What About Love?

Several years ago, I was sitting in a restaurant with a church leader who was working on building a faith formation pathway. As we talked, I asked him how his team defined discipleship. His answer was a bit of a surprise to me: “We don’t have a definition. People see it in so many ways that we’ve decided not to define it.” I’ve thought a lot about that conversation over the years.

• What is the definition of a disciple, and how do you move a person toward being a mature disciple of Jesus? Is there a central goal of discipleship? Do churches know that central goal, and have they created a pathway to reach that goal?

Throughout the Scriptures, there is one attribute of being a disciple that rises above all others — love. Paul wrote, “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love” (Galatians 5:6b, NIV). We also see this emphasis on love in 1 Corinthians 13, Mark 12, Colossians 3, 1 John 4, and many of the “one another” passages. And Jesus himself said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35, NIV).

• The inescapable reality is this: If your discipleship does not lead to more Christ-like love, you have not actually created disciples. Those folks may have a lot of knowledge, and they may be able to bring a powerful apologetic and more, but they are not disciples (c.f., 1 Corinthians 13).

In their book, Relational Spirituality: A Psychological-Theological Paradigm for Transformation, Todd Hall and Elizabeth Lewis Hall take us on a journey to create disciples who love. As they take us on this journey, they point out that to grow disciples of love, several things must happen:

How to create disciples of love

1. Theology

• Central to our theology must be seeing the loving relationship between the members of the Trinity. This loving relationship becomes the model of disciples who love one another.

2. People at heart are relational

• From the authors: “There is now a critical mass of evidence that human beings are fundamentally relational–that we develop, heal, and grow to become more loving and Christlike through relationships. This critical mass of evidence points to a relational spirituality paradigm.”

3. True discipleship focuses on heart and head

• Many discipleship pathways focus on head knowledge, believing that understanding God will lead to imitating Christ and following His way of sacrificial love. However, when we focus first on head knowledge, what we usually get is people who know much but often love little; in fact, sometimes knowing much leads to an arrogance that robs people of love. We need to lead people into a life of heart and head that leads them into a life of love.

4. True discipleship occurs in the community of the church

• The key idea is that discipleship happens in community (c.f., Jesus discipling the twelve disciples). The community is the church. People must put themselves in a place where they can encounter fellow Christians and engage them in such a way that they grow in love (c.f. Colossians 3:12–17).

5. Discipleship is a nonlinear process

• The authors note, “If the Bible is a set of facts to be arranged appropriately, and God is known strictly through explicit knowledge of propositions, then knowing God, ourselves, and others — indeed the entire task of theology — becomes a linear, rationalistic process rather than a nonlinear, relational process. This movement led to an unintended split between doctrine and Christian life, which has contributed to the growing sense of spiritual disconnection.”

6. Fully formed disciples shoe the world a new community of love

• The church draws people to God and to the community of faith by being a contrast society of love. This means the church is an interdependent community, not a collection of independent individuals. Only when disciples see themselves as interdependent are they actually disciples.

This pathway of discipleship is much more difficult than most discipleship pathways practiced in the church today. It depends on being in community, seeing community as central to our formation, and living together in community. In a world of individualism, this is a challenging space to step into. However, if we don’t take these steps, we will not truly form disciples.