While the church must be externally focused, we must put a great amount of energy into growing people to Christ-likeness so the church can reflect the character of Jesus. Discipleship is essential to effectively reaching our community and world. We do this through teaching, modeling, mentoring and providing opportunities for people to serve. The end-result of discipleship is that people will become less self-focused and more God and other focused.The Need for Discipleship
We've already talked about the need for churches to be externally focused. That's most definitely a must for all churches. However, we also know that it does little good to be outward-focused and bring people into the church if their lives aren't transformed. God gives people grace and accepts them the way they are, but He doesn't expect them to stay that way. His goal is that people are redeemed and restored to the image of God. The way we like to describe this is Christ-likeness.
We believe Jesus was the true expression of what humans were intended to be. To have a close relationship with God, to obey Him, and to selflessly serve other people. The Great Commission teaches us to go and make disciples...baptizing them...and teaching them to obey...
The End Result of Discipleship
People have different ideas about what churches should be doing when it comes to discipleship. Some churches will spend almost all their time on teaching the doctrines of the faith and of their particular denomination. While those things are important and we do those, a knowledge of all the details of theology or doctrine is not the goal of discipleship.
But the end-result and the goal we should strive for in discipleship is to teach people to become like Christ. This includes knowing who God is and how the world operates, but it's also more than that. We don't just want to have knowledge of God--even the demons believe the right things about God (mostly), but we certainly wouldn't want to use them as our model of discipleship. Instead, that greater knowledge of God should lead to a lifestyle like that of Jesus. And it's not just that people should act like Jesus, they should develop the heart of Jesus--to be like Jesus.
Some would also lead us to believe that mature Christians are ones that spend all kinds of time meditating and studying scripture and things, but that's not necessarily the case. Although those disciplines are helpful in moving us toward maturity, the amount of time we spend doing spiritual disciplines is also not the measure of maturity.
I believe perhaps the greatest character-trait of Jesus that we should develop is selflessness. Philippians 2 is a perfect explanation of this. Paul says we should put other people's interest above our own. Our attitude should be like that of Jesus,
Who, being in very nature God,Even though Jesus had all the right to the privileges of being God, He "emptied Himself" of those privileges and instead sacrificed for the sake of the world. For us, this is the end-result of discipleship--that we learn to let go of ourselves and give ourselves to others. When we empty ourselves, that's when Christ actually lives through us. A central task of the church is to move people from being what they were without Jesus to everything they can be with Jesus living in them.
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
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