(ABP) — More than two decades after he helped many Baptist churches breathe new life into discipleship training, Roy Edgemon believes it's time to take a new look at how churches make disciples.
In the early 1980s, the Southern Baptist Convention Sunday School Board asked Edgemon to revamp its approach to discipleship, since attendance at Sunday night discipleship-training sessions seemed to be in an irreversible decline.
Under his leadership, the board — now known as LifeWay Christian Resources — introduced the “interactive writing” approach to discipleship classes. That method engaged readers with discussion-oriented questions, and launched the careers of popular devotional writers such as Beth Moore and Henry Blackaby. In 2001, Southern Baptist discipleship enrollment was at an all-time high, he noted.
But now Edgemon says it's time for Baptists to take a fresh look at their approach to discipleship. If they don't, he said, their churches are in danger of continuing to reach people but not turning them into devoted followers of Christ.
“They're trying to be evangelistic and trying to be very missions-oriented,” said Edgemon, a member of First Baptist Church in Sulphur Springs, Texas. “I don't think the people are getting the foundations of their faith. I don't think they're getting any depth.”
Edgemon's concerns mirror those of the leaders at Chicago's Willow Creek Community Church, which has served as a model for churches nationwide on how to evangelize people through the use of small groups. Despite reaching thousands, leaders acknowledged in a recent study that the congregation is doing a poor job of turning converts into growing followers of Christ.
The study found that nearly 25 percent of the people at Willow Creek reported stagnation in their spiritual growth and dissatisfaction with church. Apparently, the conventional approach to discipleship, which connected increased church activity to spiritual growth, was flawed. So while activity can lead to growth, the survey said, at a certain point people who were growing extremely deep in their faith were becoming less connected to Willow Creek.
“What you hold in your hands has revolutionized the way I look at the role of the local church,” Willow Creek's senior pastor, Bill Hybels, wrote in the forward of the study. “It is causing me to ask new questions. It is causing me to rethink how we coach Christ-followers. It is causing me to see clearly that the church and its myriad of programs have taken on too much of the responsibility for people's spiritual growth.”
Willow Creek's survey reveals what some Baptists have believed for years. Max Barnett, who led Baptist Student Ministries at the University of Oklahoma for more than 37 years and who now directs collegiate ministry for the Colorado Baptist General Convention, reminds people that the Great Commission does not emphasize sharing the gospel with large numbers of people. Rather, it stresses making disciples around the globe.
Many churches incorrectly rely on Sunday school classes or Bible studies to develop people spiritually, Barnett said. But effective discipleship, he contended, takes place in regular one-on-one meetings between two people who agree to keep each other accountable during an extended period. In a meeting between two friends, each person feels comfortable to share about themselves and be frank with the other person, he said.
“This is where, as Southern Baptists, I think we've lost it — the person-to-person,” Barnett said. “I think most people are not going to grow to maturity without someone meeting with them.”
Jon Randles, the evangelism director for the Baptist General Convention of Texas, agreed with Barnett. Spiritually mature Christians may be able to disciple three or four people a year in individual meetings, he said. In these private gatherings, people can be held accountable for Scripture memorization, prayer life and Bible study habits.
The process is not always welcomed.
“Baptists have always been skeptical of exclusivism, and discipleship is a bit exclusive,” he said.
But at CrossBridge Community Church in San Antonio, discipleship is integral to everything the congregation does, said Kirk Freeman, the pastor. That's because people there view growing in faith as fundamental to all other expressions of belief.
“When we say discipleship, we don't limit the phrase to mean just Bible study,” he said. “We don't separate missions from discipleship, because only a disciple can go to the ends of the earth to witness for Jesus.”
Edgemon said Freeman's church understands the critical nature of discipleship. Baptists' weakness in discipleship has weakened the denomination, including a wane in evangelistic zeal, he said. And proper discipleship encourages people to pray for those who lack a relationship with Christ and to share the gospel with them.
Edgemon says that part of the solution lies in identifying and publishing a new wave of authors who can speak effectively to a new generation. Baptists need writers who can capture the attention of Baptists and encourage them to grow in their faith, he said.
At CrossBridge, the solution is not about curriculum. CrossBridge does not feature many programs that are commonplace in Baptist churches, but the church encourages members to be involved in the lives of their friends and family. Rather than classroom Bible study, the church has “life groups” — small gatherings where people create deep relationships that enable them to minister to each other effectively, reach out to others and “basically be the church,” Freeman said.
The church also delves into the Bible during Sunday sermons: It recently spent 38 weeks in the brief New Testament book of Ephesians, and a group of laypeople wrote corresponding week-long studies about the book for each of the sermons. As much as a quarter of the congregation ministered in a foreign country last year. Many of the members ministered locally in one form or another.
“The difficulty with discipleship is it's not a smooth step-by-step process. If there's any formula for discipleship, it's life-on-life,” Freeman said.
Ultimately, the responsibility for spiritual growth rests on the individual. So one Sunday a year, each person at the San Antonio church receives a spoon during the worship service. That, Freeman said, is because CrossBridge isn't going to “spoon-feed” people. They have to feed themselves.
“It's not as easy as the flowchart shows,” Freeman said.
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