Missional Discipleship

I am an educator and so I have an affinity for the process of discipleship in helping followers of Christ grow in the way of Christ in their lives.

Bosch in Transforming Mission has an excellent chapter on "Matthew: Mission as Disciple-Making." In his Gospel, Matthew expresses an understanding of discipleship that is deeply missional. Bosch relates that the command to "make disciples" in Matthew 28:19 is a call for Jesus' followers "to make others into what they themselves are: disciples" (p. 74). He further adds that for Matthew "the first disciples are prototypes for the church" (p. 74).

This kind of discipleship is not one that solely focuses on one's own life, but our lives as followers of Christ are lived for the other. Too often the practices of discipleship in the life of the church focus on inward growth and development. Though such development is important, the inner growth is for the sake of outward witness, outward action, orthopraxis if you will, in order to represent a different way of being human in the world.

Therefore, to be a disciple of Jesus Christ is "to practice God's call of justice for the poor" (p. 81), to not only seek God's righteousness, but to seek God's justice for all humanity. We experience God's justice in our own lives and God justifies us and brings us into a relationship with him. In response we act in justice towards others by carrying out the will of God -- here on earth, just as it is in heaven (p. 72).

Indeed discipleship in inherently missional because "to become a disciple means a decisive and irrevocable turning to both God and neighbor. What follows from there is a journey which, in fact, never ends in this life, a journey of continually discovering new dimensions of loving God and neighbor, as 'the reign of God and his justice' (Mt 6:33) are increasingly revealed in the life of the disciple" (p. 82).

If discipleship focuses merely on the inward, or on something else, then it is not a following after Jesus, it is not living a life in the way of Jesus, and it is not a participating with God in God's redemptive mission.