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“The greatest need facing the world today is whether those who are identified as Christians will become disciples.” Dallas Willard
Last year, at the start of the year, we began our teaching with a focus on discipleship. We focussed specifically on how to get going with a daily time with God, or ‘quiet time’, where we intentionally ‘quieten down’ the ‘noise’ of modern life, to attend to the presence of God, to pray and read his Word.
We reminded ourselves that being a Christian wasn’t about a one-time decision, or how we use our Sunday mornings, whether we give financially to the church or have a few bible verses in the memory bank (not that they are bad things!), but primarily about Jesus’ call to all of us to ‘follow him’.
Jesus calls us to follow him, in our everyday lives, to become his disciple, or in language perhaps most helpful to us today, to become his ‘apprentice’. Our simple definition of an apprentice of Jesus, was someone who orientated their lives around three primary goals, to…
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These aren’t ‘additional’ things to stuff into the already bursting envelope of our busy lives, but actually about slowing down, prioritising better, trying to hurry a bit less, pay greater attention to the Holy Spirit, who is with us in our regular, every day lives, calling us into deeper communion with a relational God… what Eugene Peterson famously called the ‘unforced rhythms of grace’ in Matthew 11:28-30, from The Message:
"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."
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So this January we are diving into the topic again, but this time more fully with the Practicing the Way Course materials now ready. The course accompanies John Mark Comer’s book by the same name and are brilliant, high quality resources including videos, group workbooks and individual spiritual health reflections.
But you might have some of the following questions, so read on…!
No! We never stop ‘doing’ this as apprentices of Jesus, and as a church, we have a long way to go on this journey together! There is a crisis of discipleship in the modern Western Church, part of which is a symptom of our church culture and patterns which needs a fresh ‘reformation’. But part of it is also because some of the Church have, to one degree or another, become too comfortable, spiritually lukewarm, and fallen asleep to the lullabies of our culture, whose orientating goals are probably closer to…
But as you know, a keystone of the vision of our church is to ‘grow the found’, to grow disciples of Jesus, who make disciples of Jesus - that was key to the vision Jesus gave all his followers before he returned to glory following his resurrection - see Matt 28:19-20:
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.