Discipleship in Our Churches

I was reading yesterday's blog post at Cerulean Sanctum (the link is below) on discipleship and thought I would share my thoughts about the subject.

First of all, out of the 10 or so churches I've been a member of in the past 43 years, I have to admit that I've only been in one that offered a class (more than a few months) for new Christians or those who wished to review the foundations of Christianity. In most churches you go to a Sunday class organized usually by age and marital status, athough some churches are beginning to organize around topics. However, the new Christian is usually thrown together with those who are 40 years in Christ. What's wrong with this picture? There is no discipleship....nada.

Some churches are putting together a college-like approach, offering "Christianity
101, 102," etc. Then those who have been Christians awhile take the 202,203, etc. level. The highest levels are on the 400 or 500 level. This is where you really get into deep Bible study and doctrine, as well as leadership topics. The only problem with this approach is the homogenous makeup of the classes. In other words, newer Christians are all in a class together; advanced ones are all in a class together. However, I think that could be balanced the the addition of home groups or some other types of heterogenous groupings within the church.

The problem in my church, as well as in most, seems to be breaking up the
age-marital status classes and initiating this new Christianity 101-201-301-401 level approach. However, the Sunday School classes won't easily give up their history of meeting together. I'm not sure what the solution is, except to begin to offer a few of those level classes to see if any will come. But the problem I see with this is only new people will join them. That would be a shame as you would have a divided church - newer members vs. longer-time members. Has anyone solved this discipleship problem in their chruches? Remember, I am talking about including the entire church, not just "mentoring" a few.


Here is the excellent post at Dan's blog:

Equipping the Saints: What We Must Expect…and When