On Discipleship

Until one died of old age (and a rough life) a couple months ago, we had two cats, which we got at the same time from the same shelter. Both were considered special cases and, even though there was a line out the door because it was a mass adoption event, we had no conflict or objections in taking them both. One, who we named Cullen, was 10 years old, had spent some unknown amount of time living on the street, and had to receive a number of medical procedures during his time at the shelter to make sure he would be okay. The other, who we named Cassandra (but usually call Cass or Cassie), was almost a year old and therefore should have been in high demand; however, she was the product of inbreeding and had some neurological and physical problems which we were warned may or may not become major issues later on. The major impact of her neurological issues is that, while she clearly wants attention and loves people, she was incredibly skittish and her behavior was described as "she doesn't really know how to be a cat."

This was actually a big part of why we got both of them. We would have been very happy with either alone, each for their own reasons, but we specifically wanted both of them. The logic was that having an older cat who knows how to interact with the world and with people, and has a grasp on general cat behaviors, would help Cassie adjust; while having a younger cat to look after and play with would help Cullen stay active and healthy.

Some of the things Cass needed to learn from him were just social cues, but over the time Cullen was with us, he also seems to have taught her necessities like how to hunt. She didn't learn everything exactly the way he does it, but she clearly picked things up from him. Like how Cullen was very fond of headbutting me and rubbing our foreheads together as a form of social connection; she has not acquired that specific behavior and I doubt she will now, but after watching him do that she has taken a habit of leaning her face close to mine so we can sniff at each other for an apparently similar end.

The fact is, no one in our house was ever going to be able to teach Cass some of these behaviors ourselves. She would have, I'm sure, found some way to engage with us that worked for everyone involved, but it would have been alien to us as previous cat owners and stressful for her to figure it out on her own. And there's no guarantee she would have picked up everything. Maybe she would have taken an interest in hunting mice all on her own (a very valuable skill for our old house in the forest), but we certainly would not have ever been able to help her do that, let alone do it well. There are probably countless little daily behaviors that she picked up from Cullen, some necessary to her well-being but completely unnoticed by us, that we would have never known how to handle or been in a position to teach if we had.

Assimilation successful

A couple years ago I was talking with a friend who was finishing his ministry training in something similar to a church internship. His congregation was mostly older, and he was looking for some way to get them active in his community while accepting their limitations, and asked me if I had any thoughts. After gaining some information about his congregation and the community from him, I suggested that he reach out to a local college's campus ministry and see if they would be interested in an arrangement where his congregation served as mentors and the young Christians helped with church activities that the congregation wasn't up to doing. After he asked me to explain the mentor relationship I had in mind a bit more, he told me he was certain the pastor he was working under would not take well to the notion that some Christians are more mature in their walk than others.

I called myself a Christian for most of my life, but never really knew what that meant until a pastor in Boston started actively investing in me. He asked me tough questions about my life and faith, met with me to discuss application, gave me resources that I needed, and treated me as more of a son than a random face he saw every week. It was in his church that I began actually feeling the gravity of the teachings I had believed, and for the first time in my life I spent time actually fighting against this body of sin; it was shortly after moving away from that church, at my lowest point, that I finally fully submitted to Christ. This was a step I was not ready to take until someone realized how lost I still was and made a point of showing me the way.

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One of the ministries that seem the hardest to put into place in churches today seems to be discipleship ministries. Which is a shame, because we are all, in our earliest days as Christians, very much like Cass was when she was brought home. New to this life, excited about living it out but not really knowing how to do it, and in need of guidance from someone who has experience in the daily grind of the Christian life as well as some of the hardships that arise in it. Even as we mature and wrestle with deeper theology or a wider range of practical concerns, we still find ourselves needing someone who has already been to this part of the road, who has made it through, who is just that little bit further along. We all, at every stage of our Christian walk, need a Cullen.

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes [only] of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.
Hebrews 5:12-14 (NASB)

The Bible describes the Christian life as one of growth and maturity. We start out looking very much like the world we just came out of, with old habits still clinging to us and not accustomed to thinking of the world in a Christian framework. This is expected for that stage of development, but we aren't meant to stay there. I've addressed before that the general epistles were frequently written to people who were expected to be able to discern the difference between true and false teachers, not only by glaring theological deviations, but by subtle behaviors and even intentions. In the passage cited above, the author of Hebrews compares his readers to little children, not yet ready for the meat of truth. This concept of spiritual children is not uncommon in the New Testament; Jesus spoke fondly of children and the need for us to look to Him as children, Paul calls Timothy his "true child in the faith," and the epistles of John consistently refer to his readers as his children, even when he acknowledges that there are elders among them.

