Several years ago I ran across a poem that stopped me cold. It’s titled All My Friends Are Finding New Beliefs by Christian Witman. Here’s the excerpt that tugged at my heart that day:
All my friends are finding new beliefs
And I am finding it harder and harder to keep track
Of the new gods and the new loves
And the old gods and the old loves
This poem put words to a dizzying feeling I’d noticed in myself. Amid all the swirling conversations—political, religious, spiritual, moral and whatever else—there are so many options, and every year a new belief or doubt washes onto the shore of daily life. Everyone seems to have a wild, anything-goes approach to curating their life, themselves, or their beliefs.
Feeling the Weight of Discipling
Many of us have experienced a time when someone shares an Instagram story, TikTok video, or viral post that sounds good on the surface, but is actually bad. Maybe it’s a glib, scathing take, a half-true/one-sided manifesto, or a downright heretical or dangerous idea. Other times it can be an awesome voice with deep insights and an invitation to a life that is truly life. Taken altogether, the shifting cultural winds and all the online content at our fingertips feel like the sampler platter that forms discipleship in our day. It’s easier to take one up and consume at will, rather than study, reflect, pray, or love. We are often digitally discipled.
Leaders especially can feel the weight of all the ways their people are discipled. Whether you pastor a church, lead students, disciple individuals for a larger ministry, or want to wisely parent your children, how do you help the people you care for choose a wise path? Find trusted resources? Attend to wise mentors? Adopt proven practices? And how do you do that well in an on-demand, asynchronous, free-for-all world that’s increasingly isolated, divided, and dominated by media feeds?
I don’t have prescriptions to offer for all times and all places, but I can offer some wisdom from the challenges of my own journey of walking this road.
Give Up Control
It starts with giving up on (and repenting of) your desire to control your peoples’ discipleship choices. Whether it is the students and families you serve, the people who hear you preach or teach, or even your own children, you are not in control. Even with the kindest heart and the right ends, you might be tempted to control steps, systems, or outcomes for the greater good. Beware of that impulse.
That said, do accept your role as an under-shepherd wherever you serve. Lead and guide people as God directs and permits. By all means, identify and cultivate the structures, systems, ethos, and environments that enable your community to become a place where, by grace, good things grow wild. I’ve come to settle on four actions here that I think are wise guides.
1. Point out the paths (and walk them yourself).
Don’t shrink back from pointing people where to go and what steps to take. This might include who to listen to and learn from or what environments and opportunities may lead to growth. We as leaders serve best as waypoints to greater journeys, not endpoints ourselves.
Can you articulate clear opportunities—or better yet the pathways—that may lead someone to grow up in grace and maturity? Do you have a clear, clean list of steps a person could take as a seeker? A beginner? A leader? If not, create one. Then display it, share it, reference it, and revise and adapt it as needed. Invite people into those pathways regularly.
Almost all of us are in a church or ministry context that invests some spiritual authority in leaders when giving them opportunities to preach and teach. Accept that and embrace your teaching as a wise steward. Ask for help and guidance here. Where you have standards, covenants, statements of belief, membership or ministry partnerships, hold them up. Let your discipleship offerings use these and rely on them deeply rather than working against their grain. Call those making membership commitments to responsibility and accountability.
2. Lead them to the resources that will best feed, nourish, and train them.
Be the wise scribe who brings out the best of the Scriptures and your tradition. Maybe that is articles or books, podcasts, interviews, sermons, courses, classes, or studies. Create space to dive into them together.
We’ve known for some time that too many choices can create a cognitive overload that paralyzes rather than helps in making a decision. Who among us has not endlessly scrolled for a show or movie and then watched nothing? I remember a persistent salesperson for a large media ministry who promised me and those in our church unfettered access to many thousands of the best Christian video resources—as if having instantly available content for groups from famous names was the secret sauce. Instead, help your people choose wisely.
Ask yourself: If someone listens to or learns from you regularly, where would they turn if they wanted to go deeper? Do you cite your sources, share lists of recommended resources, or show what you are learning?
I will never forget a conversation with someone in our church community seven years ago. He had been immersed in a nine-month program that integrates faith and work. During the program, he read some rich spiritual classics. When we bonded over a shared love of one of those, Martin Luther’s On Christian Liberty, he paused and looked at me and said, “Andy, why have I been in church for 20 years and no one told me about this? No one invited me to read these!” I had no good answer then, but I left determined to never leave people asking me that.
So share solid, deep resources. Don’t shrink back from recommending them to any and all who ask. But as you do, beware of the temptation toward a prideful “better than xyz person/ministry” mentality. When we invite people toward something deeper and better, it’s not because we or our ministries are “better” than others. “‘Knowledge’ puffs up, but love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1). We offer what we know, in humble service, as those who have freely received ourselves.
3. Attend to the messy and mysterious practices of love.
I am increasingly convinced that the test for faithfulness and fruitfulness is personal relationships. It is easy to kid yourself or others that you are growing and mature if you are only online, in a crowd, on a stage, or alone. You have much less chance of hiding your heart in the home, in friendships, in your neighborhood, community, or workplace. This is why Jesus says so plainly that they will know us by our love (John 13:35)—not our positions, posts, or platforms. They will know us by our sacrificial service, not our clips, kudos, or curated images. Interpersonal relationships in the church are the best witness to the love of Christ to the watching world.
Can you say to someone seeking Christ and his life, “Join us! Come into our community, family, or friendships. Stay awhile and begin to be reshaped and reformed in the way of Jesus as we take up his cross”? The local church fellowship is charged to “walk worthily” in our communal life and witness before a watching, non-Christian world (Phil. 1:27). As Darrel Guder says in The Continuing Conversion of the Church, the church is the Spirit-breathed, cross-shaped, alternative community in the world “that lives its message publicly, transparently, and vulnerably” in light of its God-given future.
4. Help people hunger and thirst for what really satisfies.
I’ve been struck lately by how bold the Scriptures are in calling for our hunger and thirst to be satisfied in Christ. It’s led me to wonder how I might awaken those desires for my people and point them to their true fulfillment in Christ. Sometimes exposing and awakening a need kickstarts the journey. And sometimes the need you expose and admit to is your own.
Are you attentive to the spiritual hunger and curiosity of the people and culture around you? Can you identify the stories we live by, and how they are satisfied in Christ? Do you pray for the Spirit to work and awaken the hearts and minds of those you serve? And do you do this for yourself?
Let me draw an analogy here. I love to cook. I often think about what we are eating—where it’s from, why we choose it, and what it will produce. Delight and gratitude are key to that last one. I was the family chef for most of the time our kids were in school. I learned that I can’t control the eating habits of our family, but I can take care with what I serve and influence how we eat when we’re home.
In the same manner, we ought to care about what we are teaching and making accessible—where it’s from, why we’re choosing it, and what it will produce. We cannot control the “eating habits” of our church families, but we can take care with what we serve. By God’s grace, over time, our churches and ministries will be sources of stable, tasty food that feeds the soul.
Hope in God’s Word
Sometimes I’m discouraged by what people consume and how (un)seriously they take God’s call, but I am not dismayed. I know that my own heart has to constantly recall the gospel and to remember to look to Jesus’ wisdom and grace. I also continue to believe that person-to-person, communal relationships are the most transformative means of walking in the way of Jesus and finding the rest he gives. There is no substitute for the quiet, practical habits of reading, reflecting, praying, worshipping, and serving together. We believe that God is always on the move by his Spirit, always calling us to “stand by the roads and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and find rest for your souls” (Jer. 6:16).
Our Relational Discipleship resource page is full of encouragement and practical help in how to make disciples of students by investing in their lives.
