Kedo Peseyie
I have often heard people preaching on certain principles of leadership, or ten essentials of discipleship, or four sure ways to fire up your spiritual life, etc. I often think they are only fine ways of marketing one’s nice thoughts on life in general with some nice biblical quotations that fit into them quite accidentally. After all, this is the age of marketing strategies and selling your products. But we forget most of them, and may never try to apply them. I also hear people preaching on rules and regulations from the Bible, some dos and don’ts (Ah! I have preached them too!). But life is more than that. Recently I have been struggling with what discipleship really is and how do we go about “making disciples” as Jesus commanded.
Discipleship is clearly a very important part of the great commission, but I feel we have not entirely understood what discipleship really is. I look at what is happening in our churches and fellowships and I come to the conclusion that what is happening there cannot be called discipleship. There are a lot of “nice Christians” as one of my friend called them. It’s nice to talk to them and hang out with them; they are decent, well dressed and respectful. But are they disciples? I don’t think so. Placed in situations other than the church, they loose their niceness, their effectiveness, their confidence. In the church they are active, but outside they are like mice—too meek, too humble, or too proud and condescending. Are they really zealous for the Lord outside the church? I don’t think so.
It is for reasons such as these that we need to rethink what discipleship really is. Some people think that by not eating or drinking certain things they are doing well in their Christian life. I don’t think so. Bible says God looks at the heart. Jesus said that what goes inside is not what makes you unclean, but it is what comes out from inside you that makes you unclean.
When I was younger, I literally grew up in a church and there was a lot of emphasis on dos and don’ts: don’t eat this, don’t drink that, don’t go there, don’t watch this, etc. When I was baptised I was asked some questions. I am sure there were some good questions, but the emphasis was given to the negative ones because those are the only ones I remember being asked: “will you promise not to eat this, do that, go there, and drink that?” I said yes, and later when I failed I felt miserable and like a failure.
After I was baptised, I developed some habits in school (dangerous habits taught to me by my own church friend). And my whole Christian life revolved around those habits. I tried to stop and failed. I threw it into the dust bin and collected it afterwards. Then I said, “OK, week days it’s OK, but never on Sundays.” And I failed again. My world was confined to small things and I was not challenged to think big, dream big and plan my life to do great things. Someone rightly said that young people today are under-challenged. How true. My greatest victory was stopping these bad habits. But now I look back and realise how very small my view and my life was. I was not challenged to go out and GET A LIFE!! I am not blaming anyone but that is the tradition I grew up in, and I know that this is still the tradition many youths are still growing up in our churches and families. The challenge is this:
GET A LIFE THAT IS BIGGER THAN YOURSELF!!
What I am trying to say is simply this: don’t limit yourself and your life by focussing on the negative commandments. Some people say the Bible is negative and the Ten Commandments are all “THOU SHALL NOT…!!” But have you ever wondered that there are only TEN commandments? Only TEN thou-shall-not(s). And have you ever wondered how many things there are in the world you can do? For every negative commandment that says “Thou shall not” there are thousands of things you are allowed to do. You can pick up a stone and throw it into the water and enjoy the ripple. You can pluck a flower and smell it. You can go watch a good movie. You can go enjoy jokes with your friends. You can learn to play a guitar. You can dream and plan for your future and learn a new skill every month. The list is endless. If the Bible were to record all of them, it would be too tiresome and we would not bother to read it. So it makes more sense for the Bible to record just the forbidden ones and leave the rest for us to explore and enjoy. GO OUT AND GET A LIFE!!
Some important elements of Discipleship are Bible reading, prayer, fellowship, devotion time, witnessing, etc. But Discipleship is much more than that too. It is about GETTING A LIFE! About dreams, about learning to use your skills, talents, contributing something to society, and very much about the kind of profession you take up, about loving yourself, loving people and loving God.
I have seen many young people backslide and many others doing well as disciples. Why do young people backslide? I believe one reason is because many of them cannot find their skills, talents and calling in life and when they are not contributing something to the fellowship, church, society, etc they feel worthless and they move away. The ones doing well as disciples are usually those who have found their place and role in the church and society. We have to help young people find their place and role in church and society and not just teach them to sing choruses, read Bible and pray.
Your discipleship process has to cover the whole of life. “Once there was no secular…” as someone said. But in our modern world, there are too much distinctions between sacred and secular. Naga Idol is secular, Praise explosion is Christian. Rock music is secular, praise & worship music is divine. Politicians are secular, Pastors are sacred. Haven’t you heard that before? It’s a lie.
There is nothing in this world that God did not create. But the sad part is that there is also nothing in this world that the Devil did not corrupt. Take one example: power and sex. God created both. The Devil corrupted it and twisted it. And today we seem to like the twisted and corrupted version better than the original one. Don’t let the Devil deceive you with his corrupted versions. Always go for God’s original versions and you will never fail to enjoy life. GK Chesterton once said that he had learned to be grateful for wine by not drinking too much of it. (that is somewhat dangerous for us Nagas, but there a point worth thinking over). Keep the TEN Commandments. But don’t complain about missing to do only TEN things when you have a thousand other things you can do and enjoy life.
I believe the Bible is a book about relationships. I have learned to look at life, ministry, leadership and discipleship from the perspective of relationships. Get a life! And I would like to say today that this starts by focussing on relationships.
Life is all about relationships. Ministry is all about relationships. Discipleship and leadership is also about relationships. It is about learning to have the right relationship with yourself, your neighbour and with God. If these three levels of relationship are not right in your life, all other things will go haywire. Your goals and vision will be blurred; your understanding of yourself and God will be narrowed. In the next few weeks I hope I will be able to write about these three levels of relationship more elaborately. But until then, let us remember that it is a relationship we have with God, not some rules and regulations we must keep.
