I hate to tell you this, but you don’t understand the first thing about discipleship. I was the same way. I had taught and written about discipleship for 30 years, and discipled many people both one-on-one and in small cadres. But recently I realized that my primary assumption about discipleship was wrong.
What am I talking about? I always thought that discipleship should immediately follow someone’s coming to Christ. In other words, I thought that discipleship followed evangelism. But I was wrong. Discipleship actually begins before someone comes to Christ! This is the biblical model. It is the one that works best. And, when we make this paradigm shift it changes everything.
While it’s true that someone who comes to Christ should be discipled—and I co-authored a great book for this, Beginning the Journey, that has sold over 100,000 copies in English and been translated into many languages—underneath this is a flawed assumption. Discipleship ideally does not follow evangelism. Discipleship actually begins before someone’s coming to Christ.
Let’s begin by looking at this biblically, and then we will look at it practically.
In the gospel of Mark, Jesus’ ministry begins in 1:15, as he declares, “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Immediately after this, in verse 17, he begins gathering disciples on the seashore, challenging Peter, Andrew, James and John: “Come, follow me, and I will send you out to fish for people.”
Think about it: Were these guys born again when they started to follow Jesus as his disciples? I think you’d have to agree that they were not. It was seven chapters later that they begin to realize that he was the Messiah, and even then they are pretty confused about what that meant (Mark 8:27-33). And, it was not until the day of Pentecost, three years later, that the Holy Spirit invaded and changed their lives. Notice, however, that long before they recognize Jesus as the Messiah and years before their lives are transformed by the Holy Spirit, they have already been following Jesus and doing their best to obey him. Their discipleship began long before their conversion.
The same thing is true today. Almost always people begin to enter into Christian community and start to follow Jesus in small ways before they fully give their lives to him. As they learn to obey him, they discover that he is good and real and trustworthy, and—having experienced him for themselves—they put their full trust in him as Savior and Lord.
