Discipleship

By Pete Charette

Jesus told His followers to go make disciples. Paul saw that as his mission. Yet in churches across the country, believers often go undiscipled.
Everyone understands the importance of discipleship. Less understood is the process of discipleship. This book clearly presents the missing component of "how" disciples can be developed into Christian maturity.
Included here are the nuts-and-bolts of Christian discipleship:
• A framework for discipleship that enables a discipler to teach a fellow believer¬ about such fundamental topics as prayer, Bible study, accountability and the need for community relationships.
• Key principles a discipler can use as they prepare to disciple others
• Guidelines for both one-on-one discipling relationships and small groups
• Sample Bible study plans for both one-on-one discipling and for small groups
This book will benefit everyone who reads it, whether a believer seeking to grow in their faith, a disciple seeking to assist others mature, or a pastor or church leader seeking to implement a discipleship program on a broader scale.

• Language: English
• Publisher: CrossLink Publishing
• Release date: Jan 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386264866

Book preview

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DISCIPLESHIP

DISCIPLESHIP

LIVING OUT THE MANDATE OF GOD

Pete Charette

CrossLink Publishing

Copyright © 2018 Pete Chareette

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

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Ordering Information:

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Discipleship/Charette —1st ed.

First edition: 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. Copyright © 2000; 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Foundational Concepts

Chapter 2: One-on-One Maturation Process Framework (MPF)

Chapter 3: MPF: Prayer and Accountability Questions

Chapter 4: MPF: Bible Study

Chapter 5: MPF: Implementation

Chapter 6: Small Group Ministry

Appendix 1: Bible Study Content: Mark

Appendix 2: Bible Study Content: Galatians

Appendix 3: Small Group Bible Study: The Parables of Jesus

Appendix 4: The Church and Evangelism

Epilogue

Selected Bibliography

About the Author

Acknowledgments

There are so many people who have being exceedingly helpful throughout the process of writing this book. First, I would like to thank my spectacular wife, Mary Anne, for supporting me so completely through this arduous task. She kept me on an even keel when things were challenging and rejoiced when God revealed His greatness at various times. This project would not been completed without her.

I would also like to thank my two children who are still at home, Dan and Tim. I appreciate you putting up with my mood swings and for working with me to find time to spend together.

I owe a great debt to Darryl Sluka. He was so readily available to me, and someone off of whom I could bounce theological thoughts and ideas. His assistance was invaluable. His depth of biblical understanding and wisdom was a resource that I don’t believe I could have done without. His encouragement, coupled with the offering of his perspective was priceless.

Great thanks go to Pastor Aaron Shaw at North Casnovia Baptist Church for encouraging me and allowing me to teach through some of this material on Wednesday nights. The opportunity to teach in this way was a huge help in organizing my thoughts.

I also wish to thank Madukhar Bylla of Hyderabad, India, for encouraging me to adapt many of the lessons in this book to fit the needs of the Village Pastoral Ministry in India. I pray that God uses them to encourage and strengthen the brethren there.

Most of all, however, I’d like to thank and praise my God and Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, for their powerful and mighty work throughout this process. Their work in opening my mind to the meaning and revelation of God through the Scriptures is the key to this entire book. He provided for the needs of my family while the book was being written, and He guided me through each step of the process. I humbly acknowledge their mighty hand at work throughout the entire process.

Introduction

There is a crisis in the American Church today, one that has grown more and more pronounced over the past fifty years. The Church is not producing mature disciples. Yes, I recognize that may sound like a sweeping generalization. Yes, there are churches across this country that effectively mature the disciples entrusted to them by God. But there are many more that do not. Too many of the Church’s disciples don’t know who God truly is, they don’t know what they believe and why, and their behavior is an outgrowth of those misunderstandings. As I began to explore the foundational reasons for this, I was soon struck by the overwhelming amount of discipleship material on the market today. Between printed books, e-books, online resources, and blogs, one could spend the rest of their life researching discipleship and never scratch the surface of the material available. Much of this is written by godly, learned men and women who have a heart for God and God’s people. So, how is the Church in the position in which she finds herself today? After ten years of experience and study, I have several thoughts on this question.

First, the cyclical relationship between evangelism and discipleship affects the type of disciples the Church produces. When the Church’s evangelism is incomplete, then disciples often struggle with maturity issues. As disciples struggle, evangelism is affected even more—and so the cycle continues. Easy Believism may be a key culprit here. I frequently hear from people at church that salvation is a free gift. And that is true. It is free in the sense that we can’t earn it or deserve it. But it is not free in terms of cost. It cost God and Jesus their relationship for three hours on the Cross as God poured out His undiluted wrath upon His Son (2 Cor. 5:21). Salvation has costs for the disciple, as well. Jesus calls His disciples to commitment levels often never mentioned in modern evangelism. Commitment to Jesus must exceed the disciple’s commitment to self, family, material goods, and everything else in their life, if they are to be a true disciple (Luke 14:25–33). Jesus must have first place in the life of a true disciple. When this level of commitment is omitted from our evangelism, the result is a generation of disciples who think that type of commitment is only for the super Christians and not for themselves.

