Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Spoon-fed Disciples


I am all in favor of discipleship. I believe that Christians should make progress and grow up in their spiritual journey. I’m for theological discussions, Biblical exegesis, Solo Scriptura, and all kinds of other big words. And my KJV Bible can beat up your ESV slim line Bible too. But somewhere along the way we have FORGOTTEN that the process of making disciples BEGINS with SOMEONE who is NOT a disciple. In fact, it begins with someone who is not even a Christian! They are too many churches and impotent ministers who are only interested in making disciples out of those who are already disciples (often those who have simply transferred from another church).

We couch our refusal to engage in evangelism (or even something as simple as inviting sinners to church) by using words like “deep” or “strong meat.” What a cop out.

At Pace Community Church we will disciple you, but we will not spoon-feed you forever.

Christians today have access to ridiculous amounts of information; we have Bibles, know how to read, can listen to the best preachers of the century from all over the world, and look at Bible charts, add infitim. And what do we do with these resources? Very little. We sit around waiting for someone to spoon-feed us even more, something deep. If you are capable of feeding yourself and refuse to do so, that’s your problem. No church can program you into a disciple. You bear some of the responsibility yourself. Some of the most off-target Christians I know are just sitting around waiting to join a holy huddle so they can have deep discussions about missional churches verses attractional churches. How off base can you get?

At some point you’ve got to do more with your faith than sit on it and talk about it. You must engage it and share it.

2 comments:

Ray Collins said...

That is what we love about Ron. If you ask a question, you should be prepared for an honest answer.
Thanks,

Ron said...

Ray,
I didn't know if I should post your first comment - it seemed kind of personal and was reluctant to make it public. This paticular blog however (Spoon Fed Disciples) was not a response to your questions, but rather a general teaching to the body at large. But hey, if it helped, then I am glad. I needed to hear it myself!