Discipleship

8 modes of mission: discipleship

Welcome to the 8 Modes of Mission, a resource exploring 8 dynamics within God’s mission which he invites us into: being church, evangelism, discipleship, church planting, social action, peace making, justice and creation. Each session is accompanied by a video interview with someone with experience of the mode of mission.

This week’s interview is with David lawrence, Teaching Pastor at Thornbury Baptist Church and Church Life Consultant for the LICC ‘Imagine Project’, talking about the second mode: ‘discipleship’.

A big thank you to Sarah Luckwell for editing the videos and to Pete Jennings for the graphics!

A pdf of the course booklet can be found here.

 

get started

2 Chronicles 30 tells the story of Hezekiah re-instituting the Passover Festival. He presses on even though the conditions and logistics aren’t perfect and there’s a ritual purity gap. He does so because he wants to start as he means to go on and honour God in the here and now. We can learn from this and avoid the pitfall of ending up in a discipleship limbo land.

“truly my disciples if…”

‘You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings’ says Jesus in John 8:31. Sometimes we’re guilty of over-complication and abstraction when it comes to our portrayal of discipleship. But what’s required of us is often quite concrete – our today being characterized by its Christlike decisions, actions, habits; our lives increasingly modeled on Jesus, and aligned with the instructions he gave. What one command of Jesus might the Spirit be nudging you to work on, or seek to implement, today so as to become more like the one to whom we are apprenticed?

Yahweh 1, Dagon Nil

We’re in 1 Samuel 5 this week with the rather funny story of a showdown between the God of Israel and the Philistine contender Dagon. Despite an obvious winner, the Philistine’s just can’t let go and instead start hopping over the spot where Dagon’s head ended up! Is there any threshold skipping still going on in our lives? Are we still flirting with vanquished idols? And if so, how might we submit to the ruthless recovery process of discipleship?

go get an ox

Today’s passage from the One Year Bible included Proverbs 14:4: ‘Without oxen a stable stays clean, but you need a strong ox for a large harvest’. Are there times in our lives when we forfeit being participants in the kingdom harvest because we’d rather keep things safe and tidy? Are there areas of our lives where we need to step out and embrace the messiness of mission for the sake of a greater yield?

the lowest seat

We’re in Luke 14:7 and following, where Jesus speaks of a kingdom principle that all his disciples should follow – that of taking the lowest seat. It’s a powerful metaphor for the way of humility that leaves our justification in the hands of God.

Why not post your thoughts below on what this might practically mean for the way we carry ourselves in social settings, or choose to relate towards and think about others? I’d love to hear from you and riff together on what this might look like as we seek to imbibe and apply this Jesus distinctive.