I was checking out twitter this morning waiting for the program to start here at the Arkansas Bar meeting in Hot Springs and saw this from Matt Carter.
Matt was linking to this insightful article by Darren Patrick on the path his church has taken with regard to discipleship since he founded it. Go check it out. It is well worth reading about this one church’s struggle between an overly organic model and an overly structured model. How do we split the difference and insure that we are taking steps to make sure people are growing deeper in their faith and relationship to God, while at the same time letting the Holy Spirit work His way out into different expressions of that relationship for different disciples?
here is how he begins, but be sure to click over and read the whole thing to see how they are attempting to find that middle way.
But there was another reason for using an unstructured approach—our community struggled with authority. Some might refer to the artistic, bohemian young adults in urban St. Louis as “hippies.” They were suspicious of structured organizations, finding them too controlling. They preferred a relationally-focused model, and that’s what we created.
But as The Journey grew we faced a significant challenge. Most of our people, including those in leadership roles, were not mature believers. Biblical illiteracy was high, and while most leaders were engaged in discipleship relationships, it was unclear whether they were forming disciples of Jesus Christ or simply replicating themselves.
It dawned on us that everything could not remain organic. A more intentional, structured approach to discipleship was necessary.