For a summary of what I’m hoping to accomplish in this blog series (in the third week of every month of 2018), I recommend reviewing my explanation here.
We started this series by introducing our definition of discipleship and the role that imitation plays in making disciples. We begin to expand on those concepts in our mission statement, to pursue, model, and teach intimacy with God on the American university campus in the context of Christian community. This is the kind of imitation we want to create space for. First, we want to intentionally engage spiritual practices in our own lives; we want our staff to be pursuing a certain level of expertise in this area. If we are trying to make disciples through imitation, however, we also want to be pursuing God in front of others. But there is still one more word/idea expressed in our mission statement that is important to this process.
We define “teach” as instructing others in furthering the discipleship process.
In order for imitation to find its fullness, it needs to transcend the mere work of mimicry. It is possible to mimic an instructor and still have no real concept of what you are doing, why you are doing it, or how it works. I can remember being a much younger preacher and imitating the sermons of my favorite preachers. I would mimic them to perfection. This was problematic in some ways and incredibly beneficial in others. This happened for a season of my life and then I continued to grow. My point is that during that season, I was mimicking incredibly well, but I did not truly possess the content. I was not intimate with the teachings in a way that the original teachers were; I had not done the work and taken the material through my own heart.
The same is true for our students. They can mimic our pursuit of God as we model it for them. This is good and a part of the greater process, but we ultimately want them to own and possess the pursuit for themselves. We don’t want them to simply mimic intimacy with God, we want them to truly have intimacy with God! And this means we must be ready and able to TEACH.
As with everything we’ve been talking about, this needs to begin with our pursuit of God. What does your pursuit of God look like? Maybe you memorize the Text and pray with a prayer journal. How intentional are you? Do you truly understand and “possess” those disciplines? Do you know them well enough that you could explain to your disciple how you memorize? Most students of mine will say, “I’ve tried to memorize… I just can’t do it!” What is your next step? We must be ready to do more than shrug our shoulders and say, “Keep trying!”
We need to know how to help them learn the essence of the discipline. That might involve learning how they interact with information and what kind of a learner they are. It might require immersion in the discipline. It might be as simple as a step-by-step approach. The first thing you need to do is this, and the next is that. The same thing would be true for a prayer journal. How do you interact with your prayer journal? What do you write? When do you write it? How do you use it?
Do you see how critical this is? It’s certainly not theological “rocket science,” but our typical discipleship methods are too often void of these crucial elements. We meet for coffee on Thursday morning and ask, “Did you read your Bible? Did you pray? What are you learning from God this week?” These are fantastic questions! But did we teach people how to read the Bible? Did we teach them how to pray? Have they ever seen us pray? There’s a good chance they are at home, trying to pray, completely frustrated, thinking, “Is this how everyone else does it? I don’t feel like it’s working!” And then, too ashamed to admit the struggle, the discipleship process breaks down. Did we ever teach them how to “learn from God” or hear His voice? How many people reading this understand these concepts? Probably very few — and at some point, none of us did.
I know I learned how to listen for God and learn from Him daily because of spiritual mentors who taught me how to do it and helped me ask questions and deal with the frustrations. They shared real life stories and experiences with me and it helped me find my way.
But I might even go one step further and say that this principle goes far beyond our spiritual practices. True discipleship happens in absolutely every facet of life. We should be pursuing, modeling, and teaching all kinds of aspects of life as their spiritual mentors. It needs to begin with and be centered around our pursuit of God; everything needs to flow from that time spent abiding in the Vine (John 15). But it also needs to influence our relationships and our work ethic. Our disciples need to see us model healthy relationships and boundaries with others. They need to see us repent, say we are wrong/sorry, and forgive others. They need to see us submit to authority with humility and grace. They need to see our character and integrity.
And more than just modeling, we need to be able to teach them all of the things mentioned above. Can you teach somebody how to forgive? We need to be able to. Are you prepared to take every opportunity to talk about why you dress a particular way at work, turn in paperwork on time, and say no to work and yes to family? These are things that must be taught! We have an entire generation suffering from a world that just expects them to do these things — a world that is unwilling to teach.
And yes, this even gets down into the business of sacred vocation. This work of discipleship isn’t only for church leaders and Bible students. This work is for all people in every facet of life. Let’s say you are a mechanical engineer. Do you know why your job matters? Do you know how it is holy and sacred work, blessed by God? Do you see yourself merely as an “employee” of Such and Such, Inc.? We need to be able to disciple people in their vocation. And I’m not just talking about how we try to be hard workers and nice to others (although that is important; see the paragraphs above). I’m talking about the actual work we do. Every job is, at its essence, about the proper ordering and stewarding of God’s creation. That means my work, my art, is a craft, and I need to disciple all of the potential I can out of others by pursuing my craft, modeling its proper engagement, and teaching others how to excel (even beyond my own abilities).
God has placed each and every one of us here on this earth to impact the world. Becoming absolutely everything we were designed to be is critical to being part of a beautiful story that God is telling in history, because we each have a role to play.
It’s all holy, sacred work.
It’s all discipleship.
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