There’s an ongoing metaphor here at the Transformation 09 Conference at Perimeter Church. It’s the idea of an archer who shoots an arrow into a wall, then walks over to the wall and draws a big circle right around where the arrow hit. Everyone then celebrates the bull’s eye!
Of course, that’s ridiculous! But is that how we approach discipleship in our churches?
Do we know what the target is? What is discipleship? What does a mature follower of Jesus look like? If we don’t know the answer to those questions, then the only way to claim that our discipleship efforts are being successful is if we shoot our ministry arrow first, then define success based on what we hit.
Perimeter Church has a philosophy of discipleship that they call “Life-on-Life Missional Discipleship.” Here is how Perimeter Church has defined a mature disciple. A mature and equipped follower of Jesus is one who:
- Lives consistently under the control of the Holy Spirit, the direction of the Word of God, and the motivation of the love of Christ
- Has discovered, developed and is using their spiritual gift(s)
- Has learned to effectively share their faith while demonstrating Christ’s amazing love
- Gives strong evidence of being.
- A faithful member of God’s church
- An effective manager of life, relationships and resources
- A willing minister to others, especially “the least and lost”, and
- An available messenger to non-kingdom people.
- Demonstrates a life striving to be:
- Gospel driven
- Worship focused
- Morally pure
- Evangelistically bold
- Discipleship grounded
- Family faithful, and
- Socially responsible
