Jay Glenn Sunberg
Editor’s note: The first half of this article was published in the previous issue of the East-West Church and Ministry 21 (Fall 2013): 10-13.
The Initial Weekend Seminar
After the six participants committed to taking part in the Sofia Discipleship Project, dates for an initial weekend seminar and the 10-week project itself were negotiated. Due to changes in participants’ schedules beyond their control, the initial weekend seminar was condensed into four hours on a Sunday morning. Since two participants (P1 and P2) no longer live in Bulgaria, SKYPE was employed to provide the initial weekend seminar consisting of five main components. The first involved an exploration of a biblical definition of discipleship based on James 1:27 which sets forth compassion and holiness as the key ingredients.
The second seminar component examined Wesley’s theology and practice of personal piety, including class members’ commitment to watch over each other’s spiritual development, the band (a more intense and intimate form of group accountability), “works of mercy” and “works of piety,” and Wesley’s insistence on the importance of visiting the poor. The third seminar component explored contemporary applications of Wesley’s practice. David Lowes Watson’s work was especially helpful in redefining Wesley’s “works of mercy” as “acts of compassion” and “acts of justice,” and his “works of piety” as “acts of worship” and “acts of devotion.”
The fourth seminar component enumerated discipleship project expectations. Participants were expected to complete all assignments thoroughly and honestly, knowing that their identity would be protected. Participants were also expected to report honestly on their progress each week by “checking in” on the project website on Saturday or Sunday of each week. Finally, participants were highly encouraged to engage their fellow participants each week with either encouraging or admonishing comments on the website as necessary.
The final seminar component dealt with the working out of the specifics of a covenant statement. Participants discussed what specific discipleship practices they considered to be the most essential and confirmed their commitment to the newly created covenant statement by either signing the document itself, or by sending an email indicating their affirmation of the statement.
Spiritual Autobiographies and the Initial Weekly Activity Log
The first of the initial assignments for participants was the writing of a spiritual autobiography, the purpose of which was to give an opportunity for each to articulate how they had seen God’s hand at work in their lives. They also were asked to describe their call to ministry and to give an assessment of their current spiritual lives.
The second assignment given to participants was a weekly activity log which identified participants’ allocation and prioritization of their time. The log was designed to provide answers to three questions. 1) Do data from the week activity log support participant claims of busy schedules? 2) Is the travel time required for urban life and work truly prohibitive enough to warrant participants’ hesitation to give time to another weekly meeting? 3) Finally, what does the weekly log indicate about the priority of spiritual practices in individual lives? Participants’ autobiographies and activity logs were made available to all other participants who, in turn, were then given the opportunity to comment on each other’s assignments with words of encouragement or admonition as necessary.
The Course of the Project
In summary, the ten-week group discipleship project committed participants to do their best to keep their discipleship commitments and to record their progress on the project website at the end of each week. They were also strongly encouraged to dialog weekly with fellow participants, providing encouragement or admonition as needed. Participants received an e-mail at the beginning of each week reminding them of their commitments, instructing them again on what was expected and encouraging them to do their best throughout the coming week.
At the end of the first week, participants had their first website “check in,” similar to accountability reporting at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Participants were simply to check a box if they adequately completed the discipleship task for the week. They were then encouraged to write an overall comment about their experience for the week. Participants received additional e-mails most weeks of the project to encourage them as well as to give further instructions as needed.
In the sixth week, near the middle of the project, the first face-to-face participants’ meeting occurred. Since participants were in three different countries at the time of the meeting, the meeting was done through SKYPE technology. The purpose of the face-toface meeting was to personalize the project, to give participants the opportunity to “check in” personally, to provide encouragement, and to answer any remaining questions. Participants expressed frustration with their project experience due to the busyness of their schedules. Other tasks and responsibilities were demanding so much of their time and energy that they felt they could not participate in the project as they had hoped. After about 45 minutes of discussion, the meeting concluded with group prayers.
