Greetings!
What Does a Discipler in Christ Look Like?
Each of us is led to the Truth and desires to disciple others at various points in our indwelling Christian walk. All come to the same gate--discovering the “how-to” of leading others to Christ and growing that convert into a mature believer. This certainly cannot happen until a true believer understands the various forms and means to his/her spiritual growth while learning to embrace God’s calling upon his/her life for obedience and victory.
The Church is in trouble!
It is suffering from a serious case of “me-me discipleship.” Many people today consider discipleship as “spiritual abuse.” The authenticity of true Christ-as-Life discipleship is rare. According to our statistics, over 95% start discipleship wanting something other than Christ. When they realize they won’t be getting want they wanted, they drop out of the process like a spoiled child.
We live in a culture today filled with spoiled “Christians.” The most significant challenge with fronting spoiled people, when confronted, they blame the confronter for the ramifications of their own manipulative ideations. This is why it is next to impossible to guide and direct a spoiled church back to authentic discipleship, which has left Christ-as-Life discipleship to do a slow fade into church history.
Spoiled Christians are class act manipulators.
As many of our readers are aware, we service 7.1 million inboxes per year. Twenty-two percent of those readers reach out for “discipleship.” From that percentage, 5% remain faithful in the process of discipleship. The way our ministry discovers the “faithful” is through a process we have built into the discipleship itself. In the end, the 5% reveal their true motive in seeking out personal discipleship – to advance Christ within. The remaining lion's share we wait for the primary revelation of the flesh – money or more freebies. The question that needs to be asked is,
“How did this syndrome take over the world, particularly the Church?”
The quickest answer.
The flesh dressed up in sheep’s clothing is compelled to steal from authentic believers by tapping into, what we call, second-hand Christianity. Meaning, instead of looking inward to the Life of Christ for their resources, they lean on another to fulfill their needs. Much like a spoiled child.
The complex answer is far more deceiving. Satan has formed a culture/church that has become a me-me society. Most everything they read, hear or pursue is for their benefit. When a member of this “society” comes in contact with an authentic immovable discipler –
all Hell breaks loose
. This results in the individual seeking counsel from the only familiar voice they know, ME, their flesh. I have been a discipler for 40+ years, and once a person makes this decision, I quickly anticipate them dropping out of authentic Christ-as-Life discipleship, which places them in the most difficult group to help.
What does a discipler in Christ look like?
He/she is one who knows what it means to stand whole and complete in Christ, and who gives evidence that he/she is moving toward a life in which personal priorities are in Scriptural order. This is a person who is deeply impressed with the impossibility of doing the work of God apart from the enabling power of the Spirit of God--like those I call “spoiled-self-lifers.” The discipler is one who has experienced, through practice, the enabling power of the Holy Spirit to bring change, wholeness, and spiritual vision to broken men and women--students of the Word. Skills have been learned and confidence gained. The concept of ministering out of the overflow of one’s life will have been put into practical operation
through mentorship between a discipler and disciple. The practice of “giving one’s life away,” instead of taking life from another, through serving others will have actually begun. Jesus came not to have servants, but to BE a servant, and to give His life to the ignorant.
"For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many"
(Mark 10:45). This is the defining mark we seek-out in the testing of the “faithful.” Do they give, or do they store up Truth for erroneous reasons?
Beyond this, the discipler sees
the discipleship process not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end. That end is LIFE producing--LIFE that will, in turn, produce more LIFE. Thus, multiplication (the basis of the Great Commission) becomes our goal within the Church and its para-ministries that serve her.
This certainly is not going to happen in the local church without these three “life point” objectives:
- Provide Christ-as-Life biblical discipleship to church staff and workers
- Train and equip those workers in a strong Christ-as-Life discipleship model
- Establish a long-term and ongoing Christ-as-Life discipleship program for Church members
It seems clear that God is bringing a new emphasis to the Church that calls themselves true indwelt Christians or “Christ-centered.” Within the past hundred years, Christian institutions have blossomed and produced fruit--a type of fruit that is Holy Spirit inspired, through discipleship programs around the world. Interesting enough, many of these discipleship programs began their roots through one fashion or another from a handful of moderately unknown ministries, such as Grace Fellowship International, Exchanged Life Ministries and IOM America. Each being known for transferring “counseling” to discipleship in a like-minded modality. What was this modality? It was moving the “counseling” model within the world back into the Church where it originated and belongs.
This does not mean that the work of the Cross is done. With the world’s population exploding and the “lukewarm church” emerging, we have plenty of opportunities to equip true believers with the absolutes of God’s Word and to push for a “new reformation.” There are many responsible Christians begging to have someone show them how to disciple and equip others to do the work of ministry.
Believe it or not,
Christ-as-Life discipleship is just now being recognized as a certifiable approach to qualifying people helpers within the “Christian” community. Numerous ministries are being used by God to assist the real Church in coming back to its roots--to accept the Word of God as the absolute Truth and the power of co-crucifixion as the manner in which one lives out the Word,
“so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work”
(2 Timothy 3:17).
