Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Discipleship and Ecclesiocentricity

There are so many books and materials dealing with discipleship. But, what is discipleship, at base? It is the same thing today, as it was when the Lord Jesus walked the earth: being with Christ, and learning from Him, (so as to be effective in ministry and life).

How is this done today? Nowhere but in the CHURCH of the Lord Jesus Christ. A "discipler"--be he a pastor, elder, deacon, or a member of the church (man or woman)--starts the discipling process by seeing to it that the "disciple" is in the church's Lord's Day worship service. Typically, this would be the AM service, as the initial contact point.

The next step in Christian discipleship is to encourage the disciple to be in the PM worship service on Sunday, (if your church is happy enough to have one).

From there, all the rest of discipleship flows.

But, do you see where there can be, and is no true discipleship when the person you are seeking to work with is not sitting at Jesus' feet, in His house, on His day?

Things are not so complex. It's all really pretty simple.