Five Reasons Why We Don't Do Discipleship (Part 3)

In my previous articles, I have given three reasons why Christians and churches do not engage in discipleship. Given that I work on creating programs in my professional life, this reason will be a little awkward to state: our churches depend on programs.

Here is a modern parable that a friend of mine from seminary told me. The man who witnessed it told it, and his words are probably true.

A young man walked into a Christian bookstore in Chicago and asked where they had bumper stickers. The assistant asked what kind of bumper stickers he was looking for. The man replied, «I’d like to buy a fish bumper sticker.» The assistant replied, «Oh, I’m afraid we’re all sold out.» To which the man replied, «HOW AM I GOING TO EVANGELIZE WITHOUT FISH BUMPER STICKERS?»

As Western evangelical Christians, we are increasingly dependent on courses, programs, methodologies, and technologies for evangelism and discipleship.

Now, as I said, I write this article as someone whose job it is to make good programs. I have been with Christianity Explored Ministries for thirteen wonderful years, and we try very hard to make our programs as biblically accurate and easy to use as possible. I believe in their value. I thank God that they can be truly helpful when put into the right hands.

But what happens when they fall into the wrong hands? Programs become substitutes for true discipleship, soulless, heartless substitutes that are no good to anyone, imitating true discipleship. Worse, taking these courses can deceive us into thinking we are «doing» evangelism and discipleship, when in reality we are just praying without faith and without a soul, just doing everything mechanically. We have come to believe that the magic is in the methodology. We buy a product and expect it to work for us, without any spiritual effort on our part.

It first popped up as a red flag on my e-dar (evangelical radar) about five years ago. We had been working hard on a new course for 18 months—developing Bible study questions, writing and rewriting sermons and scripts, testing the material in different locations, rewriting again, filming and editing a DVD series—and then on the day of publication, when everyone was exhausted and resting, an email would appear in my inbox: «Thanks for the new course,» «When is the next one coming out?»

Let me translate: "HOW AM I GOING TO DO DISCIPLESHIP WITHOUT A NEW PROGRAM?"«

Brothers and sisters, discipleship is possible without programs. Jesus wrote a really good book about it.

And a program, even if it is biblically accurate, cannot replace ongoing, personal discipleship. At least, not the kind of ongoing, personal discipleship that Jesus has in mind in Matthew 28:19-20: «Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. [Amen].».

Problems with software addiction

1. Programs are universal and do not take into account context.

Programs are always one-size-fits-all, they don’t take into account specific needs and contexts. No matter how well they are tailored to a particular audience (analytical/semi-analytical/non-analytical/adult/teen/child, etc.), they are not written by you and therefore cannot be perfectly tailored to the situation God has placed you in. A person who always uses the exact same questions to study the Bible with every person they teach is not doing a very good job. Likewise, a speaker on a DVD will never be able to connect with a person the way you can. He cannot hear the specific cries of a person’s heart and speak to them personally and biblically.

2. Programs focus on process, not character.

Programs can suggest that discipleship is a matter of following the right «process» rather than developing the right character. It goes without saying that a child’s character is shaped primarily by the character of their parents. Children, rather than doing what we tell them, tend to do what we do. Instead, techniques and programs can implicitly give the impression that what we say is important and what we do is not. We can come to believe that the program we use in our church is more important than the character of the people who teach it.

3. Programs become substitute "nannies".

Sometimes we use apps the same way a family might use the DVD screens in a Nissan Pathfinder: as substitute parents. Yes, it’s a great way to keep the kids occupied. Yes, it means we don’t have to interact with them as much during the trip. But it can diminish the quality of our parenting. It can be a neglect of our personal responsibility to those in our care.

So my question is: Are we too quick to make the decision to hire «nannies»? Are we too ready to delegate our discipleship to someone else, and thus have forgotten how to do it ourselves?

At best, programs increase our dependence on God and His Word. At worst, programs simply increase our dependence on the programs themselves. When that happens, our discipleship suffers.