The Possibility and Pain of Discipleship

I assume you’re here because you’re committed to making disciples and learning how to help more and more people become more and more like Jesus. That’s fantastic, and I’m glad you’re here!

You know that discipleship is an uphill climb. The world is a busy and noisy place. People in your church are distracted and being formed by a mishmash of ideologies and promises that conflict with the way of Jesus. Questions about the effectiveness of discipleship in your church might leave you feeling anxiety, shame or anger. And for all the talk about discipleship, it seems like making disciples in a consistent, comprehensive way is just out of our reach.

I feel those challenges in the marrow of my bones. I’ve been in church leadership for 25 years. I’ve spent the last several years working with churches of all shapes, sizes and strips as they think and pray and dream and develop spaces and systems for discipleship.

Tackling Problems Together

When you have hundreds upon hundreds of conversations, you begin to notice patterns in the shape of our collective discipleship problem. In developing this course, I want to tackle three particular problems:

• conflicting definitions of discipleship in your church;
• disconnected programs for discipleship in your church; and
• ineffective leadership strategies for guiding your church into a new season of discipleship

Odds are, one or more of those problems has become your problem right now. Curiosity alone won’t compel you to do the work to develop a consistent and comprehensive discipleship plan. You’ll only do the work if you’re in pain—and if you think I can help you relieve the pain you and others are feeling.

So here’s how I’d like to help:

• I want to help you DEFINE discipleship for your church.
• I want to help you DESIGN a discipleship pathway for your church.
• I want to help you DEVELOP particular leadership skills that you need to do this work.

Here's the Plan

As you make your way through the course, we work through the problems step-by-step:

• You’ll watch a brief video that guides you through the next step in your journey.
• You’ll have one task to complete on your own.
• You’ll invite other people to join you in the work.

Together, these movements create a learning environment that turns ideas into actions. I’ve seen this process help churches like yours. When churches define discipleship, design their pathway and develop the adaptive capacity of their leaders, they set themselves up for success.

I have one request of you before we get started. Commit to yourself and to other leaders in your church that you will finish this project. Curiosity and dreams about a better future aren’t enough to get you where you want to go. Y’all will have to learn new ideas, wrestle with challenges and conflicting ideas, push through the inertia of resistance and restlessness, and survive the inevitable sabotage from people loyal to your church who don’t want things to change.

It’s possible that you’re not sure investing time and energy in discipleship through this course is right for you. If that’s where you are right now, I’d suggest sitting down with 3-5 leaders in your church and asking them what they think are the big challenges facing your church this year. As you listen, pay attention to whether and how those challenges could be met through discipleship.

The Cancer No One Deals With

Here’s a heartbreaking truth: almost every church leader knows they have a discipleship problem; and very few leaders are willing to do much to resolve that problem.

We have a discipleship crisis in the Church. Jesus intends for his people to be salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16), led by men and women who sacrificially love everyone, including their enemies (Matthew 5:44). Where we encounter such people, it is largely incidental rather than the intentional fruit of a lifelong relationship to Jesus we call discipleship.

But here’s the thing. That crisis seems less critical than the struggle to raise money and get people involved in the things we prioritize, like Sunday mornings. It’s like a cancer patient walking into a hospital for treatment, tripping on their way in the door and breaking their arm as they fall. Their immediate focus becomes the pain in their arm, rather than the disease riddling their body.

Obviously, if you break your arm, you should focus on getting it set. You can’t ignore your money and people problems. But imagine if you leave the hospital with a cast on your arm and never get treatment for the cancer inside your body.

That is the current practice of most churches. And it’s leading to the decline and death of those churches.

The good news for you is that whether you’re curious or in crisis, there is treatment for the cancer of discipleship. Ultimately, you look to and rely on God to heal your church and make your people whole. So prayer is a non-negotiable practice throughout this course. But as you pray, God gives you work to do as you partner with him to make discipleship clear, consistent and comprehensive.

So . . . I’m glad you’re here. Thanks for trusting me to guide you along this part of God’s good road.

Grace and Peace,

Matt Adair