Information ≠Discipleship
Daniel Punnose, vice president of Gospel for Asia, talks about the importance of community in discipleship.
The idea of discipleship can be rather confusing. Sometimes we think it means listening to more messages, being plugged into a particular kind of church, reading certain books, listening to certain music or being part of a Bible study group.
In the Bible, Jesus called His disciples to be with Him. They followed Him for three and a half years learning and gleaning from His character. There was no textbook, classroom or type of methodology. Jesus Himself was the classroom, the subject and the textbook. Everything they needed to learn could be found in being with Him.
Because of technology, we have become more disconnected from each other than ever before. There aren’t as many natural opportunities to disciple and be discipled. For example, you can sit at home and not go to church and, therefore, not see anyone. You can connect with the best podcast, best Bible teaching and the best worship from around the world””all while you sit at home, completely disconnected from people. Yet you can deceive yourself into thinking you are being discipled because you are listening to better messages and worship than what you would get locally.
Every book on discipleship and character development is meant to be lived out in the context of community, with others being discipled by those older in the faith. Community that works together in unity and focuses on Christ is the place where discipleship works.
