6min chapter

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Episode 7: Discipleship Matter with Joseph Brasher

Young Adults TN (YA Podcast)

CHAPTER

The Importance of Discipleship and Evangelism in Church

A discussion on the concept of discipleship and its connection with evangelism, emphasizing the importance of both aspects for a valuable church.

00:00
Speaker 2
You know, I think there's been a push over the past several years. It seems like there is at least on this concept or this idea of discipleship. You know, I just feel like that term is being used a lot more now than it was maybe 10 years ago, whatever there's more books being written about it. It seems like there's a huge emphasis on it. Can you just like for those who are listening or maybe struggling because we do seem to latch on like one thing or the other? And so some churches are like, well, our church is really big on evangelism or, or, you know, our church is really big on discipleship. Will you kind of define for us a little bit discipleship and then that relationship with discipleship and evangelism and how, you know, we should balance those in our church life? Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah, definitely. You know, I mean, when you get down to the most basic definition of discipleship, I mean, you can go even to, you know, websters and, you know, all those things. I mean, it, it simply just means one that is a follower, right? Somebody that is following after what, you know, somebody's teaching, you know, and I think about, you know, back during the original, you know, the way that it was set up even when the Jewish system is that you had people that were following other people and they would follow these rabbis. And when are they, you know, if the rabbi had Carly Hare going down side of his face, well, you know what that, that guy was going to have curly hair going down side of his face. You tried to look as much like your rabbi as you possibly did. And so, you know, that was such an important thing of how now whenever we think about discipleship, you know, we're, we're called, we are followers of who Jesus Christ. And that means then that my life is to look as much like Jesus Christ. Now that doesn't mean that we're going around wearing, you know, sashes or different things like what they wore during that time. But I'm just saying for, for us today, what does this mean? It means that we are to continue to learn. That's what discipleship involves, involves us continuing to learn, involves our lifestyle. You know, how, how's my life look more like Jesus? And I think that's a great question for even a young adult to stop and think about in my workplace at school, in my marriage as a parent. How am I looking more like Jesus every single day? And then how am I just trusting and following him, meaning that I've got to look at God's word that tells me how I'm going to be a disciple and I've got to say, do I really trust this? And if I really say that I trust in Jesus and I trust in his word, that's going to inform how I'm going to live. And therefore I know how to follow him. I know as well that whenever temptation comes, what do I need to do, right? Whenever a life decision comes up, what do I need to do, right? These are the things that are so valuable for us. Now, where it comes to the whole discussion about discipleship evangelism, I get different churches get on different, you know, sides of that spectrum in different ways. But I think what we've really done here at New Vision and I think it's, I think this is just healthy overall for a church is, is you got to look at it. And I think even, you know, what Tennessee Badness says is that it's, you know, it's two sides of the same coin. You got to have the evangelism side. You got to have the discipleship side. And so we cannot deny by any kind of means that Jesus was an evangelist, right? You cannot deny it. You can't look and say, well, you know, no, Jesus, you know, he was just simply focused on his 12 disciples. Yes, he spent time with them, but you look at how he interacted, he taught how he, there was transformation. There were people that were following him. That is a picture of evangelism that's happening. But then there was the discipleship side where he took the disciples. He sent them out two by two. He sent them out and he said, Hey, go with this authority. And then you go back to the Great Commission, you know, go and live this out for the glory of God. And you know, those are, are valuable things. So you have to see there's the two sides that are there. And you may emphasize one thing, you know, just in practice of your church, but you cannot avoid the other side of the coin. Because if you're going to avoid the other side of the coin, you know what, that coin is going to be worthless. If you try to only have a one sided coin, it's going to be worthless. And so you got to have both sides for it to be a real coin, for it to be something that's of value. And so in our church today, you got to have both, both sides of that. And I think sometimes we, we can get caught up on these both ends, but if you're not bringing that together in any type of way, I mean, you're, you're really missing out on the fullness of what we're called to express as followers of Christ. So I hope that kind of steps in a little bit of that. And, you know,
Speaker 2
I,
Speaker 1
you know, sometimes it may look a little bit different from culture to culture in context of context of you may be in the context of where, you know, you're having your, you're engaging in more gospel conversations on a regular basis. Okay. You know, but you still got to have the bedrock foundations there, discipleship to help those people become multipliers that you do lead to Christ. But you also as well, you may be in a context of where, you know, your church, you've got disciple followers, you got people that have been there for a long time. How are you engaging them to help them go out and spread the gospel? You know, we can't, we can't just take this truth and just go hide it away, you know, by any kind of means we've got to, we've got to share it. And that's the, that's a call that we have no matter where we are, no matter what context, no matter what age that we are by any kind of means. Yeah.

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