by Jason C. Dukes: Martin B. Copenhaver wrote a book called Jesus Is the Question. The premise of this book is simply that Jesus asked questions approximately 10 times more often than He gave answers. His disciple-making efforts were not about having information and answers—although He could have given more than enough answers to all the questions in the whole world—but about asking questions that caused His followers to reconsider their beliefs. What if we became disciples of Jesus who make disciples with Him by valuing tough questions more than having great answers?

Please consider this issue carefully because it is crucial to our engagement with the younger generations who are becoming more and more honest with their deepest questions. I fear that our evangelism efforts in recent years have focused too much on having the right answers and not enough on the actual questions people have. Moreover, I suggest that we have even missed the actual questions we ourselves wrestle with in our own heads and hearts. This is a serious issue that we must change.

To get other disciple-making content like this—but in person—check out the National Disciple Making Forum and reserve your seat here.

Questions—at least the ones that relate to spiritual seeking—are linked to people’s insecurities and emotions. This is true of those who already believe the Gospel of Jesus, as well as those who have yet to believe. We all have questions. Relational disciple making welcomes those questions. Informational discipleship merely addresses those questions intellectually at best and ignores them at worst.

In his recent book, This Is Our Time, Trevin Wax suggests that people nowadays interpret truth through their insecurities and emotions. In our efforts to deliver the Good News to the new generations around us, we have not presented the Gospel in ways that acknowledge and respect insecurities and emotions. We have also tended to not create relational presence—enough to even discern a friend’s insecurities and emotional dilemmas. As a result, we have not addressed the questions people are actually asking…

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Source: Shifting From Having Answers to Asking Questions

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by Jason C. Dukes: The following content is an excerpt from the eBook Inviting Along. Download your free digital version in your favorite format here.

Can we learn Jesus by ourselves? Can we learn Him apart from relationships that embody His teachings as well as His grace? Can we learn Jesus apart from living it out within community, from life together as He intended? Furthermore, in order to “make” a disciple, wouldn’t we have to live out these family-like relationships as light in darkness together among both those who have already believed Jesus as well as those who are yet to believe?

What is the goal of this thing we have called “discipleship” anyway? Is it just for me to know more about God? To better myself? To become a good person?

Let me pose another question before we dive into the suggested shifts from informational discipleship to relational disciple making the way Jesus did it?

Think about this: Is the goal of discipleship to make good individuals?

Let me ask it a different way. If the goal of discipleship is good individuals, then why did Jesus pray what He prayed in John 17? Check it out:

“I’m praying not only for them but also for those who will believe in Me because of them and their witness about Me. The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind— just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, so they might be one heart and mind with Us. Then the world might believe that You, in fact, sent Me. The same glory You gave me, I gave them, so they’ll be as unified and together as We are—I in them and You in Me. Then they’ll be mature in this oneness, and give the godless world evidence that You’ve sent Me and loved them in the same way You’ve loved Me.” (John 17:20-23, The Message)…

Source: The Importance of Relationship

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