During the final week of the project, participants received two closing assignments. The first involved another weekly activity log, the purpose of which was to determine if the project had made any measurable effects on how participants prioritized their time. The second concluding assignment of the project was a final questionnaire to measure participants’ perception of the progress they had made through the duration of the project.
Five weeks after the conclusion of the project, asecond participant face-to-face meeting took place, again with the assistance of SKYPE. The purpose of this meeting was to give another opportunity for participants to speak directly to each other in terms of accountability, to check on participants’ progress in discipleship after the conclusion of the project and without the benefit of weekly group accountability, and to ask the question, “Where do we go from here?” Responses of the group fell into two categories. Two participants (P4 and P6) indicated that their discipleship practice following the project had decreased. Without the obligation to report to the group weekly, the demands of life and ministry had overtaken the consistent practice of discipleship. On the other hand, four participants (P1, P2, P3, and P5) reported improved post-project discipleship practice. One participant made a strong plea for continued group interaction in some form because of an ongoing need for accountability and a desire to preserve the close fellowship of the group. All participants expressed the desire to continue sharing in each other’s lives however possible. In the end the group decided to take a month to pray about future directions.
Overall Group Assessment
The overall group assessment of the discipleship project was very positive, even though assignments and weekly check-ins were often late and group interaction through responses to each other’s website posts could have been much better. Participants only fulfilled 50 percent of their discipleship commitments; yet even with less than ideal performance, the progress of the group was very encouraging. Participants were able to achieve a level of spiritual conversation and accountability not previously experienced.
Imbalance in Discipleship
The struggle of one participant (P6) with imbalanced discipleship practices most clearly illustrates the whole group’s difficulties at this point. Even though this participant has the challenge of maintaining healthy discipleship while traveling, he still is not exempt from “works of mercy.” The project had a positive effect on this individual’s discipleship life, however, only in areas where he was already strong, in “works of piety” (acts of devotion and acts of worship), rather than in “works of mercy” (acts of compassion and acts of justice).
This struggle with imbalance in discipleship practices represents the danger of isolationism. Wesley characterized this form of discipleship as inward religion. Paul Wesley Chilcote has paraphrased Wesley’s thinking as follows: “Religion that is purely inward… is a subtle device of Satan. Christianity is essentially a social religion, and to turn it into a solitary religion is to destroy it” (Recapturing the Wesleys’ Vision: An Introduction to the Faith of John and Charles Wesley [Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2004]. 48). According to Wesley, then, discipleship practices that are weighted to either “works of piety” or “works of mercy” fall short of fully forming the character of Christ’s followers.
Recommendations
- Discipleship formation needs a more central position in the preparation for and the practice of ministry.
The Evangelical community is blessed with excellent educational institutions that place a high priority on the acquisition of knowledge and the perfections of skills. Forming the character of Christ in students is also important, but often not pursued with the same degree of priority. The amount of attention given to educate and train students tends to push the formation of Christ to the responsibility of individual students. What if these priorities were reversed? What if those called into full-time ministry came to an institution whose highest priority was guiding the process of the intentional formation of Christ in its students? What if it became unthinkable to graduate a student who did not habitually practice healthy discipleship?
The point here is not to advocate the demise of knowledge acquisition or skill development. On the contrary, in the complexity of the world today, it is important to have the best educated and trained ministers. The point, rather, is simply to raise discipleship formation to a higher, more central position in ministerial preparation.
The words of Jesus to his disciples on their preparation for ministry were, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised…. You will receive power.” The unschooled, ordinary Christians of the first century changed their world because they had been with Jesus. Too often educated and skilled men and women depart from Jerusalem before they have spent adequate time with Jesus.
- Discipleship and ministry need to be measured in terms of faithfulness and fruitfulness instead of in terms of success and accomplishment.
Too many believers have succumbed to a nonChristian view of success in the church, propagating the task-oriented success model learned outside the walls of the church. As the church grows, pastors are pressured to make compromises to meet the evergrowing demands on their time. When especially capable believers enter the ministry, excitement grows with the anticipation of the successes that most certainly will come through their ministry. The assumption is that if they are mature enough for ministry, they are also disciplined enough to be consistent in discipleship, a naïve assumption that the experience of the Sofia Discipleship Project has proven false. As time progresses, Christian workers more often become less and less disciplined in their spiritual lives and inch closer to burnout or abandoning the ministry.
