I've been thinking quite a bit lately about the core attributes of a disciple. As I looked into the Biible's accounts of those early followers, there are a few ways to describe them, both positively and negatively, and I find that encouraging because my own discipleship meanders a bit. Maybe yours does too?
Here's what I mean. On a day to day basis, I have varying degrees of success in displaying the characteristics we might call discipleship; activities like, acknowledging Jesus in all my ways, spending time developing/being developed in my relationship with Him, and bringing others along in the discipled life.
I've found that there is a common denominator in gaining that higher degree of success, one echoed in many places, but is clearly stated in Acts 2:44, "All the believers were together…"
When I am consistently interacting with others who are apprentices of Jesus and intentionally engaging in authentic relationships, giving and receiving prayer, and also offering that opportunity to others, I am better at being a disciple. When I'm cramming prayer and Bible reading time into the tiny spaces of my day, by myself, at best, I'm just OK at being a disciple.
But ministry life can be busy. There is a temptation to coast a bit in our personal pursuit of discipleship in favor of the unending list of tasks. If I can just get the event planned… the devos written… the snack bar restocked… the youth room cleaned up… then get to the games… and more.
In times like that, it becomes apparent that even though we're leaders, we're still learning to be followers. In our culture of independence, it is easy to forget that we're made to do everything about following Jesus together. We belong to each other. Even more, we need each other.
Eugene Peterson, in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, writes about it like this:
"I didn't come to the conviction easily, but finally there was no getting around it: there can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from immersion and embrace of community. I am not myself by myself. Community, not the highly vaunted individualism of our culture, is the setting in which Christ is at play."
That is why one of the core values of NNYM is personal discipleship. We need each other in our relationship with God. And we need to be with God if we are going to be effective in all those daily tasks of ministry.
It is time for a reset. Here are four ways to live out personal discipleship in the context of your local network.
- Have a network retreat day / half day / hour together. No business! A devotional thought, a conversation over a meal, some space to process and pray together are all that's needed.
- Set aside one network gathering periodically to only share what's going on with you and pray for one another's lives and ministries.
- Celebrate what God is doing in your community regularly, you all see your city or town from a different angle and can encourage one another by sharing.
- Help each other be accountable to living as disciples, not by any particular formula, but by being a safe community of disciples who, like Jesus' closest friends, having varying degrees of success in following him on any given day.
Remember the passage of Acts 2 from which I quoted earlier? The conclusion of that section, after it describes the common life of the early church, tells us about the fruit of their practices, saying,"And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."
Patti Gibbons is a member of the NNYM Ministry Council. You can keep up with Patti on her blog at pattigibbons.com or follow her on Twitter @pattigibbons