Discipleship: Leaving Behind (whatever it is that gave us identity and purpose)

Discipleship is a catchy word in church ministries these days. It's not a new idea, but it seems to have found a new level of popularity in recent years. However, not everyone is on the same page when asked what "discipleship" is all about or whether we're actually accomplishing this in our churches and ministries.

In last week's post, we looked at discipleship through the lens of Jesus' invitation to his soon-to-be disciples in the gospel of Mark. His invitation was:

Follow me, and I will make you into people who fish for people. (Mark 1:17)

Last week I drew out four points from this passage that might help us focus our understanding of discipleship and our efforts as leaders in ministry to "be and make disciples." The points were:

1. Discipleship means we stop trying to be followed.
2. Discipleship is two-sided: following and fishing.
3. Discipleship is fishing as part of God's rescue mission.
4. Discipleship is about group fishing.

This week, we'll focus on the first point: Discipleship means we stop trying to be followed.

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This, seemingly, is the most obvious point about discipleship. Yet, this, the most basic element, is the trickiest one.  

People follow other people. There are people following you, me, and those in your ministry. People follow people by being around them, and absorbing what a friend, co-worker, sibling, or parent says and does, and how they say and do it. People follow celebrities unhealthily in our culture, often for little good reason and with very little personal knowledge of the people we "follow"--outside of what media gives us (to make us want to follow them). 

Often, we're not intentionally trying to do something spectacular so people follow us. This is changing, however, in our culture of "following." We're more inclined to be thinking of ourselves, how people think of us, and wanting people to "like" us. There are a lot of examples daily on Facebook of people trying to get other people to think well of them, of their family, or to show off the latest new look. And we're always following someone or something.

The point is this: there is always something that's leading us along somewhere. This may include
people and their influence on our lives, or business, sports culture, career, or the "American Dream."

As we're lead along, we're also leading.

Where we're led and where we lead is where we find our identity, value, and purpose.
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One interesting thing about the stories where Jesus invites disciples to follow him, especially in Mark 1:16-20, is that those Jesus invited immediately left their nets and followed Jesus. I wonder if we breeze past this detail too quickly in our pursuits of discipleship and in our teaching and formation of others in the path of discipleship. 

Fishing was not just a day job. It was wrapped up in things like: family, identity, purpose, status, meaning, value. It is not much different now than it was 2,000 years ago. To leave the nets (and family) implies that discipleship has to do with leaving behind. It's not merely that the disciples left their day jobs to follow Jesus. In leaving behind their nets, they left behind a significant part of their lives, by which they defined themselves, found meaning, purpose, and value.

They left behind what they followed as ways of giving them identity and giving their lives meaning, purpose, and value. And they left behind the possibility of being followed -- of leading others.  

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Following Jesus means abandoning other sources of meaning and identity and finding our value, meaning, purpose, and identity in Jesus and Jesus' mission for people.

It means leaving behind the pursuit of identity, value, and purpose in our own work, in our identity as Republican or Democrat, in our attempts to post the most likeable, adorable photos of our children and family on Facebook, in our need to have the most catchy or unique church program.

Leave it all behind. Drop your nets.

In everyday life, following Jesus means we're no longer slaves to the burden of trying to keep up, of having our kids in all the right sports and activities, of not feeling like we or our families don't match up with the wonderful moments that show up in social media. Following Jesus means we're free from all that because Jesus' identity and mission have overtaken these things and made them irrelevant.

Following Jesus means that Jesus and his mission for the world become our purpose and identity. 

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Practically Speaking. How do you as "leaders" in ministry communicate this "discipleship as leaving behind," of not following or wanting to be followed, to those in your congregations or circles of ministry? You are being followed. How do you as leaders "drop your nets" and follow Jesus, even in your work of ministry?

In your teaching in discipleship, are you challenging and encouraging people to see discipleship as finding value, meaning, identity, purpose, or status (or all of these) in Jesus and his kingdom, and nothing else? Or are you implicitly encouraging people to remain driving by finding identity, value, meaning in other pursuits, so long as Jesus is involved in some way?

How do you encourage people to find ways they can point to Jesus in their own lives and contexts?

Have you thought of bi-vocational ministry, either for you or those in your ministry? Have you thought that we're all bi-vocational ministers? (I think a better term is "co-vocational.") Martin Luther spoke of "vocation," except faith and work were not as much separated as they are in our world. We don't work so that we can minister to people. Rather, our jobs are the place where we carry out our identity as disciples, where our purpose is fishing for people through how we work and conduct ourselves in the workplace.