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Churches Can’t Disciple People

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As I continue to engage in conversations about discipleship with church leaders around the world, it dawned on me, as I was wrestling with this question of discipleship with an African leader, that churches can’t disciple people, at least not in the deepest sense.

Oh, they are a piece of the puzzle for sure, and they can create programs that can be a component of someone’s discipleship journey. Yet they can’t disciple people.

People disciple people.

And until we fully admit this as a reality as church leaders, we will continue to create “discipleship tracks” to funnel people through and declare that we have done our job. Now it’s up to the person we took through the process to “get it” and live as a follower of Jesus, a disciple.

So how are we doing with this? Why does the discipleship conversation continue in such strong ways at this time? I know for me it is “the” conversation I’m encountering whether it is with pastors in North America, Europe, Africa or the Middle East. It’s seems like everyone is looking for the “silver bullet”, the method for today that they can implement and guide their people. But perhaps we are having the wrong conversation, asking the wrong questions, or maybe even avoiding the obvious.

Now I’m not holding myself up as the model of full understanding. I was a Pastor of Adult Discipleship, and I created the track for discipleship. I read the books and went to the conferences. I also wanted the “quick fix”. Surely we can find a solution to this “problem.”

Yet here is the reality we must state as true, churches can’t disciple people, people disciple people.

I have written extensively on this in this blog over the years. It is something that I have engaged in since I was in my early 20’s. I was discipled personally by Luch Del Monte. He guided me for 3 years while in university. And then he told me to do likewise. I assumed I had no choice so I’ve done this now for over 30 years, coming alongside a couple of guys for a two year journey.

Isn’t it interesting that we talk about wanting to make disciples like Jesus did, to follow the example of the New Testament. And then we embrace the North American model of efficiency and attempt to create a system to move people through. Let’s admit that it isn’t working.

Again, the programs and seminars that churches create can be a piece of the journey. But unless we choose to adopt the beauty of life-on-life discipleship, of one person coming alongside another, or perhaps 2-3 three others, then we will never achieve what we believe is required of Jesus command to “go and make disciples.”

Senior pastors, your congregation will do what you do. If you are not coming alongside 1-3 people regularly over an extended period (2 years) of time and modelling this, then those you care for will most likely not do it either. Your church services and programs are a piece, but your church and its programs can’t disciple people. You must disciple people, up close and personal. And then teach your congregation to do the same. 

Never believe that you can short circuit the process. It is long and personal, and extremely beautiful, and at times frustrating – we are all broken people after all. May this become our reality.

For the Kingdom.

Overwhelm of the Cross(es)

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From the side of the road, you can see the crosses in the distance. The path then takes you closer, and it’s not until you start getting closer that you realize the width in which crosses are layered together. Big crosses, small crosses, wooden crosses, metal crosses, some with words written on them, some laced with beaded necklaces, and others made of twigs wrapped in string. There’s one massive cross at the end of the path that is like the gatekeeper to the hill of all the other crosses. A metal depiction of Jesus is hung on the top with nails in the wrists and through the crossed over ankles. 

Dad begins his journey to the right – there’s a little dirt path entrance created amongst the crosses that he tucks into. I notice the steps going right to the top and head straight for it – may as well go right through the middle of it first to get a sense of the whole first. There’s a man sitting in the middle of the steps with a hat beside him ready to grasp a few coins that will be his livelihood for the day – I toss in the only two coins I have in my pocket. It seems only fitting that an outcast man would be engulfed amongst the thousands of crosses – it’s where Jesus would have wanted him; at the foot of the cross.

As I climb the steps, it starts to dawn on me just how many crosses there are; it also dawns on me that once you get to the top of the hill, you’ve only just begun to experience this hill of crosses – I had naively assumed the top would be the halfway point before the descent down.  

I actually start to begin to feel overwhelmed. It’s like my mind can’t fathom how many crosses there are, and there are so many little off-shoot path options that I just don’t know where to start – I want to go down them all. 

I find one path that deeks through some trees that winds back to the bottom of the hill. As I walk back down, I get a glimpse of the pavilion off to the side that was built specifically for the Pope a few years ago and decide to go there to get a wide-lens view of the hill – maybe there I could catch my breath a bit before going back in the maze of crosses. 

The pavilion has one massive white cross on the side that faces the hill, so I prop myself against it and look out at the hill. The hill in and of itself is not massive – the locals call it a “bump”. But the width and depth and amount of wooden and metal crosses is too many to even try to count. 

It was in that resting spot that I started to think:

How many of us prefer to stand in the pavilion looking out at the crosses and say, “The cross is great, but I’ll stay here. It’s too overwhelming the closer I get; staying here feels safe; staying here I can have a grasp on things.” 

But maybe the significance of the cross is supposed to overwhelm us? Maybe the invitation is to actually walk right back to where we become so overwhelmed by the magnitude of Christ’s grace and love? To go right back to the place where our minds and hearts can’t fathom the reality of Christ? To the place that feels dangerous and revealing and like a place that we’ll unravel? 

Of all the crosses I looked at, if I strip back all the layers in me, I often feel like the cross that was made of two twigs held together by a piece of string. It wouldn’t take much to unravel, unlike the gigantic metal ones; and there’s often an inner desperation to hold myself together. But maybe I’m not meant to? 

With this invitation in mind, I began my walk back to the hill. I found a side path first – maybe it would gently guide me back to the heart of the hill, the opposite of what I did at first. And then, to allow myself to sit in what I had previously moved quickly through, I found a hidden place in the middle of a patch of thousands of crosses and sat down, offering my two twigs and a piece of string.

“Remind me of Your love, Lord.”

When I think of our individual journeys to the Cross, some of us toodle around the outskirts first and meander our way to the centre; some of us run right to the point that is most dense and then run right back out; some of us find little pastures of grass and sit in the middle of it; some of us stay at the pavilion and never even enter, avoiding the overwhelming feeling of complete, perfect, unfathomable love. 

I think the invitation is to let ourselves be overwhelmed. No matter how we get there, or how much we fear being engulfed by something we can’t comprehend, safety and distance is not the place where we can experience real, profound, and deep encounters with Christ. The cross is not safe; it is dangerous. But it is good. (To quote C.S. Lewis in Narnia)

Will we accept the invitation to walk into the centre of an overwhelming, unfathomable amount of grace and love?

Madison