That’s because the so-called Discipleship Movement (also known as the Shepherding Movement) turned a vital biblical principle into a weapon and abused people with it. Churches that embraced the warped doctrines of shepherding required believers to get permission from their pastors before they bought cars, got pregnant or moved to a new city. Immature leaders became dictators, church members became their loyal minions, and the Holy Spirit’s fire was snuffed out because of a pervasive spirit of control.
I
don’t ever want to live through that again. I know countless people who are
still licking their wounds from the spiritual abuse they suffered while
attending hyper-controlling churches in the 1970s and ‘80s. Some of them still
cannot trust a pastor today; others walked away from God because leaders
misused their authority—all in the name of “discipleship.”
Yet
I’m still convinced that relational discipleship—a strategy Jesus and the
apostle Paul modeled for us—is as vital as ever. If anything the pendulum has
now swung dangerously in the opposite direction. In today’s free-wheeling,
come-as-you-are, pick-what-you-want, whatever-floats-your-boat Christianity, we
make no demands and enforce no standards. We’re just happy to get warm rumps in
seats. As long as people file in and out of the pews and we do the Sunday
drill, we think we’ve accomplished something.
But Jesus did not command
us to go therefore and attract crowds. He called us to make disciples (see
Matt. 28:19), and that cannot be done exclusively in once-a-week meetings, no
matter how many times the preacher can get the people to shout or wave
handkerchiefs. If we don’t take immature Christians through a discipleship
process (which is best done in small groups or one-on-one gatherings), people
will end up in a perpetual state of immaturity.
David Kinnaman, author of
the excellent book unChristian, articulated the problem this way: “Most
people in America, when they are exposed to the Christian faith, are not being
transformed. They take one step into the door, and the journey ends. They are
not being allowed, encouraged, or equipped to love or to think like Christ. Yet
in many ways a focus on spiritual formation fits what a new generation is
really seeking. Transformation is a process, a journey, not a one-time
decision.”
Reclaiming
this process of discipleship is going to require a total overhaul of how we do
church. Do we really want to produce mature disciples who have the character of
Jesus and are able to do His works? Or are we content with shallow believers
and shallow faith? We must not fall into the trap of
entertaining our congregations with events and programs.
How
can we make this paradigm shift in to discipleship? How can we add “the D word”
back into our vocabulary?
·
*Churches
must stop exclusively focusing on big events and get people involved in small
groups, where personal ministry can take place.
·
*We
must stop treating people like numbers and get back to valuing relationships.
·
*Leaders
must reject the celebrity preacher model and start investing their lives in
individuals.
When we stand before
Christ and He evaluates our ministries, He will not be asking us how many
people sat in our pews, came to our events or
filled out response cards. He is not going to evaluate us based on how many
people fell under the power of God or how many healings we counted in each
service. He will ask how many faithful disciples we made. I
pray we will make this our priority.
