Man of Depravity - Tyler Braun's posts on Church Ministry, Worship, Seminary, and Theology.

Discipleship

2010 February 12

by Tyler

This is another post in a series I’m doing of questions that some of you asked. If you would like to add your question, go here and do so.

Today’s question is from John Meyer. John goes to church with me and serves as a leader in the middle school ministry as well. We’ve played many games of Risk and Catan together over the past year. He asked:

What does it mean to you to be a disciple and what is the outcome or result of this discipleship process you are drawn to?

Being a disciple is what the Christian life is all about: process. Salvation to me, has 2 aspects. It is a recognition of the here and now saving grace of Jesus, but it is also a recognition of the importance of “working it out” (see Philippians 2:12).

So to me, being a disciple simply means to follow and seek after Christ in this life. I know that is a really basic answer and explanation but I think sometimes we make this whole Christian life thing a bit too complex.

The outcome of this process of discipleship is simply heaven. The illusion in Philippians to working out our salvation is that it is a process that doesn’t end in this life. This isn’t to say that the process isn’t valuable just because it ends in heaven though.

The part of this that I’m drawn to and the results I hope to see in my role in church ministry is seeing lives move from being focused on self, to lives that are focused on God and the other.

What does discipleship mean to you?

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http://twitter.com/dustinuga dustin

Discipleship, I believe at the core, is what being a Christ follower is all about. When you look at Christ’s ministry–of course, he had his 12 disciples, but he also had his core (Peter, James, John) where He invested even more time into. I believe that Jesus’ methods are just as important as His message. A book that impacted me years ago in college about this was The Master Plan of Evangelism (Robert Coleman). Highly recommend.
http://blog.emergingworshiper.org Ken Bussell

Doesn’t discipleship require interation with other people? Surely it is not just about Jesus and heaven, right?
Personally, I don’t think discipleship has anything to do with going to heaven. I don’t think going to heaven is the point or goal of the christian life at all.
http://davidgoodwin.com David

In addition (or more likely, a part of) to what you’ve written is discipling others.

That’s part of the working it out – helping others work it out too, and encouraging them to help others, and so on.
http://www.manofdepravity.com Tyler

Right discipleship does involve interacting with others. I know my definition was pretty basic and overlooked that. That said, if heaven has NOTHING to do with discipleship, then when does the process of discipleship end?