My understanding of these instructions is there is to be a never ending process of discipling. Instead, we cloister ourselves amongst our fellow Christians and never reach out to the lost.

When we in the c of C sometimes in the late 1950/s or 1960′s began accepting, if only reluctantly, other believers as fellow Christians, we failed to realize there are countless others out there who do not know Jesus as their savior. Proselytizing Baptists and Methodists, etc., was never, in my opinion, a discipling process. We, concurrently never developed a mindset or reaching out to the lost. We also quit proselytizing. Consequently, the c of C has become a dying institution.

In the 1950′s we were considered the fastest growing religious body in the nation.We have since become a not so slowly dying group of “Christians” who have retreated into a ghetto of people who only look inward rather than out to the lost. We spend endless hours in classes; studying the scripture with little to no discourse on how to spread the Good News to a largely dying world of lost souls.

Ours will be the shame come judgement day!

Mike, you are exactly right. The very few groups that do disciple would stick out like a sore thumb among the rest of us.

Thanks for the thought provoking post.

Grace and Peace,
Royce Ogle

Based on your synopsis of “Spiritual Formation/Contemplative Spirituality” and the “Emergent Church Movement” I would be hesitant to trust your reference material too heavily. I encourage you to pick up one of Willard’s books and read straight from source if you haven’t already.

He is also a key player in the Emergent Church Movement which is getting more crazy by the day.

One answer was “Be generous givers.” We really couldn’t be that in our financial situation at the time, so we sold our house and moved our family into an apartment. Now with almost no effort on our part we are generous givers.

Taking up less space is hardly something to boast about. What God has done for us in Christ, now *that* is something I can boast about.

That’s how a good friend, mentor, and theologian Kent Smith boils down the responsibility of disciples in the kingdom of God.

I also appreciate the point that Matt R made about our responsibility to work at becoming more like Jesus. We know what God wants us to by regularly listening to Him, and many spiritual disciplines serve as resources through which we can hear God more clearly.

A great little book by a couple CofC authors that aims to illuminate many of the spiritual disciplines that help us hear God more clearly (so we can become more like Jesus) is Living God’s Love: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality by Earl Lavender and Gary Holloway.

I got to take a summer course with Earl (he is a prof at Lipscomb), and that class was one of the most formative experiences of my life. It was like a curtain was pulled back and I finally “got it.” I don’t “get all of it” of course, but I feel like I understand “the point” of all this Christianity stuff, a point that Willard makes wonderfully: following Jesus. Becoming more like him. Modeling his Way in the world. Listening to him. Doing what he tells us to do.

There is not a more pertinent message in the world than the good news that a better Way exists, and that we were created for a purpose — to reflect the glory of God. Thanks for reminding of this message today, Mike.

The solution isn’t simply to intellectually endorse discipleship as a good idea, nor to develop a general intention about doing it. Believers need to find ways to regularly PRACTICE things that are important for our spiritual development AND the self discipline to stay after it. You aren’t fully hearing Willard’s message unless you hear that as well.