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The church in America is in the midst of a discipleship crisis.
The only solution is for Christians to become disciples of Jesus Christ.
That is the point of this entire article. If you decide to keep reading, I will expound on the crisis, looking at how we got where we are and what is at stake if we continue this trend downward. I will also flesh out what I mean by the solution being nominal Christians becoming disciples of Jesus Christ. A wise man once said to tell people in the first few sentences your entire purpose and leave the rest up to their choice to read on or not. So that is what I am venturing to do. If you want to be a part of the solution, read on. If not, that’s fine too. Just understand that if you choose to read the entirety of the article, you will be confronted with some very real, and possibly painful, decisions that you will have to make.
The Crisis
When we look out our proverbial window at the disaster we call a society, one of the first questions that often comes to mind is, “Whose fault is this?” Finger-pointing and blame-shifting are hallmark responses to this question. “It is the Left’s fault!” “It is the Right’s fault!” “It is the soft-handed and irresponsible college kids’ fault!” Well, there may be some truth to those statements, but ultimately, the onus is on the Church. Notice I used a capital letter c there. I did that because I am not trying to place the blame on one church denomination or movement in specific, but rather, I am placing the blame on the invisible Church, the sum total of genuine born-again Christians that profess to trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. I make this distinction to avoid the often used tactic of pointing out specific places of failure among Christian movements and placing the entirety of the blame there. I want to place the responsibility on Christians in general.
Allow me to explain.
Over the course of church history, there have been times of remarkable renewal, as well as times of abysmal drought. From the declaration of Christianity as the only authorized religion of the Roman Empire under the reign of Constantine to the dark and depressing centuries of popish tyranny during the Medieval period, the Church has had its fair share of ups and downs. The moments of renewal, however, have always been marked by one defining trait: Christians began following the life and teachings of Jesus Christ very closely, regardless of the cultural pressures.
These periods were marked by devout Jesus followers who said goodbye to reputation and worldly success and said hello to the daily carrying of their own personal crosses. This was always the case, all the way down through history. From the Church Fathers to the Reformation, all the way to the Great Awakening in the American Colonies. Christians being true Christians.
To get to the whole crisis thing I was referring to, this is the moment we find ourselves at today. Self-proclaimed Christians all across the country are claiming to be one thing while simultaneously living in a completely different manner. And what’s worse, we did it to ourselves.
"The moments of renewal, however, have always been marked by one defining trait: Christians began following the life and teachings of Jesus Christ very closely, regardless of the cultural pressures."
Around the time of the Second Great Awakening, sometime between the late 1700s and early 1800s, conversion became the metric of success in the American church. No longer was a life of Christ-likeness the standard. The standard became mass conversions and manufactured revivals, which was actually something known as revivalism. This slippery slope ended in what we today call the Church-Growth Movement of the 1900s, which emphasized conversions and volunteer work within the local church. The path of the Christian was to get saved, get baptized, and get serving. Whether that is parking cars or greeting at the door, that was the track. Now before you accuse me of going back on my word earlier and pinning the blame on these particular movements, let me clarify. I am not blaming these movements for the degradation of the Church. I am simply identifying key moments in the Church’s history that genuine believers allowed to come to pass because they allowed the winds of culture to guide them rather than the life of Christ and the teachings of the New Testament.
Now, back to what I was saying.
The issue with these moments of capitulation is that discipleship was nowhere to be found. The church evolved into a sort of two-tiered operation, with pew-sitting and infrequent attendance on Sunday mornings as the norm, and the life of fully-devoted discipleship to Jesus as a sort of optional second track for those who were ‘really serious’ about the whole being a Christian thing. Being a disciple became optional. Let that sink in.
The problem with this whole view of the church is that it has led to Christians separating their Sunday morning life from the rest of their life from Sunday afternoon to Saturday night. What this has led to is a sort of bifurcated Christian life that sees the Gospel message and the rule and reign of Christ as something separate from work, sports, politics, and a slew of other societal issues.
This is the crisis. Dallas Willard summed this up better than I ever could in his book The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship:
“The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who, by profession or culture, are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.”
So what is the solution?
Christianity is discipleship
It seems silly to even say once you give the New Testament, especially the four Gospel accounts, a fresh reading, but there is no difference between a Christian and a disciple. If you read the Gospel of Luke, the two groups that are shown are the crowds and the disciples. The crowds were the unbelievers; the disciples were the believers. There was no third party of nominal Sunday-morning-only Christians. Now we know that there was a smaller group of disciples that Jesus took to be with him every day for the duration of his ministry on earth, and they became known as the Apostles. They are often viewed as the only true disciples, and we import that perspective into discipleship as a whole, viewing it as an intensive program of accelerated learning for only the most zealous of Jesus followers.
But here is the hard but beautiful truth: disciple is a noun, not a verb.
A disciple is not something you do or do not do, it is something you are or are not.
And the truth of the Bible is that if you claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ, then you are signing up to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, a Spirit-filled embodiment of the love and life of Jesus to everyone around you, manifesting his presence everywhere you go. This is the calling that is placed on every single person who answers the call of Christ when he says, “Come and follow me.”
It is not optional.
It is not secondary.
It is mandatory.
It is primary.
"A disciple is not something you do or do not do, it is something you are or are not."
The only solution to the crumbling of society around us is for Christians to regain the notion that they are disciples. And if they are disciples, that entails a very specific way of life.
In all of our content this month, we will be devoting ourselves to looking in-depth at what a disciple is actually to do, how they are to live, and what impact we can expect from this. This will require some introspection and soul-searching, but if you are willing to put in the work, this will radically change your life. I know that is a bold statement, but it is only as bold as the claims of the Bible. Jesus promises a revolutionary way of life, and it can be found by anyone and everyone who calls upon the name of Jesus with a heart desiring complete surrender to a life of discipleship.
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls.For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” - Matthew 11:28-30