The Narrow Way

We’ve mistaken sitting inside the walls of a “church” once a week as a guarantee of discipleship. True Christian discipleship involves conforming to the image of Christ, and I fear that many churches don’t actually know how those sitting in the seats on Sunday morning are actually doing in this area. While I certainly hope that the church you attend has elements that help you conform, what we see modeled in Scripture is more intimate than Sunday-morning services. It is also more intimate than small groups (which, if we are being honest, many small groups aren’t really small, and they are often just an extension of Sunday mornings – sorry, someone had to say it). I praise God for the churches that answer the call to provide for the needy, who make meals for those coming out of the hospital, and who help a young single mother find housing. However, let me ask you, who do you turn to when you’re drowning in depression and don’t see the light at the surface? Who do you turn to when you’re struggling to know how to love a family member who has turned away from God? Who do you turn to when you’ve “gone too far” with your significant other and need counsel on how to move forward and walk in freedom and forgiveness? While I certainly hope you CAN go to your pastor, what if you had individuals in your life (who likely go to your church) who walked with you daily? What if these people had fruit that looked like Jesus, and just by sitting with them, and having coffee with them, you, yourself, began to grow the same fruit? What if these people love you enough to sit with you in the ugly and celebrate with you in the victory? This sounds pretty great, huh? You would think. But – I’m going to shoot straight with you, most of us say we want it, but we don’t really pursue it. I write this statement fully aware that I am as guilty as the next person.

The reality is that phones and screens have replaced discipleship within the Christian community.

We don’t just sit with each other anymore. We don’t really pursue one another anymore. ChatGPT leads us to the answers to our pressing spiritual questions. Instagram and YouTube provide video after video of any length that meet our time constraints, with an algorithm offering instant insight to feed our need to be justified and right in our feelings and opinions on living, Biblical interpretation, or even political viewpoints. We can say what we want and avoid face-to-face confrontation. We can take in what we want and avoid the real accountability that can only come from sitting, listening, and receiving in the company of men and women whose fruit is on display, for better or for worse, in the pursuit of Christ. While I find no fault with “digital discipleship,” as I run this type of thing myself, I do not believe Scripture supports it as a substitute for relationship. You cannot have a relationship with a pastor or a leader through a screen while watching their pre-recorded teachings. Relationships require mutuality, vulnerability, and intentionality from both parties. Sadly, many of us are starving spiritually, unstable emotionally, and stuck circumstantially, all because we don’t have a real means of discipleship.

Because I am the guiltiest of all, I now open my dirty laundry that reeks of excuses for all to see. Here are the excuses I have used to either deny discipleship to others or decline opportunities for personal discipleship, and here are the steps I am taking to pursue change in this area, because God not only calls us to be discipled (Colossians 1:28-29) but also to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-20).

1. Busyness

We are all, quite frankly, too busy, and it’s our own fault. We’ve mistaken busyness with productivity. To most of us, the more we do, the more successful we are or will be. How did we get here? For some of us, we say yes too quickly out of a need to please people, or even because we have a “savior” complex and feel it is our responsibility to “save the day.” Some of us stay busy as a means of suppression, avoiding certain people or situations. Maybe our identity is wrapped up in our work, and without the “busyness,” we don’t know who we are. It makes us feel good about ourselves always to have our hands dirty. Then suddenly you can’t make the time to sit with that young woman for coffee, who needs discipleship from a woman who has walked a mile in your shoes. You can’t go to that counseling appointment because you have “another work meeting.” You cancel your dinner plans with a friend to finish a work report, or you avoid that trip you’re supposed to take to do ministry because you “can’t miss a day at work.” While it is true that sometimes these are valid and unavoidable, most of the time, they are just simply excuses because it is just quite frankly easier and more comfortable for us to hide behind our busyness than actually be vulnerable with another human being in the hopes of, oh, I don’t know, maturing into the likeness of Christ or serving the body of Christ by making disciples.

photo by Marcin Paśnicki

2. Boundaries

We are in an era focused on self-care. While there is a clear Biblical basis for setting boundaries around rest, recovery, and restoration (after all, Jesus himself took time to rest and retreat), I worry that the secular view of boundaries has created barriers to discipleship. These boundaries are not always healthy; sometimes they lead us to cut others off simply because we feel inconvenienced.

Here’s how we tend to respond: when we’re struggling with that friend in your life who is making incredibly bad choices and needs guidance, and we feel too annoyed with them to sit with them, we set a boundary (a.k.a. avoidance). When we get offended because someone calls us out for a lack of the fruit of the Spirit in a particular area, we put up a boundary (cut them off and avoid them). When we are too exhausted to serve that lady at church whose husband passed away because work has been so hectic, we rationalize it with a boundary (usually by claiming we need rest). Sometimes boundaries are necessary, but some of us are throwing boundaries on anything and everything, and the fruit on our trees is not just stopping from growing altogether, but starting to look kind of rotten on the outside.

3. Judgment

We think we know people, then we label them in our minds, and often that is not reality and is tainted by the “speck” in our own eye (Matthew 7:3-5). While a lack of discernment can often lead us into relationships with people we have no business being in, judgment can foster misconceptions about people that keep us from being Spirit-led and from being in relationship with the right people. Those who need discipleship might think: “That person is just too busy, I’m not going to ask her to talk,” or “that woman is extremely intimidating, I’m too scared to sit down with her.” But then those thoughts come up about EVERY mature man or woman of God, and you never take a chance on meeting anyone, and you end up sitting alone in your situation. Those mature saints look at younger disciples and see one area of their lives that needs work and think, “Oh, I am not going to touch that with a ten-foot pole,” or “that person is just too stubborn, I am not going to waste my time.” Then all of a sudden, there isn’t a single younger person who is “worth your time.” If we make these judgments outside of the Holy Spirit, we miss opportunities to be in life-giving relationships with others and walk out the great commission with the people God puts in front of us.

Could you take a moment to be honest with yourself?

Is it possible that these excuses have prevented you from receiving or giving discipleship? Have you missed opportunities that the Lord was presenting to you because one or all of these excuses took precedence over relationships within the body of Christ? If you answered yes to these questions, you are not alone. Confess to the Lord, repent to the Lord, and ask His Holy Spirit to reveal to you how to take steps toward seeing change in this area of your life. In my next post, I will share what I am doing to address this in my own life, but in the meantime, don’t be afraid to come face-to-face with God about this situation. It very well may change your life.