What is a Disciple? Re-aligning with Jesus' Target for the Church
We believe that the mission of the Church is to love God, love people, and make disciples. Those first two, The Greatest Commandments, we're fairly familiar with. We have a solid understanding of what loving God and loving people looks like. The problem comes with the latter part, The Great Commission. What is a disciple and how do we make them?
How would you define a disciple?
If you were to poll a room of 100 church leaders and ask them to write down their definition of "disciple," I'm willing to wager Chicken Minis for a year that you wouldn't get 10 answers that were exactly the same! In fact, Jim Putman, of Real Life Ministries in Post Falls, Idaho, has done just that. Throughout many years of hosting church leaders and teams from across the country at Real Life's DiscipleShift Emersions Jim reports that very rarely had even a single church leadership team successfully been able to offer one unified definition of a disciple.
A Widget Factory that makes What'sits
Imagine for a moment that it is your job to oversee the production of widgets at the Acme Widget Factory. The expectation of you is to direct the production in such a way that the deliverable was produced on time, under budget, and according to specifications. However, you've got a problem. You don't have any product specifications. What you do have is a team of engineers with varying levels of training and experience who've seen a lot of different (even opposing) approaches to making widgets. What kind of product would you get without clearly specifying the end result? You wouldn't be making widgets, you'd end up with "what'sits." (As in "What is it?!?")
Sadly, in an endeavor infinitely more vital than widget production, the Church has suffered the same dilemma. We're busy doing a hundred good things while the main thing remains undone, not because we don't care enough, but because we're not clear enough. We're throwing darts trying to hit an undefined target. The goal - our desired outcome - must be explicitly stated and objectively derived from Jesus' command and example. Subjective vision frustrates, leaving the goal open to interpretation and impedes the unified pursuit lasting fruit.
When Jesus gave the Church her final marching orders He commanded us to "make disciples." While there's more to the Commission, this is His imperative.
Truth and life transference in relationship
In commanding them to make disciples, Jesus was essentially telling His disciples, "go and do for others what I've done for you." So we take not only Jesus' message, but His method as our example. That's why we define disciple making as "truth and life transference in the context of relationship." (Credit: Downline Ministries, Memphis, TN)
Disciple making in the way of Jesus always involves both truth and life. Paul wrote this description of discipleship in 1 Thessalonians 2:8. "We loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God (Truth) but our lives as well (Life)." Discipleship can't be solely academic in nature, the truth must be wrapped up from beginning to end in relationship. More is caught than taught.
The goal of this process we call disciple making is to grow towards maturity in Christ and replicate our ministry, to make more disciples. At City Church, we have have defined a disciple as:
"A learner or follower after Jesus who loves God, loves people, and makes disciples who make disciples."
It's that simple. It's who we are, and who we are, dictates what we do. We exist to love God, love people, and make disciples. A disciple is defined by the mission of the Church. A disciple is always in the process of learning to more fully and more fruitfully love God, love people, and make disciples so that disciples multiply.
