This article originally appeared here and is reprinted with permission.

Patiently…

It’s also the only way to make a community, multiply a community, and plant new communities in a healthy way. But it’s also not the American way, nor the American church way. We want to treat discipleship like it functions on a factory assembly line, having people line up at the front, add specific theology, life, and behavior along the way and come out the other end as a perfectly equipped disciple. That’s a program for education and not a process of discipleship.

Patient Discipleship

Discipleship is really messy and more of a slower process than we want or realize. The strongest amongst us can find ourselves in the most difficult of circumstances, the lowest of spiritual times, and even find ourselves in difficult patterns of sin. The same is true of every believer.

Discipleship has often been viewed as an up-and-to-the-right straight process of successful growth, but discipleship is way messier than that, involves setbacks, patience, and a belief in the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ to overcome every sin, struggle, and trial. The only way we will make actual disciples of Jesus instead of religious look-alikes is to embrace the mess, get dirty ourselves, and push through the mud to model Jesus’ incarnation.

I recently was asked to teach on discipleship and wanted to provide a definition. I settled on discipleship is a process of becoming like Jesus Christ in our affections, our thoughts, and our behavior.

I’m sure I stole this from someone, somewhere, or mashed it together from the many blogs and sermons I’ve listened to over time, but I don’t remember where. I’m sure someone will graciously email me to let me know. There is nothing new under the sun.

A Process of Becoming Like Jesus Christ

The Scriptures all point to Jesus and Romans 8 directs us to the aim of our salvation as being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. It begins with God’s work of regeneration and in Romans 8:30 it moves quickly from justified to glorified, but a lot happens in the middle.

The stress, struggles, and sinfulness of life gets in the way to remind us that we are not like Christ at all. We find ourselves discouraged if we keep looking at these snapshots of our lives that involve fear, guilt, and shame. It can leave us wondering if we will ever “get there” as a disciple.

If we begin to see discipleship as a process with many iterations, like the iOS system on an iPhone, we would find more peace, joy, and hope in the struggle of everyday life. Each day then allows us to experience more of God, realize more of our need to be conformed and trust that God’s Word is true, that He will conform us to Jesus.

We can then see ourselves as being formed into a beautiful statue worthy of the Louvre, but needing pieces carved away, refined, and added to fully look like the artist’s design.

Our Affections

The first area that God seems concerned with is our affections. When Jesus is asked what is ultimate, He immediately goes to love in the greatest commandments. He follows that with the great one another, revealing we are disciples by loving fellow brothers and sisters as Jesus Himself loves us. Only then does mission make any sense.

Our desires overwhelm our thoughts and move us to action. The most intellectual can be swayed by the cravings within them. Each day our actions reveal a depth of desire that needs to find its spring in Jesus and no longer in our self. In light of this, worship, Scripture, prayer, fasting, and other devotional practices actual appear to be the gifts that God declares them to be, the means by which our affections get redirected and conformed appropriately.

Our designer recognizes our need and gives us a new heart in our new birth, so our affections can have a reset button to be more like Jesus.

Our Thoughts

But God has not made us as beings only governed by our heart, which is great news for all of us. As He gives us a new heart, He has also written eternity on it so that it can join God’s Word in renewing our mind.

In Romans 12, Paul calls the Romans to not be conformed to FOXNEWS, CNN, or your favorite cultural narrative, but to be transformed by the renewing of their minds. The challenge from the Scriptures is to take every thought captive and conform it to Christ, but we are typically too lazy and prideful for this activity.

In comes Sunday gatherings and church community where we need the space to be challenged, have our thoughts exposed, and find a hospitable place where we can be vulnerable about the natural thoughts of the mind. Instead of embracing our individualism, we must embrace our identity in Christ as the new definer of our thoughts.

We will then begin to see that right loves with right thoughts lead to right behavior.

Our Behavior

Our behavior is where most of us in church start as we consider what needs to be changed, which is so American self-help therapy of us. More than that I’m sure is our natural desire to make everything a religious do-this, don’t-do-that law that would make our hearts and minds satisfied.

The order of my definition was intentional. God’s covenant promise is to change our hearts, purifying us by the blood of Jesus Christ, transforming us by His death and resurrection, so that our lives will be drastically different. Lasting and significant change comes from the inside out, not merely by cleaning up the outside.

I’ve seen no one change their behavior for a long period of time without their loves and thoughts changing first. Anyone who has tried this has found that they become more frustrated in life, and begin to live two different lifestyles without any real joy.

But we also can’t shy away from calling people to change in their behavior to be like Jesus. Our behavior reveals our thoughts and our affections, allowing us to address the full breadth of conformity to Jesus.

One day the process will end…

The good news is that one day the process will end. The mess will become marvelous, the ashes will become beauty, and the perishable will become imperishable. Jesus will come to get us at a trumpet’s blare or welcome us home at physical death and we will experience that final rest and perfection we want.

Until then, Jesus promises rest, peace, joy, and patience as His Spirit works in us to be reminded that we are sons or daughters of God by faith in Christ, not our progress in the process of discipleship.

This gives me great freedom from obsessive navel gazing, great freedom to repent and turn to joy in Jesus, and great patience with myself and others. We believers are all on this same path together regardless of our roles in the church.

In some churches and missional communities, this means that we need to chill out on the constant challenging of one another, have a little fun, and enjoy life as we enjoy Jesus. In others, we need to stop being so shocked that sin exists in our leaders, the long-term Christian, and the newest member of the community.

Jesus has grace and patience when His disciples sin, when He confronts someone new to His ideas, and He takes a long-term approach to them and us as He loves us to make us like Himself.

This makes it clear that there is only one way to make disciples … patiently.


This article originally appeared here and is reprinted with permission from the author. Logan Gentry currently serve as the Associate Pastor for Lower Manhattan Community Church in New York City. He has previously served as a Lead Pastor, Executive Pastor, and Community Pastor at other churches in NYC. His experience has focused on visionary leadership, missional communities, leadership development and church planting initiatives. Logan regularly assists churches in creating, cultivating, and implementing ministries to meet the needs of their congregation and engage their context with the gospel of Jesus Christ as a coach and consultant. Logan is married to Amber, they have three children and live in Manhattan.