Disciple-Making Preaching
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” - 2 Timothy 4:1-4 (ESV)
So, what is discipleship and how do we do it within the life of the local church? Those are the main questions we strive to answer in The Bonhoeffer Project. On the surface they may seem simplistic, given your personal and ecclesiological history, but are they? Once we get “into the weeds” of the biblical text, especially in Jesus’ teaching and the interpretation of the New Testament writers, we begin to see a much richer, diverse, and even challenging call to disciple-making. As such, some foundational and very practical questions arise. How did Jesus make disciples? Is discipleship for everyone in the church or just for a select few? Is the best disciple-making done one-on-one, in small groups, or in large groups? How do we develop a strategy/roadmap/pipeline, etc. for disciple-making in our church? Is there a “right” curriculum or should we even worry about that at all? (By the way, we help you answer questions like these in a Bonhoeffer Project cohort, so join one today). In this article, I want to attack a question that has come up both in conferences and in cohort settings. Is the act and art of preaching a form of disciple-making?
Though I have taught and preached for almost 30 years in the local church, I became a lead communicator (Senior Pastor) nine years ago. Before that I was a Youth Pastor for 15 years and an Executive Pastor for 5 years. As I took up the mantle of Senior Pastor, the weight of directing the teaching/preaching in our main worship gatherings felt heavy on my shoulders. One of the goals I sensed the Lord leading me to accomplish in this role was not to necessarily grow a large church, but a healthy church in all its facets. Over the course of the next few years, we worked diligently as a team to develop a sustainable disciple-making strategy for our local congregation. As we did, another question arose in my heart and mind. How does my preaching/teaching fit into our vision for disciple-making? Should it stand out as separate (or maybe even above) those things we do on the ground to make disciples or should it be integrated into the overall vision of what Jesus commissioned His church to do?
Honestly, as I talk to Senior Pastors, pastoral staff, and laity around the world, I am shocked at the disconnect between the vision of many Senior Pastors and staff members regarding disciple-making. The gap between preaching and disciple-making processes seems wide and deep. In other words, in many settings, what happens on Sunday mornings is foreign from what happens throughout the rest of the week in the life of the church. I have heard many staff members lament the lack of vision for making disciples from the pulpit. I have also heard from Senior Pastors who are terrified of changing the paradigm in their churches from what they have known as “success” (programmed-based, numbers driven, etc…) to a disciple-making model. As such, preaching and disciple-making become separate entities, only meeting on rare occasions and parting company before any kind of revolution can take place.
As you can probably tell, I do think that the act and art of preaching is a form of disciple-making. Let me be very clear here: Preaching is by no means the end of disciple-making in the local church but should be a catalyst for moving both people and processes forward toward a disciple-making vision.
So, why is there such a disconnect between preaching and disciple-making in the local church? May I offer several suggestions?
1. Pastors have not been discipled and are not making disciples.
One of the most heart-breaking truths that we are learning in The Bonhoeffer Project is that many pastors have never been personally discipled. They have been to bible college, seminary, or have advanced academic degrees, but were never taken under wing by another person or a small group and taught to walk with Jesus. As such, a disciple-making DNA was never imparted to them. Since this is the case, their vision for the local church becomes something other than disciple-making or an impotent form of it. Because some pastors have not been discipled and are not making disciples, their preaching is not centered around disciple-making.
2. Preaching is seen as separate and not integrated into a disciple-making process.
As mentioned above, when disciple-making is not a priority, preaching becomes something other and disciple-making is relegated to programs that other staff facilitate.
3. There is no intentional vision for preaching.
Bill Hull states, “Remember, if you don’t have a plan, you don’t really intend to do anything. And if your plan has no timeline, it falls short of actually being a plan”.1 This is true in implementing a disciple-making strategy, and it is true in implementing a preaching strategy. What is your goal in preaching? Whatever style you champion, what is the vision for your preaching/teaching? Does your preaching intentionally drive and support your disciple-making strategy? With all love and honesty, I would say that if it doesn’t, you either don’t have a very effective plan or don’t see the intentionality between your preaching and your plan.
At our church, we have seven foundations for our disciple-making strategy. Each of these foundations help to form a platform from which our people grow toward a Christ-centered life. They include:
The Life of Christ
Spiritual Practices
Biblical Study
Theological Foundations
Healthy Relationships
Missions and Evangelism
Servant Leadership
As you can see, these foundations are very general, but they provide a biblical basis for preaching, teaching, and doing ministry. In fact, all of my preaching/teaching aligns with one of these categories. (I even put the specific foundation at the top of the notes taking page for a sermon/series to tie what I am preaching to our disciple-making strategy).
4. Pastors have a faulty view of “success”.
In the past, and even today, much success in ministry has been based on “nickels and noses”, or money and attendance. At best, these are effective measurements of resources and influence. At worst, they define the pastor’s personal worth and standing in the Kingdom of God. When our success is defined in this way, we have fallen into a dangerous trap. I grew up in Dallas, Texas. Following a Dallas Cowboys game on Sunday, the local sports radio station would host a show called “Over-Reaction Monday”. They would evaluate the ‘Boys win or loss to the minute detail. Each week they were either the best team in the NFL or in need of a total rebuild. Does this sound familiar? Is this what your Monday looks like? If so, I bet you are evaluating based on “nickels and noses”. Bill Hull says that pastors should not be evaluated and rewarded on such paradigms but “on how many disciple-makers they produce and what kind of people their church sends into the world”.2 I have found that when we change the metrics of success to disciple-making it changes both our emotional and spiritual health, as well as our preaching.
5. Pastors are allowing the culture to dictate their preaching.
Back to Paul’s words in 2 Timothy 4:1-4; Paul’s injunction to Timothy is to “preach the word”. In other words, Scripture is the foundation for our preaching, not the culture or its current crisis. That is not to say that we shouldn’t integrate what is going on in the world into our preaching, but when we allow the crisis to direct our preaching, we can easily be led to the conclusions of our personal opinions instead of the truth of God’s word. Therefore, Paul tells Timothy to “be ready in season and out of season”. In other words, we are to be consistent in our message regardless of the current local or world situation. As such, we are to move those entrusted to us toward maturity in Christ through our preaching. We do so as we “reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching”. Those we lead will pressure us to change our message. They “will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths”. If we are going to be disciple-making preachers, we must be strong in preaching the word of God, even when challenged by those we love.
Does your preaching/teaching lead to disciple-making? If not, why? What needs to immediately change in you and your ministry context for this to happen? What are 1-2 steps you need to take to make this happen?
1 Bill Hull, Conversion and Discipleship: You Can't Have One without the Other (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016), 211.
2 Ibid, 233.
