There's a Discipleship Crisis in the Church Today

There's a Discipleship Crisis in the Church Today
by Jonathan Dodson,
May 4th 2011 8:06 PM

In the US, this year 3,500 churches will close, this month 1500 pastors will leave the ministry, and today approximately 7,575 people will move on from church. Of those who move on, some never affiliate with a religion again saying they just “gradually drifted away from the religion.” America is experiencing, not only economic decline, but also church decay. Why?

Although there is no single reason for the collapse of the church, one has to wonder what would have happened if the pastors were not responsible for most of the ministry in these churches? What if the people who left, moved on equipped and committed to discipling others in the faith? What if these churches acted more like a community of disciples and less like consumers of spiritual goods and services? Wouldn’t the outcome be different? Churches would be more resilient and people would be less prone to drift. The church collapse is, in part, the result of a discipleship crisis.

The Discipleship Crisis

To rebuild the church, everyday people, leaders, and pastors must be taught and equipped to re-think and re-live Christianity. A “Christian” needs to be re-conceived as a person who shares their life and the gospel with others. The meaning of “church” has to be restored as the people of God on the mission of Christ—a people who posses an obligation of love to one another instead of a duty to a religious service. The role of “leader” needs to be reconfigured around discipling people not exerting influence. “Pastor” needs to be rebooted around the identity of disciple not the role of preacher. Christians, leaders, and pastors need to recover their fundamental identity as disciples of Jesus in order to renew their churches.

Rebuilding the church will require repentance on all levels. We need to turn away from finding our worth in our (important) roles and return to our (eternal) identity as disciples of Jesus. We desperately need to come back to being and making disciples of Jesus.

Without the driving force of the gospel, discipleship devolves into self-help religiosity motivated by conservative pietism.

Why Discipleship Isn’t the Answer

Yet, contrary to what some might think, discipleship is not the engine of the church. The gospel is. Without the gospel, both discipleship and church fail. Without the driving force of the gospel, discipleship devolves into self-help religiosity motivated by conservative pietism. The church is reduced to a glorified non-profit in which people lose interest. But the gospel reactivates both church and discipleship!

The good news that Jesus has defeated sin, death, and evil through his own death and resurrection and is making all things new, even us, changes everything! In the gospel, God in Christ welcomes sinners and sends out disciples. The gospel, not discipleship, is central to the church. If we make discipleship the engine of the church, we’ll run quickly out of gas. But when the gospel is central, the church gets traction and disciples get depth.

Gospel-Centered Discipleship

While all disciples of Jesus believe the gospel is central to Christianity, we often live differently. A gospel-centered disciple returns to the gospel over and over again though, to receive, apply, and spread God’s grace and wisdom into every aspect of life. One of my goals is to help make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus by restoring the gospel to the center of discipleship, and one of the ways I'm striving to do this is through GospelCenteredDiscpleship.com.

We're writing articles to help disciples return to the gospel again and again by providing practitioner-tested, gospel-centered, community-shaped, and mission-focused articles, eBooks, and curriculum (coming soon). Topics range from “How to Disciple a Transsexual” to “Why Make Disciples.”

Our hope is that the gospel can transform disciples, and disciples living in communities on mission can renew churches, and churches can renew their neighborhoods, suburbs, and cities.

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