Discipleship: If We Saw It Would We Recognize It?

by Dan Day, Director
NAD Church Resource Center
November 6, 2009

Discipleship: what is it? If we were walking along the street and discipleship fell on our heads would we: a) wipe it off; b) call the paramedics; or c) fall to our knees and begin to pray? In other words, if we saw it, would we recognize it?

In this and subsequent issues of Best Practices we're going to dig at the answers to these questions, leading to the introduction of a remarkable new resource for discipleship that will be really cool. Just wait and see.

First of all, though, what is discipleship? For some people, discipleship is only about spiritual disciplines. It's about learning how to pray better, how to meditate, how to resist temptation. All those are good things, of course. But something inside has to change before the outside stuff gets a whole lot better, right?

For others, discipleship is about teaching people to do "the right stuff." It's about getting people to tithe, to go out witnessing, to attend services regularly. Discipleship is about making better church members. But, again, is this something we can accomplish merely through more extensive training?

For still others, discipleship is what we do after we hold an evangelistic series. The evangelist gets them into the church, and discipleship is the process by which we indoctrinate new members into the detailed beliefs and practices of the church. It's how we fill in the gaps the evangelist didn't cover, sort of like "boot camp" for new Adventists.

For discipleship to "take" in an Adventist congregation, though, it must encompass all these and much more. It's about all the stuff that enables us to follow Jesus more closely-and have fun doing it. It's about our life, our faith and our church.

The rest is yet to come...

The iFollow Journey (Jul. 2, 2010)
The iFollow Discipleship Resource (Mar. 10, 2010)
Discipleship Elements: How to Become a Nurturing Community (Feb. 24, 2010)
Discipleship Elements: How to Grow in Christ (Jan. 28, 2010)
Discipleship Elements: How to Follow Jesus (Jan. 13, 2010)
iFollow: What It Is, and How to Use It (Jan. 1, 2010)
Discipleship: Learning a New Language (Dec. 16, 2009)
Discipleship: What Is It, and Why Should We Care? (Dec. 9, 2009)
Discipleship: Just About Being Spiritually "Buff"? (Nov. 18, 2009)
Discipleship: If We Saw It Would We Recognize It? (Nov. 6, 2009)

Discipleship: If We Saw It Would We Recognize It?

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