Is The Disciple-Making Movement The Latest Irritating Trend?

Those of you who are devoted to the current disciple-making movement probably find my title to be absurd, and I suppose it is.

Just to clarify: The disciple-making movement says simply that we American evangelicals need to “fix” our discipleship paradigm, our idea of what a mature or maturing devoted follower of Jesus looks like.

The campus group that led me to faith in Jesus Christ had a discipleship paradigm that included evangelism, or, more properly, disciple-making (Matthew 28:18-20) as a basic part of the Christian life. The Navigator’s famous wheel diagram includes a “spoke” to represent the sharing of the gospel. To the “Navs,” a life without this “spoke” is a broken wheel that won’t roll, and they’re right: Sharing our faith with non-Christians is good for them, good for the world, good for our churches and good for our souls. In the everyday theology of the believers on my college campus, a life without faith-sharing was an inauthentic and stultifying Christian life.

But it wasn’t long before I was far from the campus and involved in a local congregation.  I loved that church then and I love it now, but it didn’t take long to realize that it was acceptable within my church family to be highly involved in the congregation and not at all involved in disciple-making outside the walls of our building.

In fact, in that church and in so many others, the most dedicated, “sold out and committed” people were often so involved in church activities that they excused themselves from ever sharing Jesus with the lost people they begrudgingly rubbed shoulders with every day. In other words, our discipleship paradigm didn’t include disciple-making as part of the picture. You could be considered board member or even pastor or missionary material without any evangelistic activity – outside of that which was programmed by the church – going on in your life.

And it happened to me too.  There came a time when, as a pastor, I had to repent of my own “separation” from lost people and go well out of my way to get back in contact with and get back to sharing good news with normal, lost and blinded people.

Clearly, there’s nothing radical or new about the “new” disciple-making movement.

Here’s the problem for many well-meaning, usually younger, pastors who are trying to transform their discipleship-without-disciple-making churches into discipleship-with-disciple-making congregations: To older church members, who have endured phase after trend after fad after phase after trend, from a long succession of young pastors, disciple-making, as strange as it may seem, sounds like one more youthful pastor’s passion that will quickly fade away and be replaced with something else.

In the years that I’ve been a Christian – my older readers will remember – there has always been, in every evangelical “tribe” (denominational variety), some new trend which divides the older generation, which does most of the work and pays most of the bills, from their young and zealous pastors. I could make you laugh by telling you what some of the trends and issues have been.

Old church members know that if they can bear with and resist the latest rhetoric about the latest trend from the latest pastor for a few trying years, the lad will forget about it or be replaced by the next guy with the next trend.

Here’s my simple plea for older Christians who have survived what some called “human motivation evangelism” (like busses and contests and big days and free burgers), door-to-door evangelism (which was almost a “fundamental of the faith” in some circles) and seeker services (which turned every worship service into an evangelistic crusade): Please! Don’t stumble over the vocabulary of the disciple-making movement, the “hipness” of your new pastor or the scoldings he’s giving you for not being a disciple-maker.

Discipleship with disciple-making is exactly what God has always wanted for us, and it is so much more exciting and refreshing than discipleship without disciple-making.  Your pastor wants something good for you.  Give him a chance and give disciple-making a “go.”  You’re not too old to change and you’re not too old to help others decide to follow Jesus. Last week I mentioned an 80-something brother who shares his faith regularly at the “Y” with other 80-somethings.

And here’s my simple plea to young pastors or church members who are enjoying a life of disciple-making and are beyond frustrated with older Christians who haven’t shared Jesus for decades: Try to dispense with the terminology that sounds like just another fad to your fellow church members and present a life of discipleship-with-disciple-making for what it is: something old, ancient, classic, Biblical, healthy and joyful.

It’s all over the New Testament. Early believers went everywhere proclaiming the Word (Acts 8:4). They prayed boldly and shared the message of Christ boldly (Acts 4:23-31). They knew that faith-sharing was healthy and exciting (Philemon 6).   Set the example, share your stories, let people see the disciple-making efforts you’re involved in, be realistic with your expectations, re-train people carefully and patiently, lead people back into the water of disciple-making gradually, and watch what happens.