DISCIPLESHIP 101

From Failure to Freedom

The same scenario played out time after time in our home when our girls were young. Our family of five sits around the dinner table to enjoy a meal. Sort of. With three little girls, it's hard to get anyone to actually sit their bottoms in a chair for five minutes, let alone through an entire meal. And as far as enjoying that meal, well, that's a relative term. Squirmy kids. Picky eaters. Long days. I'll just be honest and say that dinnertime with little kids isn't always the Ozzie-and-Harriet scenario I want it to be.

So there we are, just trying to get through another meal, when my husband looks at me and says, "Should we try it tonight?" I know what he means because we've talked about this so many times I could recite it by memory.

Family devotions. The concept fills us with both anticipation and dread.

Anticipation, because tonight might be the night we have a breakthrough. What if tonight one of the girls "gets it" and begins to appreciate what we are trying to do?

Dread, because we're pretty sure we know how this will go down. We've traveled the family devotions road before, usually with a crash-and-burn ending. Why can't we seem to get this right? Why do these few moments never go as well as we hoped? And our biggest fear: Are we failing our kids?

My husband, Brian, and I both think having family devotions is something we're supposed to do after dinner. It has been ingrained in us since before we even had kids. Every good Christian family has devotions. After dinner. Every night.

Right?

Except us. We can't seem to make it work. One girl is too young and keeps getting up from the table, even though we've told her a hundred times to stay in her seat. Another is crying because she hates peas and doesn't want to eat them and we're making her. Another is eager to learn but keeps talking over her sisters.

With each passing non-family-devotional day, our guilt mounts.

Brian grabs the devotional book we've been working through for the past year — I think we're on chapter 2. He starts to read. Julia jumps from the table to let the dog out. Caroline moves the peas around on her plate. Kate is engaged ... maybe just a little too engaged since she's the only one talking.

Finally, Dad gets frustrated and puts the book away. "We'll try it again another time," he says, his slumped shoulders revealing his defeat.

I'm just over it. Between trying to wrangle the kids to sit in their chairs and act interested in what should be a precious family moment, all I can think about is how late it's going to be before I get the mess from dinner cleaned up. And the homework done. Never mind piano practice.

Brian and I have discussed our mutual concerns about the family devotions scenario. Why are we trying to fit this square peg into a round hole? Will we ruin our kids forever by forcing family devotions? Is this what discipleship looks like? Why should we bother?

We know that we bear the responsibility of teaching our children about Jesus — we feel it deeply. But what exactly does that look like? What should it look like? All we know is that it doesn't look like the scene around our table after dinner.

* * *

Later, I scan my memory of the New Testament. Jesus had disciples. What did he do?

I remember a dinnertime scene in which Jesus taught his disciples, but he didn't open a book or read from a set of ancient scrolls. You know what he did? He stooped down and washed the disciples' feet (John 13:1–9). He instructed them by showing them what a life lived with him looked like. In that instance, it looked like service.

Sure, there were other meals and other moments of discipleship in the New Testament, but for some reason I cannot think of a single scene in which Jesus and his friends stopped to read the Bible, or perhaps a devotional book, and discuss what it meant after they finished eating a meal. Not one.

What I see in the Bible are many scenes of Jesus and his disciples walking down a road or through a field or in a village. Living life. And then something would happen, and Jesus would stop what he was doing to tell the disciples how the situation fit with what Christ had come to do. He would explain the gospel in everyday terms so his disciples would understand it.

Yes, Jesus explained the Scriptures; he did a lot of Scripture teaching. But I don't see his teaching as structured time right after dinner when people are tired, worn-out from their day, thinking about the homework that needs to be done or the instruments that still need practicing. I think Jesus understood that the best time to teach was when his disciples were listening.

A Parent's Number One Role

Thinking of Jesus and his disciples brings me to the focus of this book: discipleship. I believe with all my heart that parents are and should be the primary influence in the lives of their children, especially where matters of faith are involved. I want for my children what Paul wanted for the Colossians when he wrote, "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving" (Col. 2:6–7). Paul feels burdened that the Colossian people, now that they have heard the truth about Jesus, grow in Christ, and throughout the book he offers several suggestions about what that life in Christ should look like in their lives. My job as a parent is to bring the truth of Christ to my children every day, and to intentionally guide them throughout their lives so that they will grow deep roots of faith. That's discipleship.

In this book, we will look closely at several areas of discipleship, particularly discipleship with intentionality. Because without intentionality we may very well feel as though we're treading water, never really getting anywhere, and, on most days, like a failure.

Discipleship, in its simplest terms, means teaching and learning the basic principles of faith. There are those who teach, who disciple (a verb), and there are those who learn, who are disciples (a noun). This discipleship scenario implies a relationship between those who teach and those who learn, and it also implies a subject matter that is deeply important to...