One thing this current pandemic has made clear to me is that we, as the church in America, do not have a rich understanding of what discipleship looks like, and this is because we do not give it the importance it deserves. This is, as I mentioned above, not a new concern, but consider how the pandemic has made it more glaring. We were forced into a situation where we had to decide what was most important about our functions as a church. The things we put the most effort into continuing to do in the current environment show not only what we think church is for, but what defines the Christian life. And what have those things, by and large, been? Sure, there is some variety church-to-church, but I'm talking about the large-scale trends. In what basket have we put all our eggs?

The Sunday morning sermon.

This has been the one constant, and make no mistake, it is an important thing. Of the things we do on the average Sunday morning, I would argue it should take precedent. If we are only able to do one thing from our normal Sunday morning services, it should be the preaching. But if we are only going to do one thing total? If we are going to push against government orders and demand that we be free to exercise the function of the church as declared by God? That should be personal discipleship.* After all, in the Great Commission which guides the function and purposes of churches and Christians in the world, teaching was presented as one aspect of making disciples rather than a distinct and superior task. Even those parts of scripture that seem to elevate the role of teachers do so in the context of their service to the body.

And He gave some [as] apostles, and some [as] prophets, and some [as] evangelists, and some [as] pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
Ephesians 4:11-13 (NASB)

"Continuing their defiance of a government order" or "obeying the command from God to gather on the Lord's Day."

— Brett Aiken (@BrettAiken21) August 17, 2020

Why was the church given teachers? To equip, serve, and build up the body. We are not called to gather to watch someone preach. We do not have, as our core goal, the act of spectating a sermon. When we reduce church to this, when we make it our focus, when we make it the only thing we're willing to fight for, we lose sight of the true function of the church and give in to an elevated view of the pastor as the central focus of our work, even if we refuse to call it that.

Consider the comments sections of nearly any news reports about Grace Community Church right now. Those speaking in defense of MacArthur's actions universally do so on the grounds that the central command of Christians is gathering in one place on a regular basis (which we are never commanded to do),** and that inhibiting this specific action is condemning the full work of the church. Which simply is not true, unless one believes that the full work of the church is to focus our attention on listening to one person teach. But we know from scripture that those positions we are inclined to hold in highest esteem are never to be given the focus of our work.

On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; and those [members] of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no need [of it.] But God has [so] composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that [member] which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but [that] the members may have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if [one] member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
1 Corinthians 12:22-26 (NASB)

What does it look like to elevate the members who have the lowest number, or at least lowest visible number, and least showy of gifts? What does it look like to put the last first? What does it look like to aim our mission at those considered the least in the church, the least mature, the least skilled, the least educated, the least eloquent? It means turning our eyes away from the man in the pulpit long enough to see each other, and in doing so, invest in one another and build one another up and teach among ourselves what it looks like to live this Christian life. To have, as our daily behavior, to be both someone's Cullen and someone's Cass. The sermon is crucial, it has a necessary place in the Christian life, but it is little more than a single weekly tool designed to support a lifestyle of direct, personal discipleship. But have we done that? How many of our churches put the same effort into making pandemic-suited small groups and facilitating the direct growth of individual members as we put into getting our sermons on Facebook Live? Full confession, I didn't. Not at first.

Did Jesus stand before large crowds and explain the scriptures for them? Yes. Is this how He built His church? No. That was through personal relationships in which He walked with people for years, showing them what life He was calling them to, explaining things they were ready to understand, calling them to active participation in His ministry. We have letters to Timothy, but is that method of teaching how he became Paul's spiritual child? No, that was through Timothy's time spent traveling with Paul, watching how he worked and lived, actively taking part in the mission. Were His final and ultimate orders to His disciples to "call all the world into your sanctuaries and have them sit quietly as you explain the Word to them," or were they to "go therefore and make disciples of all the nations" (Matthew 28:19a, NASB)?

Our job is discipleship. To both teach and learn from personal experience, close relationships, and active participation in the life of the church. May we learn to put discipleship of one another higher than our pastoral hero worship as we continue to navigate this Christian life.

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*- I am not of the opinion that we must defy current government and medical orders to practice faithful discipleship and therefore am not here arguing that we should at this time. We are in a very privileged position, historically, in that we have ample tools available to allow us to invest in one another's lives even when we must be apart. However, should it become the case that we must choose between discipleship and obedience to mortal powers, we must choose discipleship.

**- Yes, I know the verse that tells us not to forsake gathering. However, there is a great deal of flexibility in terms of how many of us gather in one place at one time, how we gather, and how frequently we gather. The Sunday Morning All-Church In-Person Service expression of worship is not here, or anywhere, commanded.