Discipling, Discipleship, and Discipline

A couple of years ago, I had a series of casual conversations with family, friends, churchgoers, non-churchgoers, and ministry colleagues. I was on a quest to understand attitudes about church membership. Why are fewer people in church, Bible study, and seeking to grow their faith?

Two of the questions I asked were:

• What does the word disciple mean to you?
• Do you consider yourself a disciple, and why or why not?

I was not surprised by the responses. Many defined “disciple” as someone who follows Christ, someone who learns from Christ, someone who does miracles, someone who is faithful, and someone who is a good Christian.

I was surprised that churchgoers readily identified themselves as Christians, yet most struggled to consider themselves good disciples. Most thought that being a good disciple involved modeling Christ in grand and impressive ways (including doing miracles), professing openly and loudly Christ as Lord and Savior, evangelizing fervently, and maybe even becoming a street preacher.

When I asked follow-up questions, people revealed that great discipline was expected from disciples. The expectation was that disciples pray continuously, are always forgiving, generous, loving, kind, and advocates for justice. They believed that disciples give food, clothing, and water, visit the sick, never say no to helping, and have mountain-moving faith.

It is evident that many church-going believers in Christ have difficulty considering themselves good disciples because they believe good disciples must have done numerous good works or have excessive discipline. They consider themselves deficient. Most cannot see themselves as people upon whom Christ would build his church.

For them, Christians or disciples should evidence drastically changed lives, holiness, sacred living, and pious discipline.

Both those within the church and outside the church expected perfection in a way that did not allow for the essence of discipleship—learning. It’s as if the word “disciple” confirmed an end product rather than a process of learning.

Disciple, discipline, and discipleship all have the same Latin root: discipulus, meaning pupil. Christ-followers are learners. They are in process.

I wonder how perceptions, acceptance, and encouragement might be changed if we, as disciples, went about this world with bumper stickers on ourselves— much as student drivers might—declaring, “Jesus-imitators in training; please be patient.” That would tell the world that we have not yet reached the desired result. Our lives and the evidence of Christ in them are not at the fullest today, but we are working at it.

Perhaps if we allowed ourselves to understand that disciples are in process, that we are Jesus-imitators-in-training, we might allow for patience, as we openly admit we are learning. There might be less resistance and more understanding from others in the church and beyond.

Maybe, then, we could acknowledge our need to grow in discipline, learn together, stay focused on Jesus, and make room for others.

I believe this is what John Wesley might deem as “grace.”

I don’t know all the answers. I am still in training. Please be patient.

Discipleship Ministries offers resources through See All The People. What would happen if we focused less on fixing our church and more on seeing all the people Christ calls us to reach?” For more information, click here.

The Rev. Ella Luna-Garza is an ordained elder in the California-Nevada Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church, serving in Merced, California. Rev. Luna-Garza has extensive experience working in advocacy and social change for grassroots organizing, community development, and access for underserved community populations. She particularly has a heart for fostering safe spaces for faith formation.