Discipleship 4

What is discipleship? I may be getting ahead of myself here, as I was wanting to lay out some more of my thoughts about the process of discipleship.

Jesus came to tell us the good news about the present accessibility of the kingdom of God. He wanted all people to enter the kingdom of God now. He taught his students how to do this. He then instructed those he taught to go out and do the same thing with other people.

Take the great commission (Mat 28). Discipleship is about developing a teacher-student relationship with others. In this relationship, the teacher's goal is to "immerse the student in the trinitarian presence" (that would be baptizing them in the name of the father, son, and HS part; baptism is not dunking someone in water and saying words) and show them how to enter and live in the kingdom of heaven now. We could have a discussion about how the church has moved away from this charge by subtituting some things for this and settling for something less. Willard calls it the great omission of the great commission.

But, back to the process. The process of making this happen is discipleship. Things other than the discipleship process lead to other things, but may not lead to discipleship. I think this is clearly evident in the church. We (the church) are not exactly overwhelming our neighbors or community with our kingdom living. Most of us do not even have a good idea of what that would look like or that it is even possible. Jesus and those that were discipled amazed and impressed others with their way of being. That can still happen today with those that learn how to enter and live in the kingdom of God.

What I have suggested so far is that I haven't figured out how to do this successfully. This may be due to the fact that I myself am still in the process of discipleship. I feel like I am about 18 months into the metaphorical 3 years of training. I am a slow learner. Now, I have done lots of those other things, and done them succesfully.

In my blog thinking thus far, I have suggested that perhaps discipleship should start with an clear understanding of what it is and what it isn't (above is the short version of what I think discipleship is supposed to be. Lots more could be said about that). Second, I suggested that in order to do discipleship, one must be intentional and not go into it with other implicit motives.

Next, I would like to post some more on the process. I think discipleship is an iterative process. (look up iterative; I am helping you with your ACT score here).

We have got to hurry through this. I feel a strong leading to go on a "blogbatical" for the summer.