Lessons from “Lessons”

Why does discipleship often seem so hard to do? I mean there are more books, videos, blogs, and seminars on discipleship than ever before. So with all the tools, programs, and strategies out there, why are not more people effective at it? And along with that, why are many of those of us who are trying to disciple others, so often (or often so) frustrated?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. I think the reason is that it that we make it more complicated than it is. When it comes right down to it, discipleship is very simple. The DNA of discipleship, to my mind anyway, is in these three passages:

Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (NIV) Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV) Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

2 Timothy 2:2 (NLTse) You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.

These passages teach that discipleship involves three things:

1. Teaching a person about God.
2. Showing a person how to obey God.
3. Helping that person repeat the process with someone else.

One of the things I have been learning is that it is part of our fallen human nature to take simple things like this and complicate the bejeebers out of it! How have we complicated discipleship?

First by relegating it to “the professionals,” pastors, youth ministers, missionaries, and evangelists. Thus making disciplship seem like something that requires a degree in biblical and theological studies to do.

And second, by making discipleship synonymous with teaching, and forgetting or downplaying the “showing” and “helping” parts of discipleship. It is true that the Greek word for disciple means student, but biblical discipleship (i.e. rabbinical discipleship) was much more than formal class time. When we equate discipleship with attending Bible studies, taking classes in your Sunday School program, attending seminars, listening to sermons or other formal teaching times, we inevitably will become frustrated; because discipleship is a relational life-on-life process, not a formal classroom curriculum. It is just as much caught as it is taught.

When you look at how Jesus discipled His disciples you see that oftentimes He took advantage of their own experiences and surroundings. Seeing Him talking with a Samaritan woman in John 4, led to discipling on missions. When the disciples called attention to the beauty of the Temple buildings in Matthew 24, Jesus used that to teach them about the end times. When He passed through a vineyard on the way to Gethsemane, He used the grapevines as an illustration of how we are connected to Him and how we bear His fruit. Life was the curriculum, and there were many ways Jesus took advantage of “everyday life” to teach, show, and help His disciples.

Recently I have written several posts titled Lessons from _____. There were two main motivations behind these posts. The first was to share with you what I have been learning, which is the main point of my blog. The second motivation was to show how everyday life is full of “discipleship moments” that are there for the taking. Lessons from Lie to Me and Lessons from Arrow show how you can turn TV time into opportunities to disciple. Lessons from Rats showed how the death of a pet can be a powerful discipleship moment: it is important to cherish and love one another now because you never know how long we or our loved ones (even if they are pet rats) are going to be around. Lessons from Target took the simple act of taking my daughter shopping and showed how important our time is, and that we need to use it wisely. Lessons from Snot and Lessons from Cigars? Well if you can use snot or a cigar to talk about Jesus you can do it with just about anything right? The point is discipleship is not something that happens at a specific hour of the day or at some preplanned event. It happens all the time and everywhere. All of life is sacred, therefore discipleship happens all the time—or it should be.

Now saying discipleship is simple is not the same as saying discipleship is easy. Learning to think in such a way that we recognize these lessons in “the everyday” takes work. Taking the time to share them is work. Taking the time to be taught, to be shown, and be helped in equipping others so that we can do it well, takes a lot of work. But don’t think you need a seminary degree to do it. Don’t think you need a slick DVD series by some hot pastor or professional, or that you need to read a shelf full of books before you are qualified. And most importantly, don’t think you can’t do it. After all Jesus’ disciples were mostly young men (probably teenagers) who were learning their parents’ trade, not scholars. More than that, they didn’t have books, blue ray players, iPods, or Christian Book Distributors, and they did just fine. Just remember that when it comes down to it, discipleship is simply,

1. Teaching a person about God.
2. Showing a person how to obey God.
3. Helping that person repeat the process with someone else.