True and honorable discipleship may be analogous to clearing away the collapsing elements that don’t seem to produce workers of the Gospel contained within our local churches – like “me-me discipleship.” Discipling is the process of systematically constructing, by God’s grace and power, a new organizational structure on the very campuses of our churches by way of the oldest design known to the Church itself--by Jesus Christ doing the work of service through each indwelt believer. When this is realized, a new appearance, a new strength, new usefulness, a new vision and certainly a new proof of multiplicity will be found blooming in the local church. This is probably how this “new reformation” will begin.
There is a significant difference
between “discipleship” and Christ-as-Life discipleship.
Discipleship
, in general, is the process an instructor, teacher, or mentor uses to influence a willing learner to follow a particular leader in beliefs and deeds. To put it bluntly, that could be Christ, a person or demonic spirit. To discover, or separate, these modalities, you simply hunt for the “me-me gospel.”
Christ-as-Life discipleship
involves a servant leader (disciple of Christ) who is compelled to
voluntarily
, yes, I said voluntarily, instruct others how to release Christ Jesus in Truth and deed, from within. One who helps members of the body of Christ to experience, mature in, and communicate effectively the message of identification with Christ in His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension in their various spheres of influence, so that all may know Christ as Savior, Lord, and Life.
This type of disciple
,
when fronted with lies (Truth out of context), is not timid about reproving, correcting, or re-instructing by making use of indwelling Divine Truth (Holy Spirit)--along with the inspired written Word of God, the Bible. This kind of discipler is one who embraces the reality that true Christians have no ability to serve
without
the indwelling mind/life of Jesus Christ. It is not only the one who chooses to allow the life of Christ to do the acts of service through them BUT also leads others by way of example.
Increasingly, we find discipling to perhaps be the most important aspect of the normal indwelling Christian life! It is reinforcing, establishing, and building that which ensures permanent changes in the life of all true born-again believers. If discipleship is like the world’s form of discipleship (psychological counseling), it would only focus on “problem-solving,” which has no transformational multiplying factors. Throughout Scripture, the responsibility is put on those who “know how to live” in Christ to reproduce themselves in the lives of others. A discipler’s focus is on the transformational element of Christ changing the authentic believer through the power of the Holy Spirit
in
the born-again disciple to whom he is ministering. A true and honorable discipler of the Word knows that it is not he/she who does the work (no matter how hard he/she tries), but the Life of Christ pouring Himself through the discipler to the disciple.
Disciplers are comforters;
while Christ, in them, is the counselor. The Greek word for
comfort,
para-kaleo,
means to come alongside--not only to encourage but also to exhort and instruct. The Holy Spirit (the
para-kaleo
), the Divine Comforter, does this not only for the disciple but…more frequently for the discipler. Workers of the Cross grow through the overflow. God desires, then, to use the disciple, and discipler to strengthen, free, and secure his or her identity in Christ as one who ministers to others with effectiveness. Christ-as-Life disciplers believe this should be the ultimate goal of indwelling discipleship. Accordingly, the discipleship process advances the disciple in the study of Scripture, in learning to worship, in consistent fellowship with believers within the local church, in prayer and personal witnessing, and most importantly, in spiritual obedience to Christ – the “me-me gospel” turns to the authentic Gospel.
In Conclusion
As we speak about discipleship in the local church, we must stay focused on discipling others through the release of the Discipler – Christ in you. This inevitably comes with the mission of training those workers within our local churches, community ministries, and even those who are being ministered to, in order to reproduce one’s life (Christ’s Life) in the lives of others, by way of being ministers of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18).
As for all you “takers,” I have some news. Your grapes are about to turn to raisins. The “me-me gospel” era is soon coming to an end. According to the latest statistics, this not so new “trending” ideation of suicide with our youth, primarily populated by the “spoiled child syndrome,” is only a birth-pang. Personally, I believe the Lord is using the “me-me culture” to activate Romans 1:18-32 to usher in the Antichrist. How do I know this? There is one primary thing I gained from my doctorate studies in International Cross-Cultural Affairs, when the 20 descriptives in Romans become a culture, the end is near.
“God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, filled with all
unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice
; they are
gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful
; and
although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them
.”
Are you suffering from
the demonic disease of “me-me discipleship?” That means you are at a conviction-point of one and/or two rebukes. One, you are as unsaved as a doorknob. Or two, you are under conviction of your self-life being your god. You pick. Even though there’s NO 3
rd
door, many “Christian disciplers” continue to find their own security in their training, education, certification, or some other made-up methodology. The Truth is, until the True Discipler is released through the Abiding Life Christian, man has no other recourse but to fall back on what they have learned. Indwelt Christians don’t need to learn to release Christ. Authentic Christians release Christ and then learn. I was wondering, could this verse be relevant to our topic?
“…always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
(2 Timothy 3:7)
Those of you who have deaf ears, go read your books. But…those of you who have ears to hear, release Christ, and go read THE Book.
