The DNA of Discipleship

A proposal to spark a revolution in discipleship

that will make disciples of all nations.

Executive Summary

The Problem

Discipleship has fallen on hard times. Christians talk more about it than practice it. Many more don’t even talk about it any more. Because it has been divorced from Jesus’ teaching and practice, discipleship has come to mean anything that a speaker or writer wants to call it. The result is that discipleship is not a primary concern of most Christians. Because churches are not discipling their members they become the victims of spiritually immature leaders who lead by using human methods and processes. No wonder over 70% of the churches are declining or plateaued!

In far too many situations Christians stopped growing spiritually and the church stagnated.I have asked groups in scores of countries around the world, “How many of your members are still spiritual babes?” The answers usually range from 85% to 95% in all kinds of cultures and the answers are no different in the American Christian culture. Barna‘s surveys have revealed that when believers are asked to identify the most important thing they hope to accomplish in life without suggesting any particular possibilities, only a small minority (20 percent) mention anything directly related to spiritual outcomes.[i]

Discipleship Situation in Churches: the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention reported losing 569,636 in discipleship training enrollment. That is 25% in one year! Ed Young presented the situation at the SBC Pastor’s Conference and said that the churches are losing six out of eight young people when they graduate from high school.

When he asked a CEO to evaluate the statistics of the SBC he said, “You are going out of business.”

Worldview: Only one in thirty Americans have a biblical worldview according to Barna and only 9% of born again Christians have a biblical worldview. Among teenagers 98% do not have a biblical worldview.[ii] A worldview is the total set of values, morals, beliefs and assumptions that a person holds either consciously or sub-consciously. It answers the questions of life:

·         What is real?

·         What is true?

·         What is right?

·         What do I do?

The first question is usually the focus of worldview because decisions are made on the basis of what is real to that person. An animist believes that the spirit world is the ultimate reality that affects ones life. So when a scientific explanation of illness is given they “know” that is not right because they “know” that spirits cause illness when one breaks a taboo or someone puts a hex on them. In contrast, a post-modern worldview “knows” that experience is real and that there is no absolute truth.

Many discipleship efforts have concentrated on trying to change only one of the peripheral issues in the diagram below. They either try to change knowledge, or values, or behavior. Unless one’s worldview is changed at the core then all such efforts are partial or syncretistic.

Worldview are shaped by the all the experiences, idea, and information a person absorbs particularly when they are young. Worldviews can be changed but not easily. It requires a new definition of what is real. Conversion begins the process but people must be discipled into a Biblical worldview.

Changing worldview requires a concerted intentional discipleship process on the part of the discipler and the ones being discipled. From the statistics above (and there are many more from surveys that approximate them) there is a need for a discipleship revolution.

A Fresh Stirring for Discipleship:On the other hand three in five adults say they want to have a deep Christian faith but are not involved in any intentional effort to grow spiritually.[iii] However a strong minority are looking for a revolutionary call. Barna says in his book, Revolution that their research has uncovered “…a growing sub-nation of people, already over 20 million strong, who are what we call Revolutionaries.”[iv] He defines them as, “Millions of devout followers of Jesus Christ [who] are repudiating tepid systems and practices of the Christian faith and introducing a wholesale shift in how faith is understood, integrated, and influencing the world….These people have chosen to live in concert with the core biblical principles.”[v] Many of them are outside of the organized church. It will take a revolution in the church to meet their needs. Others are in the organized church and will respond to a radical call to discipleship.

The distressing situation in discipleship calls for a revolution in discipleship and the stirred up minority of revolutionaries are ripe soil for it.

The Solution

The solution is a spiritual revolution in discipleship. Anything less than the revolution that Jesus started when he called and taught his disciples will not solve the problem of stagnated Christians, plateaued churches or inadequate worldviews.

I’LL SPELL OUT THE STRATEGY IN FUTURE ARTICLES.

Avery Willis