing John Maxwell say once that the average Christian is educated far beyond his level of obedience. 

Perhaps what we need to do is to first identify what a disciple should look like, and then develop a discipleship program that would help produce that in a person's life. How should a disciple treat his or her spouse? How should a disciple raise his or her children? What kind of employee would a Christian disciple look like? What kind of employer? How should a disciple handle his or her finances? What did Jesus teach about morality and ethical behavior?

I am not advocating legalism with a long list of dos and don'ts. Jesus condemned the Pharisees for their legalism that looked down at those who didn't live like them. I am advocating that churches need to be more intentional about how they go about helping people become disciples of Christ.

Going back to what I said earlier, more education is not the answer. While we need to teach what the Bible says about the issues, and more, that I raised above, we also need to provide opportunities for people to put those teachings into practice. Discipleship = education + action. I learned more about what it meant to be a disciple in a one-week mission trip to Haiti than I would have learned in two years of studying mission work in Haiti. Spending a day with an associational work team preparing a house for winter in eastern Kentucky was a growing experience as well. We need to provide such opportunities to the people in our churches if we want them to develop as disciples.

Let's be intentional about what we are trying to produce when we talk about discipleship and remember the formula: Discipleship = education + action.