Second, the Church has placed an unhealthy focus on Jesus. I can almost hear the comments from readers now: An unhealthy focus on Jesus? This guy is insane. Let me explain. Much of the discipleship material I have encountered focuses on the disciple’s relationship with Jesus alone. I have encountered numerous discipleship books in which Jesus is the sole focus of a disciple’s relationship with God. I certainly understand the centrality of Jesus in God’s plan, but this focus on Jesus alone has excluded both the Father and the Holy Spirit from many disciples’ thought processes. In John 5:19–47, a great passage that describes the intimacy between the Father and the Son, John refers to the Son as the One sent from the Father (or similar phrasing) six different times. Jesus said in this passage, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life (John 5:24). Here it is presented that belief in the Father (him who sent me) is essential for salvation. The point is that too often, attempts are made to simplify deep theological truths. The infinite, holy, and righteous God has revealed Himself to us. Why would we ever think that deepening our understanding would be simple? It is often in our struggle to understand that we gain significant revelation from God. The end result of simplifying deep truths is a concept easily understood—but incomplete. Jesus isn’t the end game for disciples. A deep relationship with the triune Godhead is: Father, Son, and Spirit. Jesus facilitated that through His death, burial, and resurrection, yes. But there is more to this than just Jesus alone.

This leads us directly to the third factor affecting discipleship. There is a decided lack of proper hermeneutics (or, proper Bible interpretation) being taught in churches today. Hermeneutics is (a) the study and statement of the principles on which a text—for present purposes, the biblical text—is to be understood, or (b) the interpretation of the text in such a way that its message comes home to the reader or hearer.¹ When we tell disciples that the Bible is a book about Jesus, we tremendously narrow the focus of God’s chief revelation to man. The danger in this type of hermeneutic is that our disciples may never learn about the true character and nature of God. Thus, they don’t love God for who He truly is, because they don’t know who He truly is. They run the risk of falling in love with an attribute of God, instead of God Himself. Or worse, they fall in love with an inaccurate understanding of who God is, and that is idolatry. If discipleship is helping disciples develop and maintain a deep, abiding relationship with God, then knowing Him, as He has revealed Himself to us, is paramount. If our hermeneutics are off, then our understanding of who God is becomes distorted. And thus, our relationship with Him is also distorted. How does the story of Micah and the Levite in Judges 17 reveal something about Jesus? As a good friend and committed disciple told me, Taking that approach teaches people how to read the Bible above the surface. There is zero digging going on. Bible study requires effort and skill, and the Church needs to train her disciples in those skills.

Here’s the rub. Teaching a disciple the principles and applications associated with proper biblical interpretation is challenging, messy, and at times, frustrating work. It’s hard. There are historical and cultural factors to be considered. There are the principles of language and grammar. Context must be considered. We can’t just pull out a verse or two and look for Jesus. I feel that these factors frequently combine to make the process seem too difficult for us. It’s much easier to say, The Bible is all about Jesus. That we can wrap our arms around easily. Studying the historical context in which Paul wrote Romans, and its effect on our understanding? Not so much. To be clear, I am not proposing that in order for a disciple to mature, they need to become a seminary-level Bible scholar. At the same time, however, the standards we are setting for disciples today are far lower than the standards God sets for us. Do we feel that most of the disciples in the Church can rightly handle the word of truth (2 Tim. 2:15)? Can they approach the Bible and accurately pull out its truths? How confident are we that our disciples can properly explain the Gospel message to an unbeliever? Can they talk confidently about who God is and what He has done in their lives? We need to raise our standards for disciples so that they line up with God’s, then train them to meet those standards.

Fourth, discipleship requires a more strategic focus than the Church has placed on it. Much of the discipleship material available today fails to deliver a strategic plan for how discipleship can be accomplished. To be fair, there are many different approaches that can be taken to help a disciple mature. Take Bible study, for example. Nearly all of the discipleship material I’ve read stresses the importance of Bible reading and study in the maturation process of a disciple. Yet there is very little information available on how to actually accomplish this. There will be vague generalities such as encourage your disciple to read the Bible regularly. The daily habits of a disciple are often clearly laid out. What is missing is the how. How do you teach a disciple to properly interpret God’s Word? How do you teach a disciple to feed himself and then go and teach others the same? What does that process look like on a day-to-day, week-to-week basis? Through hundreds of conversations with lay people at various churches, I am convinced that disciples today don’t read their Bibles because they don’t understand what they read and thus become frustrated. They’ve never been taught how to read and properly understand. This should not be the case. It seems to me that the dearth of content among discipleship approaches indicates that current prevailing thought about Bible study is that proper interpretation just happens. The Church needs a strategic plan for how to move people to a place where they can properly interpret, and then apply biblical truths to their lives.

