Deep Discipleship

How the Church Can Make Whole Disciples of Jesus

J.T. English

• Publisher: B&H Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781535993531
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Everyone is being discipled. The question is: what is discipling us? The majority of Christians today are being discipled by popular media, flashy events, and folk theology because churches have neglected their responsibility to make disciples. But the church is not a secondary platform in the mission of God; it is the primary platform God uses to grow people into the image of Jesus. Therefore, as church leaders, it is our primary responsibility to establish environments and relationships where people can be trained, grow, and be sent as disciples. There are three indispensable elements of discipleship:

• Learning to participate in the biblical story (the Bible)
• Growing in our confession of who God is and who we are (theology)
• Regularly participating in private and corporate intentional action (spiritual disciplines)

Deep Discipleship equips churches to reclaim the responsibility of discipling people at any point on their journey.

Chapter 1

A God-Centered Vision for Discipleship

I took a short sabbatical during the winter of 2019. It was my first sabbatical in ministry, and I am so thankful for the time away that was afforded to my family and me. For a few days I spent some time at Lake Tahoe alone. I wanted to use this as a time of renewal, rest, and rejuvenation. I had been to Lake Tahoe once before, but on this trip in particular, when I was there by myself, I was struck by the majesty of God’s creation.

Lake Tahoe is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The beautiful Sierra Nevada Mountains reach up to crisp, blue sky and cascade down into the depths of the lake. On my trip I learned that the lake itself is one of the deepest in the United States, at 1,645 feet, behind only Crater Lake in Oregon. That translates into about five and a half football fields. I am not sure why, but that statistic was just stunning to me. Lake Tahoe trails only the Great Lakes in total volume, making it one of the deepest and largest lakes in the United States. If you take a boat out to the middle of the lake, the fresh mountain water is so clear that it can feel a little bit like the lake is bottomless—it just keeps going and going and going. Whether you are standing on the shore or looking down into the seemingly endless clear-blue water from a boat, the lake seems never-ending, vast, and bottomless.

Standing on the shore, I was reminded of the prophet Habakkuk’s words to God’s people: “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Hab. 2:14). He writes these words as God’s people are questioning God’s use of Assyria and Babylon to bring his judgment upon them. Their kingdom is in shambles, they are practicing idolatry and wickedness, and they are wondering: What are God’s purposes in the world? Can this really be it? Is exile going to be our final destiny? Where is all of this heading? What is the goal—the telos of the world?

This is the prophet’s answer: One day the whole earth, every single part of it—the sky, the mountains, the rivers, the canyons, all creatures, and all peoples—will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. Not only will the knowledge of the glory of the Lord fill them, but it will fill them as the waters cover the sea. The bottomless, infinite, and boundless God will cover all of his creation. The infinite beauty of God’s presence will cover everything.

This is a stunning picture of where world history is heading. In the middle of their darkest moment, a moment of judgment, the prophet reminds God’s people that all of world history is heading toward the kingdom and the presence of God. This is the future of God’s world—it is our future. Their greatest hope, endless enjoyment of the presence of God, would one day be a reality.

The Why behind the What

Before we get into ministry philosophies, programs, and best practices, we need to remind ourselves of the why behind the what—the glory of God. The main aim of this book, the call to deep discipleship in our churches, is for the sole purpose of pointing ourselves and those we lead toward the infinite beauty of the Triune God. Success in ministry is not found in building programs but in building disciples—disciples who love God with all of their heart, soul, strength, and mind (Luke 10:27). Christ is the goal, not better or more impressive ministries. He is what we want.

The prophet Habakkuk is pointing us toward a future day when God’s infinite glory will cover everything. He is showing us that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is the goal of deep discipleship. It is the goal, because this is the future to which all world history is pointing. But the knowledge of the glory of the Lord is also the fuel of deep discipleship. It is the fuel because his presence alone is going to get us there.

I am not just advocating for a specific ministry practice. I am saying that our greatest desire in ministry is the presence of God. Specifically, in the local church we are motivated by this vision of the beauty of God. His presence is what we want. Ministry does not satisfy; God does. We want him now, we want him in the future, and his presence with us is the only way we are going to get there. Our ministry aim is to ask God to bring us into his inexhaustible presence, bottomless beauty, and infinite glory. Fellowship with the Triune God is where we are going, and fellowship with the Triune God is how we are going to get there.

God’s desire is that one day the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover every square inch of his creation. God is working to bring a knowledge of himself to all of creation, and his followers want in on that now. If we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God’s purpose is eventually to cover all of creation with his glorious presence, then our instinct should be to get in on that now. Whole disciples of Jesus say, “If you are bringing your presence to this world, start with me, and start now.” That is the instinct of deep disciples. We don’t want to wait for tomorrow for the knowledge of God’s glory to transform us. Discipleship is for today, not just for the future. We need disciples and local churches who not only look forward with eager anticipation to a future in the presence of God but who also want to be covered with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord today—now. Even though it may not look like it at times, this is the path the world is on, and disciples are already on that journey.

In order for the church to grow and develop a vision of deep discipleship, we have to start with the why behind the what. If we begin this book by talking about the what—programs, curriculum, and a philosophy of ministry—before we talk about the why—God himself—then it will be a complete waste of time. Ministry that is not oriented to the presence of God is dead. The why behind the what of deep discipleship is God. Why does deep discipleship matter? Because God matters. Nothing is more beautiful, lovely, pure, and limitless than God alone. Herman Bavinck gets it exactly right when he says, “God, and God alone, is man’s highest good.”1

I believe the greatest opportunity for the contemporary church is to recapture a radically God-centered vision for discipleship. Deep discipleship is more about reveling in the transcendence of God than it is a ministry practice. The source of true discipleship is not better programs, better preaching, or better community. All of those, and more, are hugely important tools, but the source of discipleship is God himself. Thus, at the heart of everything we do is the desire to grow in our love and knowledge of God.

