Dave Gibbons discusses why discipleship is so important.
In the video clip below he says, “Discipleship is critical, because that’s what Jesus did…That was the purpose actually of the existence of the church. It wasn’t just to build big buildings and for us to spend our lives doing multiple campaigns and to be wrapped up in programs that give us illusions that we’re worshipping God when all we’re doing is sitting and singing to ourselves.
I think discipleship is critical, because that’s the call of the church. In Ephesians 4 he says the main purpose of the church is to equip the saints…How I see it is here you have the world and the church builds its organization and we ask the people to come out of the world into the church building. And then we ask them to put on our t-shirts, we give them a new language, sing our songs, become a small group leader, we give them our job description, and then we ask them to go back into the world and they don’t know how to relate. That’s why they only see church one day a week.
Reality is here’s the world, church may be here, but God says you’re supposed to go into the world and you’re supposed to equip them. So it’s not so much about them fulfilling the churches destiny, or the vision of the organization of the church, but it’s the church actually helping the people find their destiny and then equipping them to make a difference in their world. It’s a totally different mindset.
Could you imagine if the resource that typically go to professional staff and buildings went into actually equipping the people. [CLICK TO TWEET]
From a practical perspective I’ve launched a couple of consulting agencies—one from a secular perspective which is mostly based in Asia and then one here in the US and also Asia. What I’ve realized is that people will pay high dollar for consultancy…When we were doing this I realized this is exactly what the church should be doing. They should take the time to listen to people. Instead of just vomiting their vision to them and their strategies, they should listen to their voice and what God’s done in their life and help them define their destiny and then customize their development based upon their learning style, not just some academic approach. It needs to be much more creative, collaborative and customized.
So discipleship is critical. I see it as one of the main functions of how we’re to be the church, especially when it comes to leadership. We’re to equip people.
The other thing that’s interesting about discipleship to me, that the church needs to do, it’s not so much about classes as it is life together. It’s choosing to live with people, because that’s where the messiness of discipleship really takes root and also it tends to grow. [CLICK TO TWEET]
That’s where the soil is tilled—it’s in the daily life and routines of community. And community not defined as a small group, but as a family. If you really see yourselves as family you’re going to treat others differently. And then you’ll see discipleship as not a program; you’ll see it as real life.”