discipleship

Came across a blog entry by Mike Breen and it is so resonating in my heart, largely because discipleship so resonates in my heart.  The blog entry is boldly entitled, "Why the Missional Movement will Fail"  And pretty much all I can say is wow.

Wow, because I think he is right.
Wow, because I see so much of this in our college generation.
Wow, because I've seen lots of it in BCM culture.
Wow, because the task of changing this is huge.

Breen says:
"This is the crux of it: The reason the missional movement may fail is because most people/communities in the Western church are pretty bad at making disciples. Without a plan for making disciples (and a plan that works), any missional thing you launch will be completely unsustainable. Think about it this way: Sending people out to do mission is to send them out to a war zone. Discipleship is not only the boot camp to train them for the front lines, but the hospital when they get wounded and the off-duty time they need to rest and recuperate. When we don’t disciple people the way Jesus and the New Testament talked about, we are sending them out without armor, weapons or training. This is mass carnage waiting to happen."

I sat with a friend last night over dinner, she graduated in May, and now is working fulltime for a church plant.  We talked about her years in BCM leadership, we talked about the struggles of working on a church staff, we talked about how hard ministry is.  And I sit and I wonder if we (BCM) did her a disservice ... that we sent her out to serve without making much of an investment in her discipleship.  This is Breen's statement that has me pondering:

"How can we be surprised that people burn out, quit and never want to return to the missional life (or the church)? How can we not expect people will feel used and abused?"

I am a firm believer that service and missions and outreach naturally flow out of a discipleship relationship.  However, I keep seeing us try to make them things that stand on their own.  It's appealing to serve the homeless to so many ... they have such a tug toward justice issues ... but do they understand the theology of widows and orphans, are they part of a discipleship relationship that both flows in and out??  or are they just good people who want to serve?

We send tons of students out every year to be missionaries all over the world.  But who has poured into them this year to prepare them?  And who is praying for them and encouraging them while they are there?

I feel more compelled than ever to make the cornerstone of what we do: lifechanging discipleship!  I think many churches and ministries would claim the same, but I know from experience, that all who claim discipleship are not doing the hard work of discipling ... many are just providing some Christian communities that make us feel good and even a part of something bigger ... but seldom act as change agents and rarely get messy.  Real discipleship means asking the hard questions and being accountable for hard change.  It means looking different this month than last.  It means making the commitment to both be invested in by someone further along than you and to invest in someone else a few steps behind.  Scripture calls us to make disciples ... being leaders, serving, giving, and going come out of that.  Not the other way around.

I LOVE missions and I love doing missions with students and I think often great discipleship happens in those settings (when we are intentional about it) ... but missions will never be able to stand alone without the training, support, and encouragement found in true, messy, life-on-life discipleship.

Who am I discipling?