We are called to love God with all of our heart, soul, and mind (Matt. 22:37). The Great Commandment actually repeats “with all” over and over again to remind us that nothing is worthy of our whole self but God alone. Discipleship, then, is about a redirection of our loves to the One who is lovely. The next curriculum, the next conference, or the next community group will only help you grow deeper in your relationship with Christ insofar as it attempts to reorient your love toward the Triune God. The opportunity in front of you, your ministry, or your church, is to retrieve the Bible’s vision for the beauty and the centrality of God in all things. The invitation to deep discipleship is the invitation no longer to live with the next fifty years in view, but the next fifty trillion, and to aim our whole selves, our churches, and our ministries toward the kingdom of God.

In John 17:3 Jesus prays for his disciples to have eternal life: “And this is eternal life,” he says, “that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” Jesus is always teaching his disciples that all of life is centered on growing in our love and knowledge of God. John Calvin noted, “The final goal of the blessed life rests in the knowledge of God.”2 This is the vision Habakkuk gave us—that all of creation is moving toward an awareness of God in all things. If we give people better ministry programs but fail to give them a radically God-centered vision for their lives, then we have failed miserably. In other words, the primary pathway of discipleship is not a curriculum, and it can’t be programmed. The primary pathway of discipleship is God himself. God is the goal of deep discipleship.

When thought of this way, discipleship is not just a program but a total reorientation to reality. We begin to see who God truly is, who we are, what God has done, is doing, and will do in the world. In being reoriented to reality, disciples begin to view everything through a God-centered lens.

The opportunity in front of the church is not primarily found in better programs, better preaching, or a better philosophy of ministry. All of these are important, and the church should strive to be excellent in these things, but without a radically God-centered vision of all things, it does not matter how good at ministry we are. We cannot forget this. Great ministry practice that is not fueled by a great God is the greatest tragedy. The opportunity in front of us is to reorient ourselves and our churches to a God-centered vision of all things. We won’t make any genuine progress in ministry that is not fueled by the presence of God. God is working in the world to accomplish his purposes of bringing about the knowledge of his glory to his entire creation, and the church’s role is to align herself with the purposes of God.

It is important to point out at the beginning of a book about discipleship that will hopefully be read by ministry leaders and growing disciples that it does not matter how good our ministry plans are if they are not reorienting people to set their eyes on the God of the Bible. Deep discipleship is not simply a result of following a specific philosophy of ministry. If it were, discipleship would be so much easier. If all we had to do was write a curriculum, create a program, or cast vision for new ministry initiatives, most of our churches and disciples would be much healthier because we’ve gotten pretty good at those things. Programs, studies, and ministry initiatives are great, but they are not the fuel, or even the goal, of deep discipleship. Sure, we may be able to use these things efficiently and effectively to make disciples, but the question is: Disciples of what? Without the proper goal and fuel of discipleship, churches may have the most impressive ministries in the world, and they may be able to churn out disciples, but these won’t be disciples of Jesus.

There is no silver bullet or perfect ministry paradigm that creates deep disciples. We should pursue excellence in all of these areas. However, if our primary focus is our own ministries, not God, then we will never make deep disciples.

We can’t measure discipleship by how many people are in small groups, or how many are in our classes, or how many Bible studies they have completed. True discipleship can only be measured by a disciple’s ability to connect all of reality to the Triune God. When we think about discipleship, we are thinking about our ability to be reoriented to God, and we begin to see that God initiates discipleship, that God is the source of discipleship, and that God is the goal of discipleship.

Two Challenges to Deep Discipleship

There are many challenges that our churches face as we try to align ourselves, our churches, and our philosophy of ministry toward a vision of deep discipleship—too many challenges to highlight here. But I would like to highlight two acute challenges I think are more common than some of the others. What makes these challenges unique is that they often do not look like challenges but, instead, look like real discipleship. In other words, if we are not aware of these two challenges, we could be leading people into danger without even knowing it. These two challenges can be summed up as discipleship that leads to autonomy or apathy. If our churches want to make deep disciples, then we must be aware of how serious these ideas are and how to help our people navigate through them.

Self-Centered Discipleship

One of the greatest challenges facing the church is discipleship that centers on the autonomous self. The West is in the middle of a cultural moment that centers all of reality on the autonomous self. People’s interest in spirituality is not waning, but the kind of spirituality people are increasingly interested in is a spirituality that is focused on the self. Bavinck’s claim that “God, and God alone, is man’s highest good,” could be contrasted by a contemporary cultural mantra: “Self, and being true to yourself alone, is your highest good.” We have replaced the transcendence of God with the transcendence of self.

Though this problem is uniquely clear in our cultural moment, it is not a new problem. Ever since Genesis 3 humans have viewed the love and knowledge of self as ou...

Table of contents

• Introduction: Diagnosing the Discipleship Disease
• Chapter 1 A God-Centered Vision for Discipleship
• Chapter 2 The Church: Where Whole Disciples Are Formed
• Chapter 3 Space: Where Does Discipleship Happen in the Church?
• Chapter 4 Scope: What Do Disciples Need?
• Chapter 5 Sequence: How Do Disciples Grow?
• Chapter 6 Send: Where Do Disciples Go?
• Chapter 7 Strategy: Adopting a Holistic Approach to Discipleship
• Epilogue