Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time

by Greg Ogden

“The problem in our culture . . . isn’t the abortionists. It isn’t the pornographers or drug dealers or criminals. It is the undisciplined, undiscipled, disobedient, and Biblically ignorant Church of Jesus Christ.”

As a pastor, I was consciously aware that people arrived at worship with a reviewers’ mentality. Worshipers see it as the responsibility of those on stage to provide an engaging, meaningful and entertaining show, while it is the worshipers’ job to give an instant review of the worship service as they pass through the receiving line after worship.

When this group was asked what they wanted to accomplish in life, eight out of ten believers found success in family, career development and financial achievement. Dallas Willard concludes, “The fact is that there is now lacking a serious and expectant intention to bring Jesus’ people into obedience and abundance through training.”

Stott describes the church of the Lord’s intention as a community of “radical non-conformity.” This phrase is a helpful summary of some of the biblical metaphors for the church.

In his landmark study Habits of the Heart Bellah says that what makes Americans distinct comes down to one thing, a view of freedom. Yet when we look more closely, we see a one-sided view of freedom. Americans want freedom from rather than freedom for, an attitude of “I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. No one better tell me otherwise.” Bellah concludes that this quality is not the stuff on which to build enduring relationships (such as marriage) or deep community. To the extent that the church is reduced to an aggregate of individuals who shop like consumers to meet their needs, we do not have the basis for community in any biblical sense.

Only a generation ago, two Christian prophets, Francis Schaeffer and Elton Trueblood, predicted that we were one generation away from losing the memory of Christianity in our culture. They both referred to America as a “cut-flower” society. By that they meant that our culture has been severed from its Judeo-Christian roots and that we are living on the memory of faith. They predicted that it would take just one more generation for this memory to fade. We are that generation.

“What is impossible to do in your business [read church or ministry], but if it could be done, would fundamentally change it?”[24] The following is my vote for the paradigm shift question that expresses the impossible possibility: How can we grow self-initiating, reproducing, fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ?