Something I consider to be one of the defining characteristics of this blog (and every blog I’ve ever kept) is my attempts at transparency and authenticity. I’ve gotten in trouble for things I’ve said here and I’ve been praised for insightfulness I’ve displayed through my writing (although I blame luck and the Holy Spirit for that one). But I’ve always attempted to approach blogging from the perspective that most people have no idea what happens in the personal life of a minister – the things they think, feel, and experience. And I can’t help but wonder if more church-goers would come to appreciate those of us in vocational ministry more and maintain a more realistic idea of who we are and what we do, if only they had some insight into the spiritual and emotional struggles – the humanness – of ministers and their families.
That said, for the past several months, I’ve been feeling pretty purposeless, worthless, and like an all-around failure as a minister (I blame CPE for making me aware of all this). My prayer is that now that I’m at a point where I’m being allowed to interview for a job with my denomination, that some of those feelings will begin to subside.
My sense is that the way I’m feeling is largely the result of losing focus on the central piece of the Christian life: discipleship. It’s been two years now since I first got on my kick about the importance of discipleship to the Christian life. And for quite a while I was really good about keeping that focus in my preaching and personal life. But I began to notice over the summer that I seemed to be forgetting how to be a disciple (a bit odd considering working as a hospital chaplain provides so many opportunities to be a disciple). Ever since, my preaching has sucked. I feel like when I sit down to study a passage, nothing’s happening. I don’t know where to go, I don’t know what the point/goal is…I just get up and babble for 20 minutes (I used to be able to talk and be excited for nearly 40 minutes). It’s torturous and I feel like a fraud.
I had an interview last week for a church plant in which the discipleship stuff came up. One person mentioned that they had a bunch of questions floating
around in their head about what I was saying about discipleship. My hope is that I’ll be able to share in more detail what I mean when I talk about discipleship and why I think it’s so important/central to our lives.
Discipleship is traditionally thought of in terms of belief. That’s the Greek way of thinking about it. Basically, if a person believes in Jesus and commits their life to him, then they become a disciple. It’s all cerebral.
But when Jesus talks about discipleship and calls people to follow him, he’s coming at it from a Hebraic background and context. Alan Hirsch (in reJesus) talks about three areas of focus that, when they come together, create a Jesus-following disciple. Those areas are orthodoxy (right belief), orthopraxy (right action), and orthopathy (right feeling). Combined, these three areas are kind of like playing the ultimate game of Follow the Leader, Jesus style. The idea behind biblical discipleship is that we make every effort to think, act, and feel like Jesus himself as we possibly can. Hirsch talks about becoming a “little Jesus” – not in a blasphemous way, but in that Jesus is perfectly reflected in the disciple (ever seen a person who “reeked” of Jesus…in a good way?).
As a church planter/pastor, it’s my goal to “make disciples” which means helping people become “little Jesuses” themselves so that I’ll be out of a job ASAP (not a good business model…but it’s Biblical). When asked what the point of his ministry and life was – how he would boil everything down and summarize what he was all about – Jesus responded by reciting the Shema (Dt. 6:5) and Lev. 19:18. I take this to mean that a true, Biblical disciple is primarily concerned with loving God and neighbor. And since Hebraic discipleship is more active than mental, the missional idea of making more disciples and all the spiritual disciplines are natural by-products that just happen.
But first I’ve got to get myself back to that point…
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Filed under: Christian Living, Church Planting, Discipleship, Ministry
