Have you ever noticed how you tend to remember things that happened twenty years ago, but you can't remember what you had for lunch last week? Well, maybe you don't have that challenge (yet), but I know there are others, besides me, if we're honest. I believe this is true for the way we view discipleship as well. For those of us who have been in the church for several decades, there is a "memory" of discipleship that we keep remembering. And not all those memories are bad, but some of them need to be reimagined. What would that look like? Well, here are three ways to consider:
1. Discipleship needs to be reimagined as a life-long journey. For many of us our initial discipleship experience was a class with a workbook. I learned a lot in those classrooms, but everything seem to end at week twelve. Thankfully I had men in my life that invited me into a discipling relationship, and that allowed my journey to continue. Some of those men aren't in my life any longer, but God has been faithful to provide other men so that I can continue on this life-long discipleship journey.
2. Discipleship needs to be reimagined as something that is for every believer. As I think back to those discipleship classes that I participated in, there were usually the same people in all of them. Occasionally someone new would join, but in most cases only about twenty-five percent of the church was participating. There are always legitimate reasons why some people couldn't be there, but what about the rest of the people? What would it take to disciple every believer? Imagine a disciple-making group that meets in the local coffee shop? Maybe another at a fast food restaurant on Tuesday morning? To get more people involved we may need to reimagine the methods we use to make disciples.
3. Discipleship needs to be reimagined as something we share with others. In Mathew 28:19 the Scriptures tell us to "Go and make disciples". In the past, my picture of discipleship was something that I was supposed to do [period]. But as I grew to understand the Great Commission better, I realized that I was commissioned to become a disciple-maker, and that meant that I needed to be sharing my faith and discipling others. Imagine if every believer was a disciple-maker?
What memories do you have of discipleship? Are there some things that you need to reimagine?
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Thank you for sharing your insights David.
If you have time, please also post them here:
https://discipleshipnetwork.ning.com/forum/topics/why-reimagine-dis...
With thanks for your good content,
Phil