Introduction to Community Based Discipleship

This is the first blog entry from my new book Community-Based Discipleship. I will begin with an excerpt from the Introduction in which I briefly relate how I assessed using the word discipleship to describe how I had grown to understand my relationship with Jesus Christ and his with me.

“As the ideas within this book germinated in my mind and began to take some sort of shape as themes and chapters, I found that I needed to think about the utility of the word discipleship to describe the way in which I had begun to conceive of learning from Jesus. As many Christians know, discipleship is a very loaded term.

Much of my early experience of discipleship was at the feet of church leaders who weaponized it into the WMD of their own version of fundamentalist Christianity. It was an approach to discipleship that tended toward anti-intellectualism and a philosophy of leadership that created (or attracted) narcissistic demagogues who espoused a Pharisaical interpretation of holiness and personal associations. It is not unfair to describe it as toxic.

Others who “ministered” to me used the word discipleship just a bit more gently as a rubric or sorting tool to discern who were the best Christians, sort of like deciding who gets picked first for the kickball team in gym class. Those who were chosen to be discipled were essentially co-opted to “serve the vision” of the leadership. If their ability or interest to do so ever waned, they would be exhorted to be faithful. If that didn’t work, they would be discarded and replaced. Needless to say, I am sometimes a bit nervous about even using the word discipleship. If you don’t like the term either, I understand.

Thankfully, I also knew a few brave souls who “made disciples” in a way that empowered the people whom they mentored to reach toward their full potential as students of Jesus. These discipleship entrepreneurs were so busy loving God and loving people that they failed to notice how their understanding and use of the word discipleship was truly revolutionary. I will refer to them throughout as “salt and light” disciples. They are true world changers, though people rarely know their names! Their example is the reason why I have decided to keep the word and use it in this book.”

Community-Based Discipleship is available at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=community-based+discipleship&ref=nb_sb_noss_2