The “It” Crippling Discipleship

Why Churches Struggle to Sustain Disciplemaking

Many pastors and church leaders express concern that Christians don’t get the whole context of being a disciple. Jesus’ plain directive is that Christ followers are to live life in a new way, and in that way to be disciples who make disciples who make more disciples.

The symptoms

We get some of the context of discipleship, of course. Small groups, ministry work, and attending church worship and events—all wonderful aspects of disciples—abound in North America. These effects, or symptoms, of a disciple’s life have been recast as causes and completion of a disciple, full stop.

And yet something is off. What causes so many people of the Church (more than 65%) to abandon their local church? Why do more than 90% of people in the pews become passive, even mute, about their identity in Christ in society? Why are disciples, about 95% of them, not making more disciples?

Turns out there’s a recurring reason for that. There’s an “It” crippling Western discipleship.

“It”—the cause of the erosion of the core of discipling—is pandemic in Western Christianity. It is likely rife inside your church. It isn’t your fault, but It is your responsibility in your local church, if you dare take It on.

The “It”

My career is helping struggling organizations get better. So far I’ve worked for six Wall Street-owned businesses as a CEO—brought in by the boards of these troubled companies to help right things. And in each one of these businesses, oddly, there It is too.

What is It?

“It” is the wrong mission.

I want to suggest, humbly, that discipleship suffers in churches primarily because we have the mission wrong.

People in any organization conform to whatever the real mission is, not the printed mission. People become what their leaders are living out and consistently reinforcing among them. That reinforced and lived-out-by-leaders mission is the true trajectory of a church.

Whatever the real mission is, that mission defines or derails the development of disciples. Most Protestant and evangelical churches have website statements about mission or purpose, visions, values—perhaps even something akin to Matthew 28’s “…go into all the world…”

Yet I’m suggesting that first of all, whatever those mission declarations are, they likely are unknown by the vast majority of your people. Secondly—and this is the key—that mission is probably not the mission given to Christ followers and their ecclesia. Welcome to It, the corporation-killing, disciple-suffocating It. “It” is mission creep, mission distortion, mission loss.

No organization can achieve its purpose unless the mission is defined and demonstrated in the lives of its leaders. Mission cannot be delegated. It must be demonstrated, then expected of others.

The modern word “mission” equates to an Old Testament word “ḥā·zō·wn” (Proverbs 29:18), which Christians often call “vision” or “revelation.” But the modern concept is of that old word is precisely mission: purpose and destiny for a people. Proverbs 28 tells us mission truly matters—that without that hazown, cultures collapse, “people perish”—and Christ’s discipleship gets short shrift, if any.

So here’s one application: We can stop dreaming up new visions and missions for our church in leadership retreats. We’ve already been given our mission. Are leaders willing to go first to bring that mission to life?

The Church’s mission applies to the individual and to the gathered churches. Same mission for all of us, each of us. And beyond the activities, Jesus demonstrated that we are to bring one or two alongside us in life so they too can become disciples who make disciples.

Discipleship is your church’s mission. Establish your church on Christ’s discipleship and you get a two-for-one: a growing church—as disciples make disciples—and a vibrant gathered body of Christ worshipping, serving, ministering people living with purpose. To make the mission anything else means you get, ironically, neither the mission nor the disciples.

What can you do?

1. Do you want discipleship to flourish in your church? Start with your church mission. Get It right.
2. Then start being leaders living that mission. Leaders who live out what they believe change cultures. You cannot delegate this.
3. Start the mission journey for your church that you’re biblically called to pursue. Reach out to Navigators Church Ministries. They can help you get this mission thing going. And take a look at Justin Gravitt’s new book, The Foundation of a Disciplemaking Culture, to help you develop your mission reformation.

The key to a discipled church is leaders who are living the mission Christ gave us. “It” is counting on you to ignore that.