Discipleship Cost and Commitment (Bonhoeffer)
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die...
You’ve likely heard those words (or read them) from Dietrich Bonhoeffer before. But have you thought about those words in the context of local church discipleship?
Do we Teach the Cost of Discipleship?
When I preach, I often give an invitation that includes the words, “God’s grace is free but it isn’t cheap.” What I mean by those words is that Christ paid for our sins on the cross. We daily yield our life to God by taking up our cross daily.
I think it’s OK to tell people that being a disciple of Christ costs something. For one it costs time. My family has dealt with sports teams for our kids where we couldn’t do everything because it conflicted with our church commitments (which are commitments to Christ). We use those as teaching moments to show our kids that following Jesus means putting other things second. If we didn’t have three worship services on Sundays, my son would have played a lot less Sunday games. But I’ve thought through the process with other elders at the church, and concluded that he can play on Sunday mornings if he can still make a worship service. I’ll even go so far as to say that sometimes he will likely miss church because a tournament. Those are very few times each year. I’d say 2 or less. Time shows where our priorities lie, and if our priority is on serving Christ, then we need to put that into practice in our calendar.
It also costs time in the daily habits that we exercise. It takes time every day to read God’s word and pray. It takes time to talk with my family around the table about what we are learning in our faith journey. Just like exercising to maintain physical abilities, we exercise spiritually to maintain our relationship with Christ and our spiritual abilities (spiritual gifts).
Do We Regularly Challenge People to Obey Jesus in All Areas of Life?
Do we make it clear to our people (the ones we are discipling) that we ought to follow Jesus in every part of our life? Do we talk about sex, money and politics? Or do we stay away from those things so as not to lose numbers? At our church, especially in Regeneration Ministry those things come up frequently. We talk about worshipping God in those areas of our life. Now rather than dictate behavior, we trust the Spirit to reveal to each person what that looks like - and encourage them to be faithful.
Do We Talk More about Following Christ or Believing in Christ?
Believing in Christ is essential. But once we believe, we move to obedience. In my context, we talk about Baptism as a step of obedience that follows belief in Christ. We start talking about obedience from the beginning. In fact, one of our core values is “Every One Changes” - we mean that everyone has to change things about them that don’t line up with what God has revealed in Scripture. Each of us changes to be more like Christ. When I pray to close services or Ministry events, I usually include something like “Lord show us ways to be obedient to … (whatever the message was about) this week.”
Conclusion
When we talk about a vision for discipleship - Bonhoeffer’s words ought to echo in our mind. How can we communicate this in a way that a person becomes a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ - not merely a believer, or a warm body in a seat. Let’s make sure that our churches are filled with people who understand the “cost of discipleship.”
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Timely article here, Justin! This makes me think of Practicing The Way by John Mark Comer and what it means to be an apprentice of Christ. Thanks for your reminder of what discipleship looks like.