This school year I have been co-facilitating a team of people to re-vision and clarify a common vision for adult discipleship at my church. It started out as a way to offer guidance to the plethora of programs we offer at our church that fall under “Adult Discipleship” – retreats, events for men, women, seniors, young adults, Sunday school, mid-week Bible studies, small groups, the library, special spiritual formation activities and events connected to Advent, Lent, or Holy Week. I realized some time last year that I was working really hard to keep the machine running without having a clear sense of why this particular machine was running. I was curious as to whether the plethora of programs was actually helping people mature spiritually or empowering them to live like Jesus in their ordinary, every day lives.
Meeting with this group over the past nine months has been really good for me – it has helped me hone in to what I think discipleship and spiritual formation actually are (beyond being “Christian-y” words). It has also been challenging because I am becoming more and more convinced that, while church programs have an important role to play in people’s spiritual growth, if we limit our understanding of discipleship to participating in programs, we actually inhibit our growth. We are spiritually formed all the time: not only in the times we’re in church, worshiping or learning or enjoying the company of our friends, but ALSO and even MORE SO when we’re at home with our families and friends, when we’re watching TV, when we’re web-surfing and working and hanging out with our neighbors.
Even more importantly, the call Jesus places on us is not to become perfect disciples who know our Bibles front-to-back and can accurately define theological terms like supralapsarianism. No, in Matthew 28, Jesus exhorts us to MAKE disciples of all nations. It is really hard for me to find the time or to gather up the courage and energy to get to know my neighbors and other people outside my congregation, which means I’m not fulfilling the Great Commission. And if I, as one of the pastors, am not fulfilling the Great Commission, I have my doubts that others in my congregation are being inspired and empowered to do it either.
Thus, this process over the past nine months has had some significant elements of deconstruction – of coming face to face with the difficult reality that while I may like the machine as it is (or at least know how to keep it running), it’s not working. Something needs to change.
I went with a group of staff from our church this past April to a conference hosted by the Verge Network, a fantastic organization seeking to help Christians live out the Great Commission in smaller “missional communities.” At that conference I heard an individual named Caesar Kalinowski talk about 6 rhythms of discipleship. An excerpt of Caesar’s talk can be found right now on Verge’s website. I was captured by this concept of life rhythms being what shape us as disciples.
Caesar encouraged us to move away from the mindset of “additional” and into the mindset of “intentional.” This is a really slippery concept when you’ve been steeped in a strategy of discipleship that is almost entirely programmatic. We tell people that in order to grow as disciples, they need to come to things or add more things to their already busy lives – come to worship (which, by the way, is a rhythm and a vital one), come to Bible study, add a quiet time to your daily routine, come to our women’s/men’s/seniors/young adults/children’s/student’s/music/prayer events, do community service.
What if the purpose of a church wasn’t to offer more and more stuff to do but to coach people on how to intentionally live their faith day to day? What if the parties we throw anyway for our families and friends became opportunities for building relationships and sharing about Jesus and thus growing our trust in God? What if the respect with which we treated our co-workers became a way of shaping us in love? What if our decision to do nothing on a Sunday but worship and rest became a counter-culture demonstration of the reality that a meaningful life isn’t found in busyness but in relationship with our Creator?
I don’t have a clear sense yet of how this will apply or get lived out at my church. But, I have a hunger to give people permission to do a few things well rather than try to do all things – we only end up getting “burned out” and doing things in a mediocre fashion. I want to experience real rest and I want that same real rest for everyone I meet. I want people to know Scripture deeply but also live what they read. I want people to be set on fire by the Holy Spirit to courageously witness to God’s restoration of individual lives and our world – not only with their words, but in their choices to serve others, to seek justice, to live generously.
How about you? When you hear the word “rhythm” attached to discipleship or spiritual formation, what does the word bring to mind? What does it mean to you?
Rachel Young is the associate pastor of spiritual formation at Clear Lake Presbyterian Church, in Houston, TX. She is married to Josh, who also serves on staff at Clear Lake Pres. as the Director of Contemporary Worship and Media. She blogs weekly at reverendrachel.wordpress.com.
