by Jason C. Dukes: We are only able to understand what someone is communicating to us by using the way of thinking and understanding that comes naturally to us. We process through our current paradigm, not the paradigm of the person proposing something to us. Such is the case with the content of this book.

If the form of “discipleship” you have known is information driven and delivered through church programs, then it may be difficult for you to hear what I am saying. You may have to do some work to adjust your own framework in order to understand it. That’s why relationship is so important, because in the context of a relationship, we can clarify what we mean. Since we cannot meet face to face, I want to clarify my message in this closing chapter by describing the paradigm of “inviting along.”

If you were “invited to” discipleship classes or groups, chances are your disciple-making efforts have mirrored the way you were discipled. In this model, disciple making is done at an event, in a church building, or through a Bible study—none of which are “bad” or “wrong.” In fact, those things can be part of a disciple-making relationship. But too often those things are the full extent of disciple-making relationships, which really aren’t very relational at all, if we are to be honest.

…

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Source: Shifting From Inviting To to Inviting Along

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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: How do you think of “the Gospel”? How would you summarize it if you had to?

Do you think of it as “Good News”? Is it the most important message to you?

While Jesus certainly intended us to present a “Good News” message to a world full of people who are seeking, I suggest that it is more than merely something we present to others.

Before I give my alternative, let me suggest you download another eBook offered by Discipleship.org called The Discipleship Gospel Primer. It offers rich wisdom and compelling insight about the importance of the Gospel we preach. The Gospel we preach must move us toward being disciples of Jesus who make disciples with Jesus. I recommend it to you as a supplement to what I’m saying here!

The takeaway I want to highlight from The Discipleship Gospel Primer is that the Gospel is more than just an assertion that we are sinners and Jesus died for our sins. That is part of the Gospel, and we must present those facts. But the Gospel is much more than those two facts alone, and it must be presented over time and with our actual presence.

It’s like what a friend of mine named Tommy emailed me about the other day. He said he had heard me speak recently on “what the Gospel is not,” and he typed the following question, which I thought was worth sharing:

What if the Gospel, the Good News of the Kingdom of God, was about Jesus making a way to invite all mankind to become children of God, to live with Him in His kingdom, and to participate in His nature, experiencing His presence in an eternal life lived now and forever with Him? If this were the Gospel we upheld, wouldn’t it change the story of the church today?[1]…

Note: I am not saying presentation of the Gospel is not necessary for conversion. I am saying presentation is, in fact, necessary but most often in the context of this “presence” type of friendship. Sharing the Gospel on a whim with a stranger is not the norm in the New Testament; it is the exception. I write this so that we don’t feel pressure to make it the norm in our disciple-making efforts today.

Written by Jason C. Dukes

Jason and Jen have been married since August 1998. They met at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. Since August 2015, they have lived with their seven kids and yellow lab in the Nashville Tennessee area, where Jason coaches and equips disciples making disciples, churches starting churches, and churches renewing their intended purpose. Jason has helped start Westpoint Church, House Blend Cafe, the Reproducing Churches Network, and the Church of West Orange. He has also served as a student pastor, college pastor, lead pastor, and multiplication minister. Learn more about his writings at www.LiveSent.com.

NOTES:

[1] Shared here with permission.

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Source: Shifting From Gospel Presentation to Gospel Presence

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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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