A Vision for Discipleship

Blog entry – discipleship – 8/3/09

I had the amazing opportunity a couple weeks ago to interview Shane Claiborne, one of my Christian heroes and the author of two amazing books, The Irresistible Revolution and Jesus for President. I interviewed Shane for my current book project, The Way of Jesus: A Model of Spiritual Communities in a Post-Church Age, and we focused our conversation on discipleship.

It’s a big and important word in any conversation about authentic Christianity, and it has been defined very differently by various groups of Christians over time. I’m partial to Dallas Willard’s definition of discipleship in The Divine Conspiracy as “apprenticeship to Jesus…one who is with Jesus learning to be like him,” and I was curious about Shane’s. He began by talking about God’s efforts from the very beginning of time to form for himself a people who would “live differently from the patterns of the world around them.” He was careful to point out that this different way of living was not for its own sake but to “show the world what a society of love looks like and to woo the rest of the world to God.” Shane went on to point out that discipleship does NOT entail “signing on to a list of doctrines or beliefs” but “participation in a movement.”

Like Willard’s understanding of Christian discipleship, Claiborne’s is action oriented. One of the coolest things he said in our interview was, “In the West we’ve become so obsessed with evangelism at the expense of discipleship – so we’ve got millions of folks who can state what we believe, but without being able to show what it looks like.”

I believe that God is calling me to develop a community that will show - not tell - people what Christian faith looks like. That is what Living Vision is going to be all about. I’ve done way more than my share of talking about Christ and Christian faith over my 47 years. For what remains of my life, I want to live it, and I know there is no way I can do that on my own – thus my need/desire for a community of folks who want to live as apprentices to Jesus, who want to show the world what a society of love looks like.

Later in our conversation, Shane noted that the word “disciple” comes from the same root as the word “discipline.” There are disciplines involved in living as Christ lived. The New Monasticism movement, of which Shane and his community The Simple Way are a part, is a movement of rekindling the spiritual disciplines that reach way back in Christian history. The New Monastics realize that discipleship doesn’t come easily or automatically. If we want to be like the our Rabbi Jesus, we will need to practice the disciplines of prayer, fasting, gleaning, peacemaking, hospitality, etc. (I highly recommend Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s book New Monasticism for more on this topic.)

There is still so much that I don’t know about this adventure God has me taking. But one thing I do know is that I’m ready to be a part of a community that does the things Jesus did and taught in as simple and pure a form as possible. Let me know if you crave the same thing.