One of our church’s key strategic priorities is to develop a focused discipleship approach for secular urban people. Now of course, all churches should be in the business of discipleship (whether they do or not is open for discussion). However, what we want to do at Merri Creek is sharpen our approach to discipleship so that it works for people who are both secular and urban. To help us explore this topic of discipleship I will be writing a series of articles in our weekly emails.
Some Christians think that that “discipleship” is an optional extra for Christians who want to go a bit deeper. They think that you go to Sunday services and participate in the life of the church but that if you want to delve a bit deeper, you engage in the extra discipleship programs the church offers. But discipleship is not an optional extra. Rather, it is a description of the whole Christian life. It’s not a course that you graduate from. To be a disciple is to be a lifelong learner.
The exciting thing is that, according to a 2023 discipleship research summit led by John Beckett from the Seed organisation, there seems to be a rising tide in Australia of Christians desiring a greater focus on discipleship. This is especially true for Christians between the age of 18-30 (see recent NCLS data). Beckett has observed that many churches are increasingly developing a contextualised approach to discipleship rather than tacking on a one-size-fits-all program (this is one of the reasons I’m interested in our secular and urban context). Also, perhaps as a reaction to the hyper-individualistic and celebrity culture of the recent decades, people are longing for a relational, nuanced and participatory approach.
These trends in discipleship are healthy and very promising. Our wider secular culture (in which Christians are thoroughly immersed) asserts that we religious people should practice our faith in private. For too long we have bought into this assertion: we have compromised and compartmentalised our faith, and this made us spiritually anaemic. We cannot survive as disciples of Jesus if all we do is tack on the label “Christian” and settle for a few middle-class religious rituals throughout the year.
In fact, the term “Christian” is only used three times in the New Testament (Acts 11:26, Acts 26:28, and 1 Peter 4:16). On the other hand, there are about 17 references in the gospels to Jesus inviting people to “follow me” (Matthew 4:19; 9:9; 10:38; 16:24; 19:21; Mark 1:16-18; 2:14; 8:34; 10:21; Luke 5:27-28; 9:23; 18:22; John 1:43; 8:12; 10:27; 12:26; 21:19.)
“Follow me” was the invitation of a Rabbi to their disciple. They would follow the Rabbi wherever he went, observing him closely so that they could imitate his way of life. Disciples would be with the Rabbi, listen to him, memorise his teaching, and ask questions. Disciples gave up their old life so that they could have a new life with the singular focus of becoming like their Rabbi. This was a radical and costly life change that might involve not knowing where your next meal or bed came from. It often required selling up your assets so as to be completely unhindered to follow.
As the Rabbi walked from place to place, he would be at the head of the group, and the disciples would walk behind. From this came the phrase “to walk in your teacher’s dust” which probably originated from Rabbi Yose ben Yoezer (≈ 200 BC) as recorded in the collection of Rabbinic writings, The Mishnah (Avot 1:4). If you walked closely enough to your Rabbi, then the dust that came off his feet would land on you – thus indicating your deep devotion to him.
The first disciples had the privilege of literally collecting the dust from Jesus feet. After his ascension, however, they developed new methods of following Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. As a result, they became known as the people practicing “the way" (Acts 9:2; 18:25‒26; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22). Now they would follow Jesus’ final instructions and become disciples who made disciples (Matthew 28:16-20).
So, as we begin on this journey exploring secular-urban discipleship, I invite you to join with me in collecting the dust off the Teacher’s feet. Please pray for us as a whole church that we can all become a church of devoted followers of Jesus Christ.
Peter Carolane
Senior Minister
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