by Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Periodically, I still laugh out loud at myself. The guy who grew up never traveling further than Genesee, Idaho or Westport, Washington. The person who never even boarded an airplane until I was graduating from college has now been all over the world. Ministry-related trips have taken me to Costa Rica, to China and to Africa twice. Who would’ve thought?

In each of these international locations, I have been especially interested to see how the church of Jesus Christ functions. What are the strengths? The weaknesses? How do churches in cultures with rampant poverty or crime minister the gospel? What can we learn from them? How might we help?

Interestingly, in each place the indigenous Christians have said essentially the same thing to me: “Dan, we need help with discipleship. People are being evangelized here, the gospel is being proclaimed, but faith in Christ in (Costa Rica, China, Africa) is a mile wide and an inch deep. We need to go deeper. We need to develop disciples.”

Usually, my immediate response was to think “why on earth would they think that American Christians know any more about discipleship than they do?” And that was instantly followed by my own longing for the church in America to cease being satisfied with shallow nods towards faith while doggedly pursuing the same things everyone else does.

Discipleship. The word is of course related to “disciple,” as well as to “discipline.” It has to do with being a follower or a learner. Following Jesus. Most of us reading this article will say “Yes, I’m following Jesus.” But for many of us, our following is, well, “a mile wide and an inch deep.”

To follow Jesus in his day often meant moving directly against the culture. Throughout history, it is clear that the church has thrived when it has influenced the world and struggled when it was absorbed by the culture. Yet today we so often act as though living and succeeding in our society is the same as following Jesus. Here’s how Eugene Peterson says it in The Jesus Way:

“…so many who understand themselves to be followers of Jesus, without hesitation and apparently without thinking, embrace the ways and means of the culture as they go about their daily living “in Jesus’ name”…They seem to suppose that “getting on in the world” means getting on in the world on the world’s terms, and that the ways of Jesus are useful only in a compartmentalized area of life labeled “religious.”

Which brings us back to discipleship. How do we follow Jesus? How do we receive training to take a different road, to stand in the face of pressure, to pursue a relationship with God rather than the practices of religion – in short, to follow Jesus? Most of us have a yearning, not for more things to do or for more church, but for a deeper connection with God. But how does that happen? One word that is unpopular today, but which can still be very helpful, is “discipline.”

Discipline sounds difficult, like hard work, like something we may not feel like doing and in this “do-only-what-your-heart-moves-you-to-do” world, we often reject the very things we need. Who ever said that faith in God was easy? If everything starts with God’s perplexing desire for intimacy with us, what can we do to help cultivate a deeper relationship?

Spiritual disciplines are practices that can help train us to be more aware of and receptive to God’s presence in our lives. They are a way of learning more about God. If that just sounds like extra things to do, or a way to earn God’s favor, then we need to stop and reconsider. We aren’t talking about dry ritual or a grudging response to some pastor’s latest guilt trip! It’s not “What else do I have to do?” It’s “What can I incorporate into my life that will help me follow Jesus?” The prerequisite of course, is honestly grappling with the question: “Is this really what I want?”

This fall, our sermons will take a brief look at spiritual disciplines. We’re calling it “Cultivating Deeper Faith: Spiritual Practices Today.” In just eight sermons, we won’t have enough time to talk about every spiritual discipline. But we will touch on prayer, study, sabbath, confession, worship, spiritual direction and hospitality. It should be enough to whet our appetite to follow Jesus. Not wider, but deeper.