{"id":430,"date":"2006-01-09T21:42:59","date_gmt":"2006-01-09T21:42:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/01\/discipling.shtml"},"modified":"2021-05-29T02:46:47","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T02:46:47","slug":"discipling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/01\/discipling.shtml","title":{"rendered":"Ramblings on Discipling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Discipling is on my mind today. There’s been some talk about it around ICOC sites lately. Of course, Mr. McKean has been on his discipling rant for a while (well, since 1979 actually) decrying all these “lukewarm” churches abandoning “God’s requirement of discipling”. (He likes to use quotes a lot too.) There was also an article<\/a> at ICOCnews about the South Florida Church making having a discipling relationships a requirement for membership. That idea did not go over well with the general ICOCnews readership. One of the most challenging comments there was from Nonnymoose (the head muckety-muck over there). He asked “Requirement for membership — but not salvation? You are suggesting that you are quite willing to exclude brothers and sisters in Christ for not accepting your “rules bound by men” are you not?<\/em>” I think that’s a good question that I’m not sure how to answer yet. Maybe by the end of this I’ll have one.
\nBeyond all that talk on the web, I’ve had a recent conversation with a friend over his dismay that his church is moving forward with a similar expectation. Here in Columbus too, we now have the expectation that a person will be in some sort of discipling relationship. We haven’t answered the ‘or else ..’ part of that, nor really checked up on people, but it is still a stated requirement.
\nThis whole discipling thing is quite a conundrum for me. It was once the hallmark of our movement. Before we were the ICOC or even the Boston Movement, we were the ‘Discipling Movement’ if I recall correctly. It was who we were. Back in the day, you could trace from Kip himself, down the tree through a string of discipling relationships to the new guy who was just baptized. Everyone, except Kip I guess, had a discipler.
\nLet me park a minute on that. Why is it that we never thought about that word, discipler? Saying it now it has a somewhat sinister sound to it. Couldn’t there have been a better term? A few times in recent years, my parents have related how I told them during my college years how my discipler had approved or disapproved of certain decision I had made. They’ve recalled those things with a certain disdain: “We didn’t like the idea, but you said your discipler<\/em> had thought it was fine.” I certainly can’t blame them. Here’s this unnamed person, not really much older than I was, with a sinister sounding title taking on the role they had always played, and should still be playing. Not that a name change to something more neutral (Life Coach? Mentor? Adviser?) would change that these relationships were frequently out of line, but still. Didn’t anyone stop and think that perhaps discipler was a little harsh? No wonder Mom and Dad were peeved.
\nAnyway, so my church and many others are returning to some sort of discipling. One of the problems is that we are still using that same term. Anyone that’s been in the ICOC three or four years or more has a very well defined idea of what that meant. It was authority. It was complete involvement in your life. It was accountability. It was advice, both solicited and unsolicited. What’s weird though is that none of those things seem to be true of these new attempts at discipling, with the possible exception of Mr. McKean’s, yet we are still using the same term. These are a new, kinder gentler form of discipling, intended to be closer to the Biblical collection of ‘one another’ scriptures. The expectation is more that we will be involved in each others lives. But we still call it ‘discipling’ and we wonder why folks are peeved. (Of course, the folks who are peeved would be perhaps more peeved if we called it ‘mentoring’ but it still smelled like discipling.)
\nNo matter what we call it, I think the thing we blew it on in discipling before, and we risk it today as well, is that we have put the responsibility of discipling on the disciple rather than the discipler. Back in the day when i was in college, the expectation was to talk to your discipler every day. If it didn’t happen, who was in trouble? Not the discipler, at least not at first. The disciple was told something like, “You’re responsible for your own spiritual growth. You need to initiate.” I’ve come to think that this is completely backwards. After all, when someone is weak or in sin, they usually don’t realize it. They need someone who cares for them to take the initiative to pull them aside and challenge them. This is radical love, to care enough to put your neck, and the relationship, on the line to challenge someone.
\nI think we’d do much better to foster the mature giving of their knowledge & experience to others. Let’s figure out how to set that<\/em> expectation. That seems to better match the spirit of the one another scriptures and the heart of God. There are few folks who are able to put themselves up and go get the help they need when the need it. The theme of the Gospel is salvation, who when in danger saves themselves? So when we say we are a discpling ministry, let’s make that mean not that we expect you to get yourself discipled, but that we are committed to discipling & helping you.
\nSo to sort of address Nonny’s question, I think we need a new term. Rather (and since I can’t think of a good new term), we just need to live it in a new way. It’s not the old power and control mind set that tells folks how they should be. Rather let it be a statement or who we<\/em> are and how we are committed to treat you and each other. A statement of our commitment to you rather than an expectation for ryou to live up to. Then maybe folks, like me and my friend, who cringe a little when we talk about returning to discipling, won’t be so leery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Discipling is on my mind today. There’s been some talk about it around ICOC sites lately. Of course, Mr. McKean has been on his discipling rant for a while (well,Read More Ramblings on Discipling<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nRamblings on Discipling - salguod.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2006\/01\/discipling.shtml\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ramblings on Discipling - salguod.net\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Discipling is on my mind today. There’s been some talk about it around ICOC sites lately. 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A couple of weeks ago, our minister asked us to put some thought together on what discipling, attendance and dating will look like in our church and have them ready for today's leaders meeting. The following is what I put together before\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":737,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2007\/10\/dan_on_discipli.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":430,"position":1},"title":"Dan on Discipling","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"October 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Dan Edelen writes on discipling, pointing out that it's in God's time, not ours, that He makes things beautiful: I don't know how many times I've seen a \"discipler\"\u2014typically loaded down with one agenda after another\u2014run roughshod over a \"disciplee.\" I've lost track of how many people have walked away\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BlogWalking"","block_context":{"text":"BlogWalking","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/blogwalking"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":205,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/10\/relationship_fa.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":430,"position":2},"title":"Relationship Failure","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"October 5, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a discouraging discussion with a friend this evening. He and his wife had been fairly close to my wife and I a couple of years ago. We were involved in their lives pretty deeply at that time. Back when our church had assigned 'discipling' relationships, we 'discipled' them.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":375,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/08\/sigh_part_ii.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":430,"position":3},"title":"[Sigh – Part II]","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"August 29, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"While I don't think it's a direct response to Kip's 'Portland Story', this was posted on Saturday from the LA ICoC. (BTW - You can follow some of the news on Kip's 'calling of the remnant' and the fallout and responses at both the suddenly renewed, 'outsider' run icocnews and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":169,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2004\/07\/questions_on_fu.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":430,"position":4},"title":"Questions on Fundamentals I","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"July 15, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"VirusDoc asks some good questions in the comments of my previous post. Rather than answering them there, I felt that they were worthy of their own post(s). Because I can't seem to write short posts, I'll answer them over the next few postings. I'll start with #4: Why do _you_\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "God and Church"","block_context":{"text":"God and Church","link":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/god-and-church"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":408,"url":"https:\/\/salguod.net\/blog\/2005\/11\/great_minds_thi.shtml","url_meta":{"origin":430,"position":5},"title":"Great Minds Think Alike","author":"Doug Schaefer","date":"November 15, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"A few days ago, Pinakidion posted a laments about what he calls the move toward a 'Kinder Gentler ICOC'. In other words, essentially the same as we've always been, but with all the rough edges sanded off. 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