Tyler Johnson, MDiv
Tyler is a pastor, a teacher, and a former NASA engineer. He loves to explore truth through God’s word and God’s works. He lives in Kansas with his wife and four children and spends what little free-time he has practising tae kwon do and pondering the mysteries of light.
Man’s first business is, “What does God want me to do?”,
not “What will God do if I do so and so?” - George MacDonald
At the end of last week’s post, I promised that I would tackle the topic of making disciples this week. Well, here we go.
I’ll start with a story.
Three years ago, my wife and I were at a denominational conference for pastors, when we met an energetic man who was enthusiastic about discipleship. I talked to the guy for a while and my wife talked to him longer. At the time she was the pastor in charge of discipleship-y things at our church. Since this was a conference full of pastors and peers, I didn’t have my radar up for things like salesmen. But that is exactly what this guy turned out to be. He was selling a discipleship plan. My wife pursued it a little until it began to look a lot like a pyramid scheme. No joke, a discipleship pyramid scheme. It was a deeply unsettling experience and since then I cringe every time someone talks about making disciples. I’m working on it.
As we saw last week, making disciples is the essential action that Jesus calls his followers to in the Great Commission. It is also an essential part of much of the church leadership training and literature out there. It is something that large churches are especially focused on. But let’s dig into this a little deeper.
What does the discipleship program at your typical church look like? Or better yet, what is the goal of making disciples for a typical church? In my experience when a church goes about intentionally making disciples, it does so in order to raise them up into leadership positions in that church. Maybe it is to lead a Bible Study. Maybe to lead worship. Maybe to a position on a leadership team or an elder board. The focus is almost exclusively on the functions and programs of that church. And the training is never transferable. It’s not like five years of leading a Bible study at one church qualifies you to lead a Bible study at another church. The rules are probably different now. What if you say the wrong thing about the Bible, or God? What if you ask a forbidden question? What if you mention an author or a book that is not welcome in this new church? Typically you must be re-discipled in a new church before you can lead anything.
The point I’m making is that our disciple-making efforts tend to be focused on the needs and functions of our own institutions (churches). And they tend to be exclusively focused on developing leaders. The process looks a lot like a business strategy. And to me this suggests that our disciple-making efforts are off course. Instead of making disciples of Christ, the church is making disciples of itself. The purpose of making disciples in most churches is simply to raise up more leaders, like those already in power, so that the church can maintain its status quo. I don’t think this is quite what Jesus had in mind. After all, the word “disciple” literally means “learner,” not “leader”.
Perhaps an example from moral philosophy will be helpful. (Don’t scoff. All things are possible with God, right?) I’ve been teaching ethics at a community college lately so this stuff is on the tip of my brain.
The default ethic in our industrial, capitalistic society is a utilitarian one, which says that the right action is the one that brings the most happiness to the most people. Decisions are made on the basis of what kind of outcome can be expected. This tends to be the default ethic in the church too, which drives it to a deep pragmatism in its mission. Annual reports are all about outcomes, numbers: dollars, baptisms, converts, online viewers, programs, volunteers, etc. A good leader will tell a couple of stories about lives being changed, but the message is clear: the church makes decisions based on the perceived outcomes of its actions.
This is so normal it almost seems pointless to mention. But utilitarianism is only one of three main ethical frameworks in western philosophy. Meaning, there are other ways to make decisions. Kant, for example, was highly critical of utilitarianism because of it’s penchant for dehumanizing people. He pointed out that when it is the end that truly matters, people become little more than means of achieving that end. In a utilitarian church, what really matters is the vision, the mission, the goal, the numbers. And the people become a means to this end. And those who are not useful means towards this end are expendable. They can be lost and forgotten because the greater good still lies ahead.
In response to this dehumanization, Kant rooted his deontological ethics, not in the outcome of an action, but in the motive. His ethical framework is rooted in a universal moral law and the duty a person has to live by this law. His ethics tend to be rigid and unforgiving. Certain actions are wrong always, no matter the circumstance or any nuances. Making disciples in this system would be about communicating a bunch of universal laws and then making sure people abided by them. Hey, the church is pretty good at this system too! (If I’ve lost you, check out this brief video.)
But there is a third ethical framework we can use to make decisions, one that has played a far richer role in the history of the Christian Church: Aristotle’s Virtue Ethics. Here what is emphasized is the growth toward being a virtuous person. Now Aristotle had difficulty defining what the ideal virtuous person would be like, but this problem doesn’t exist for Christians. Christ is our ideal. Virtue ethics recognizes the role of example and habit in becoming a virtuous person. When faced with an ethical dilemma, a virtue ethicist would ask him/herself, “Do I want to be the kind of person who does…?” For a Christian this question would be more like, “Would this action be helpful in conforming me to the character of Christ?” I haven’t seen much of this kind of disciple-making in the church.
And that is the problem. The Great Commission calls Jesus-followers to make disciples (learners) of…Jesus! And if you listened to the song I linked last week, there are elements of the world who are also longing to see the church be more like Jesus. Which means our discipleship programs should be primarily focused on teaching forgiveness, humility, compassion, and listening skills. For these are the things that Jesus taught us to obey and these are the things that Jesus himself demonstrated. (Be honest, have you ever sung a song in church about forgiveness or humility? I can’t think of any.)
These actions may not yield huge giving, massive online influence, or sexy annual report numbers. But they are thoroughly people-centric and utterly humanizing. The great lie of our Utilitarian impulse is that God can’t do this work without us. But it is a lie. God created freely out of love, not out of any need or lack. Which means that God doesn’t need you, or your church, in order to complete His will. If the disciples didn’t rejoice when Jesus entered Jerusalem as King, then the stones would have cried out (Luke 19:37-40). God doesn’t need you to fulfill His promises, but He does invite you into the work He is already doing. (Reflect on this for a few minutes and apply it to whatever you’re doing for God, and experience the freedom it brings.)
And that right there is the gospel. You are invited to participate in God’s work of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:11-6:10) . This happens for you and me the same way it happened for Christ, through death. “The focus of the Christian faith is on participation with the death and resurrection of Christ, not just on his teachings, although conformity to that teaching is a natural consequence. Faith is attachment to and discipleship to a crucified and risen Lord” (Klyne Snodgrass).
Discipleship should be a process by which we grow more into the character of Christ. And to be honest, that is really what I am seeking. But it doesn’t seem to be what the church is offering. Thus the “dones” and the “spiritual but not religious”. The world is hungry for Christ, but it just isn’t clear where to find Him.
For Further Reading
The Gospel According to Luke, Luke
To Change the World, James Davidson Hunter
Art & Faith, Makoto Fujimura
You Need a Better Gospel, Klyne Snodgrass (The quote above is from page 118)
Training for Dependence, Tyler Johnson (that’s me!) https://covenantcompanion.com/2020/09/29/training-for-dependence/