A Different Discipleship

Tom Sine talks about discipleship in terms of breaking out of the spiritual realm and transforming the world around it. This is over fifteen years old, but what he observed in the late 1980s is still something we need to watch out for:

I am saddened to report that as I work with churches across the United States today, I see a discipleship taught in which there is no expectation that disciples take time regularly to minister to anyone else. Fully three-fourths of the Christians in the churches I have worked with don't have any time in their lives to minister to anyone outside their own congregations.

Most Christians still don't seem to understand that God can actually use their lives to change the world around them. And no one is teaching them a discipleship in which they are challenged to change their priorities to free up one evening a week to evangelize international students or work with the homeless. In fact, you can be a spiritual leader in any evangelical church in this country and never minister to anyone outside the church building.

Sine goes on to give his diagnosis of the church's discipleship strategy:

I am convinced the problem is created in large part by evangelicals who teach that discipleship has to do just with spiritual areas of life. Virtually every book I have read and every forum I have attended teaches a compartmentalized view of discipleship that helps us with our devotions and disposition but has nothing to say about the "non-spiritual" part of our lives. In those other areas having to do with setting priorities, choosing occupations, buying houses, etc., the culture calls the tune and we dance.