Discipleship - Part 3

Introduction

Jesus said: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." (Luke 9:23)
 
This is the third in a series of posts on Christian discipleship, using David Watson's great book Discipleship as our guide. Today we look at chapters 4 and 5 of the book on "Making Disciples" and "Life in the Spirit".

Making Disciples

Watson says near the beginning of this chapter: "A disciple is a follower of Jesus. He has committed himself to Christ, to walking Christ's way, to living Christ's life and to sharing Christ's love and truth with others." To make a disciple or rather to disciple as a verb means to encourage another follower of Jesus in this commitment, walk, life and sharing.

Of course this is what the church is commanded to do by Christ in the Great Commission: "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 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.'" (Matthew 28:18-20)

Unfortunately, as Watson then points out, the church has often failed in this task. So many churches are lax about the kind of behaviour tolerated in its ranks and there is little thought for personal holiness. Other churches share and propogate heresy instead of truth without anyone turning a hair. Others pursue members but don't seem too concerned with whether they have a living faith, while yet others pursue converts without much concern for nurturing them into mature disciples. The blame for these faults, Watson directs towards church leaders.

Yet, in typically balanced fashion, Watson then points out the dangers of lurching in another direction, where the church leaders "shepherd" their flock so closely, so intensely, that Christian liberty is stifled, and church leaders become church police officers prying into everyone's life and introducing a code of behaviour that is more moralistic than truly about holiness.

So if there is a danger when there is no leadership and a danger when the voice of the leadership becomes blurred with hearing the voice of God himself, where does the correct balance lie? Well surely it lies in the submission of all to the Holy Spirit speaking through the Bible to God's people. But for Watson there is something else that is more-or-less essential to fostering discipleship within a fellowship and that is small groups.

Small groups ministry is something I also feel very strongly about. In a church of anything over 40-50 members it is very difficult to be really close with everyone. A small group of 6-12 people is a good size for getting to know one another well, where there can be effective teaching, sharing, fellowship, prayer and growth in discipleship.

Watson finishes his chapter focusing on the importance of recognising potential leaders, encouraging leaders and training leaders. Rather than "one man from the front" Watson thinks churches do best with a team of leaders all able to share the burden of leadership - not least the pastoral needs of the flock.

Life in the Spirit

David Watson was moderately charismatic in his views and this is reflected in his chapter on "Life in the Spirit". But whether or not we share his perspective there are still many good things in this chapter.

He begins by pointing out that we need the Holy Spirit to live as Christian disciples. This is perhaps obvious, but we easily forget this, don't we? How many of us try by our own efforts, our own moral code, our own will power, to live as Christians, and forget to look to the Holy Spirit to strengthen and guide us.

He then goes through a number of different aspects of our Christian life and reminds us how important the Holy Spirit is to all of them.

First, we need the Holy Spirit to grow spiritually. We need the Holy Spirit to work inside us to enable us to become more Christlike in our lives.

Second, according to Watson, we need the Holy Spirit so the church can fulfil its healing ministry. Obviously this reflects Watson's charismatic views, but I think it is fair to say that in many of our more cessationist churches, there is a shocking underestimate of God's ability to heal us. We will pray for people to get well, but so often this is framed in terms of God guiding doctors and nurses as if we don't expect healing ever to come by supernatural means.

Third, we need to the Holy Spirit for there to be genuine fellowship between people. We need him to open up our hearts to each other and enable us to share our lives with other believers.

Fourth, we need the Holy Spirit to energise our worship.

Fifth, we need to look to the Holy Spirit for spiritual gifts to build up the body of Christ. Again this reflects Watson's charismatic views in part, but the truth is that all Christians believe in spiritual gifts. We just don't all seem to think about them very much! That's a fault of cessationist churches I think.

Sixth, we need the Holy Spirit to give us the power to live as Christians and to be witnesses to others. In order to go and make disciples, we need the Holy Spirit to be our helper and guide, which brings us back full circle. In this respect our call to make disciples and our need of the Holy Spirit are so closely related that they are fused together.

Next time we turn from these more theortical chapters to some practical chapters on prayer and reading the Bible.