September 30 2011, 6:51 am | Danny Jones
I often find that church leaders “assume” they are making disciples, but only until you ask them to explain what they do. At this point things begin to get vague. I was recently asked to contribute to a book on discipleship and share my experience through 29 years of ministry. While my thoughts on this could constitute an entire book, my short answer consists of three things: love, trust, and vision.
Without a secure foundation of love upon which to build a discipling relationship, it won’t happen. Love is an amazing thing. The right to love doesn’t have to be earned. It can be communicated and displayed in a moment, without a question as to its sincerity. We have all experienced this. We sense pure love from someone, even at a first meeting, and it deeply impacts us. We have also experienced being offended by a pseudo-love in ministry that is self-serving and manipulative. This too is obvious. So instead, I choose to love deeply and selflessly the person(s) I am in a discipling relationship with. Paul said in I Thess 2 that he gave them not only the truth but “his very life”. This is love in reality. And the object feels it, knows it, and the normal default of a human is to accept it. If love is not a motivating foundation discipleship, I need to stop using people for my own sense of spiritual achievement and calling it discipleship.
The second thing is trust. Most of us don’t deserve trust and consequently have rarely received it, especially from the authorities in our lives that need to give it to us most. Trust is an amazing force. It can instill a confidence in people to be someone they only dream of being and do things they never thought they could accomplish. As one called to make disciples, I have the privilege of giving the gift of trust. It is not based on what is deserved. It is a gift with which I awaken the small of heart. The gift of trust is really the other side of the love coin. I Cor. 13 says, “Love always trusts.” That is a scandalous statement that most don’t believe and won’t accept. Hence, the majority lives in the shadow of belittling, disempowering, mistrust. So, I choose to trust the one I disciple, even at the risk of betrayal and failure. And then choose to trust God to use whatever might come of my choice to trust to accomplish Kingdom purposes. It is risky! Trust in an of itself would have to risky, or it is no longer trust.
And thirdly, a discipler speaks vision. Vison is the faith element in my discipleship. Heb. 11 says “faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” This is certainly referring to God and his faithfulness to accomplish his good and perfect will. But God’s faithfulness is always displayed in the context of a life, and so by faith I call into being in another what is not, as though it was. I speak the Truth into a life, and the truth received becomes reality. I call him or her to the reality of positional righteousness and the high calling of God on the life of the disciple, and inspire them not to miss Christ as he reveals himself in every aspect of life and leads into “right(eous)ness”. The result is a disciple who have been so inspired to transformation that she in turn bring others along with her. And thus continues the movement called the Kingdom of God. This has been my story and having experienced it, find that I cannot live outside this reality.