Jesus’ words to his disciples were, “Remain in me, and you will bear much fruit.” Fruitfulness has little to do with success and accomplishment. Fruitfulness has everything to do with faithfully remaining connected to the vine. For Christian workers to be effective in kingdom terms, a re-arrangement of priorities is necessary. Success and accomplishment need to be replaced by faithfulness and fruitfulness. We must have a strong connection to the vine through a healthy.
- Discipleship needs to be a group exercise as opposed to an individual responsibility.
If anything was clearly revealed through the experience of the Sophia Discipleship Project it was the sharp contrast between the effectiveness of discipleship as a group activity as opposed to the ineffectiveness of discipleship as an individual’s responsibility. The project underscored the fact that individual believers often are not the best stewards of their own souls. When discipleship is hidden from the sight of others, it becomes too easy to hide shortcomings in the experience. The involvement of other believers in our discipleship keeps each disciple rooted and grounded and held accountable. Believers need to know and be known; they need to move beyond the surface and share life and discipleship together; and they cannot afford to go months on end without being in the Word, as was the case with one participant (P2).
The Sofia Discipleship Project was characterized by improved consistency and satisfaction with discipleship practices. Although it was an imperfect group endeavor, its intentionality and group interaction produced positive results. The discipleship practices of participants significantly improved over the course of the ten-week project.
- Discipleship practices need to be balanced between “works of mercy” and “works of piety.”
It is important to remember that not only did Jesus say, “Remain in Jerusalem,” He also commanded, “Go into all the world.” For believers, remaining in Jerusalem and going into all the world should hold equal importance. The contemporary church needs to balance the “remaining” and the “going.” The command to remain should not be an excuse to retreat from the command to go. Remaining is not a safe enclave away from the evils of the world. It is an infilling of power to be fruitful in the world. Believers “remain” so that they can more effectively “go.” The church fears the world’s evil and danger, but it is the same world that God loved so much that He gave His Son to die for it. A discipleship that ignores “works of mercy” hides the light of Christ under a bowl. Conversely, a discipleship that neglects “works of piety” cuts off the life-giving nourishment needed from the vine. Balance between the two is essential.
Though short of ideal at ten weeks, the Sofia Discipleship Project was long enough to illustrate the value and potential of group discipleship. Although the wisdom of hindsight would suggest helpful adaptations for the future, the project did demonstrate that the utilization of social media can be an effective means of facilitating group discipleship accountability. Social networking can help overcome the perceived challenges of lack of time, the difficulties of urban transportation, and isolation from significant spiritual influences. The intent of the project was not to determine whether a social media format was better or worse than a traditional face-to-face format for group discipleship accountability. Rather, the goal was to demonstrate that utilization of social media could be a viable and effective option for group discipleship. At minimum, the project results indicate that social media do not significantly deter effective group discipleship for most participants. Instead, most participants made a significant, identifiable improvement over the short ten-week span of the project.
The project also suggests that church leaders should do all in their power to encourage those serving under them to participate in group discipleship. Doing so makes it clear that discipleship is not solely an individual’s responsibility, and it also counters the success and accomplishment model that has crept into the church. Instead, discipleship with accountability facilitates faithfulness and fruitfulness in Christ’s disciples.
Edited excerpts published with permission from Jay Glenn Sunberg, “The Sofia Discipleship Project: A Contemporary Adaptation of the Wesley Class Meeting to Meet the Discipleship Formation Needs of the Leadership Team of the Sofia First Nazarene Church,” D. Min. dissertation, Nazarene Theological Seminary, Kansas City, Kansas, 2012.
Jay Glenn Sunberg is Field Strategy Coordinator for Central Europe, Church of the Nazarene, based in Budapest, Hungary.