The same goes for prayer. We need a plan for how to teach disciples how to have a vibrant prayer life. That plan need not be written in concrete; it should be flexible enough to meet the needs of individual disciples. But there needs to be a plan. This book seeks to lay out such a plan.

The last factor affecting the Church’s efforts to mature her disciples is her dependence on small groups. Let me be clear. I do not believe you can produce well-rounded disciples without some form of a small group ministry. However, I do not believe that this should be the chief vehicle for maturing disciples. Because of the differences in learning styles and rates of information processing among disciples, and the differences in their starting maturity levels, backgrounds, and experiences, group discipleship presents challenges to the discipleship process. Take hermeneutics, for example. While the principles of hermeneutics can be taught in a group setting, applying these principles is, obviously, an individual pursuit. As such, each disciple will process this information differently, with different strengths and weaknesses affecting their ways of thought. Helping disciples through the process of learning how to properly interpret scripture (rightly dividing the word of truth [2 Tim. 2:15]) is not best accomplished in a group setting. As I have discipled men and dived deeper into the issues accompanying the maturing process, one concept became clear. There are some aspects of the maturing process that are best accomplished in a one-on-one setting. And there are others that are best accomplished in a small group setting. Additionally, there are aspects of discipleship that can only be accomplished in either a one-on-one or a small group setting.

Therefore, a synthesis of the two settings must occur if the Church is to produce well-rounded disciples. This book proposes a discipleship framework consisting of a weekly one-on-one individual setting and a weekly small group setting. As you read, you may notice a heavy emphasis on the one-on-one setting for discipleship. This is due to the current Church culture’s significant implementation of small group ministry. Many churches have existing small group ministries, but far fewer have a one-on-one setting. Like many things, the pendulum has swung too far. We need to bring a synthesis of one-on-one discipleship and small group ministry together to ensure that our discipleship efforts are back in balance.

My goal is to see the Church fulfill its mandate from God to produce mature disciples able to be used by God to reveal His greatness (see chapter 1). So, in my development of a comprehensive approach to discipleship, the Maturation Process Framework (henceforth MPF for brevity) and small group meetings look like this and are described in detail in chapters 2–6.

Weekly 90 minute sessions

Prayer 10 minutes

Accountability Questions 10 minutes

Bible Study 45 minutes

Action Steps 10 minutes

Prayer 15 minutes

Weekly small group meetings (90 - 120 minutes)

Relationship Building / Fellowship 30-45 minutes

Bible Study 30 minutes

Prayer 30 minutes

Why Should You Read This Book?

What makes this book different are two things. First, this book will provide extensive material on the content of the maturation process. This answers the questions What behaviors should we be teaching our disciples? And, How should we teach this? As I have read hundreds of articles and books on the subject, this is what is lacking in much of the discipleship material today. It is one thing to tell a disciple they need to read and study the Scriptures, but it’s quite another to come alongside them and show them how to do that. It is one thing to tell a disciple that they need to be intentional about their own maturation as a disciple of Christ, but it is quite another to come alongside them and show them how to do that. The MPF, combined with the maturation content given here, provides a strategic focus to the process that has been sorely lacking for far too long. Appendices I and II will detail Bible study content, including actual Bible studies as well as principles and templates that can be used in future studies.

There is detailed content on:

Bible interpretation: How to teach a disciple to properly interpret Scripture, and thus learn to feed himself.

Application: How to teach a disciple how to apply what they’re learning.

Conduct: How to demonstrate to a disciple what their day to day life should look like.

Faith disciplines: What are the Disciplines of the Faith and how to put them into practice.

Duplication (eventually): How to help mature another disciple.

The second aspect of this book that is different is its focus on the individual. The addition of a one-on-one setting to a small group setting puts the focus back on the individual disciple. All disciples share a relationship with God in Christ as a unifying principle. But the personal experiences, needs, learning styles, growth rates, and processing abilities of the individual make mass maturation impossible. I feel that one of the reasons the Church is shirking its maturation responsibilities is because it is hard, labor-intensive work. To facilitate the maturation of disciples one at a time goes squarely against our current microwave culture. We think it should be easy, fast, and not require a lot of effort. But the maturation process is exactly the opposite. It takes a huge amount of effort, and it is not quick, nor easy. But the benefits of living out God’s mandate for the Church are enormous and eternal.

Foundational Concepts

There are several foundational concepts that need to be explored in order to gain a more complete understanding of the maturation process. The first of these is found in answering the question, What is the purpose of Church? Hundreds of thousands