“Your view of Discipleship is different than Mine.” I heard the Lord say one day as I was driving to work one day. “Kinda random” I thought. As I began to think about it I realized that it was quite true. “Your idea is get a bunch of people in a room, get a book and teach them what you know. My idea is Come follow Me.”

 Unfortunately He was right. My view of discipleship has much been formed by the modeling of Pastors and leaders and church life as i have known it for the past 10 years. Of which has included small groups, which for a season I knew them as “soap box” meetings (one person ranting on and on about this or that), Sunday School classes (a small group with one person teaching about this or that) and Church Services (a larger group of people listening to one person talk about this or that).

 The commandment of Jesus to “make disciples” seems to keep coming around every few years or so to the forefront of our churches and leadership teams which makes me wonder, what in the world does that look like?

 

Jesus style of leadership seems to place high value on relationship, community, and love. Whereas unfortunately these days the going trend seems to be a much more mechanistic, hierarchal approach. Placing high value on bottom lines, security of the structure, and protecting the “man on top”, we lose the very relationships we were designed to foster. As Jason Upton’s father-in-law said recently “We don’t need more CEO’s in the church, we need more Fathers…”

 CEO’s vs. Fathers

More and more we are seeing churches and people rallying around fathers than shared truths. Whereas in times past we united around doctrines, these days people are longing for relationships that empower and release rather than limit them with requirements and laws.

 

The CEO wants to know what you can do for him. The CEO is concerned with you keeping the Party line. The CEO requires your allegiance.

 

The Father wants to know what he can do for you. The Father empowers you to think for yourself. The Father wants you to cultivate a culture of honor…

 

The Jesus style of  disciple making doesn’t seem to make much sense in today’s fast paced, hard driven society. His approach of sharing life, using nature as object lessons, and befriending “sinners”, would take too much time, energy, and commitment for most people. But still His ways are higher than ours, and until we find our way into His, ours will continue to produce what we’ve always produced.