Discipleship: FAD or FUNDAMENTAL

Is discipleship a fad? I’ve been around church long enough to see fads come and go. Some church (usually in America) comes up with a programme that produces success (usually measured in terms of numerical growth). That programme is then written up in a book and packaged as a product that is exported around the world and touted as the sure fire path to success.

Pastors grab hold of such products, sell them to their leaders, and motivate their members to get on board. Many do, and often some blessing and growth results. These products are not all bad. Some are excellent. Many of them are designed to help Christians grow spiritually and be more effective in reaching lost people, and to varying degrees they are successful. But there is a tendency to feel that we have to keep coming up with newer and flashier programmes to maintain momentum. After a while congregations grow weary of ‘the latest new programme’ and pastors and leaders have to work harder to sell them and keep them going. Most of these programmes have as their underlying motivation the desire to make disciples, but the danger is that when the programme is over people think, ‘We’ve done discipleship. What’s next?’

At RUC we believe that discipleship cannot be a fad. Discipleship is fundamental. Church is about discipleship. Our mission is to make disciples who in turn make other disciples. In other words, we exist to make disciple-making disciples. This commitment drives everything we do. For instance, this is why . . .

• We began the year with a series on Sundays and in our small groups on discipleship called ‘Follow Me.’
• We developed ‘My Personal Spiritual Growth Workbook’ and urged each person to set out their own spiritual growth plan.
• I had regular ‘Tree House’ chats designed to keep the vision alive and to encourage you to keep referencing and updating your own spiritual growth plan.
• We have the Gospel Centred Discipleship circle on the wall in the sanctuary and constantly refer to it in announcements and sermons.
• We instituted the Welcome Centre and have emphasized the importance of cultivating a culture of friendliness that God can use to draw newcomers into the life of the church and into a lifestyle of following Jesus.
• We have planned seven short-term mission trips involving about eighty people.
• We have ministry in five local primary schools reaching about 150 children each week.
• We have held special outreach services with Terry Rae and Stephen Lungu as our guest preachers.
• We regularly offer the Alpha course.
• We are seeking to make our small groups more focused on making disciples and will be placing a stronger emphasis on the training of small group leaders as we go into the future.
• We have begun about six small, gender-based Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship groups.
• We have established a Church Planting Task Team and are about to engage in a church plant (or, re-plant) in Parkhurst.

Yes, it’s about making disciples! Discipleship is not a fad; it is fundamental to what the gospel and the church is about. And it’s what’s in the heart of Jesus.