2 Failings of Discipleship

Discipleship Part 3
​By Jared & Laura King

Discipleship is one of the most important parts of the Christian life. Remember, discipleship is an intentional relationship where two or more people are working together to be WITH Jesus, to BECOME LIKE Jesus, and to DO what Jesus did. This is inherently the point of our churches, our relationships, our service, and all the things we choose to be a part of as communities of faith. If what we do is not leading people to look more like, act more like, and sound more like Jesus, then we need to really ask the question, is this about Jesus or is it about something else? 

I really don’t like talking about or writing about the failings of kingdom work, particularly the failings of discipleship. I love sharing the inspirational, the parts of walking with Jesus that will change us and shape us for good. Those are fun things to discuss and share about. But there is a part of Church work and discipleship that we have to draw attention to if we want to be the best disciplers we can be who help people genuinely grow closer to Jesus. And that is the failings that can happen in our discipleship work, or more generically, our kingdom work. 

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this that the church world has had some pretty egregious failings over the past couple decades and, specifically, the last few years. Things like sexual abuse, sexism, racism, toxic leadership environments, and so much more have been called to light. Some of what has been discovered has been called “rumor” or “divisive” by people who believe bringing these types of things into the open will damage the church. 

I believe this urging to “unity” by refusing to draw attention to detrimental systems and structures has often caused us to ignore or explain away things that should be addressed in the Christian world. If being WITH Jesus, becoming LIKE Jesus and DOING what Jesus did is what we are striving toward, then we should not ignore or cover up the things that cause us to do the opposite.

The 2 Most Common Failings of Discipleship

In the past 7 years living and working in Seattle I have seen both failings first hand. They are Narcissism and Burnout.

Narcissism often leads to abuse, toxic leadership, sexism, and personal fundamentalism that, when challenged, is met by anger and vitriol. Burnout is most often seen in people wanting to give up.

In March of this year, the Barna Group reported that 42% of pastors had considered quitting ministry in the past year. There are many culprits of this alarming statistic, however, one of them is undoubtedly an unhealthy view of needing to be the one who disciples and leads everyone on their journey with Jesus. “Going it alone” is often seen as a value of Christian virtue that allows the pastor or leader to be on a moral high ground above his lay-people. However, it is killing people’s ability to remain in places of leadership long term. 

I want to start by discussing the most egregious and difficult failing…narcissism.

Some of you may have listened to the “Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast put out by Christianity today this time last year. This particular podcast chronicles the story of Marc Driscoll and his church in my backyard, Seattle, WA. This was a painful podcast for me to listen to. I have sat with and listened to countless people who walked away from faith because of a man who saw his brand as more important than the kingdom. I also found it disturbing to read Facebook posts or comments on other platforms from people, a lot of them pastors or leaders in churches, from around the country, who called the podcast out as divisive, speaking poorly about the church, or only out to gain some kind of moral high ground.

The problem with these is that the people who said those things didn't live in Seattle or know anyone personally who had experienced the atrocity of Driscoll’s legacy. When we hear from people in this city, we feel the weight and the pain of narcissist leadership in the kingdom. 

When the Kingdom of God and the discipling of others becomes about “my brand” over helping form people into the image of Jesus, we have shifted the purpose and intent of discipleship off of Jesus and on to ourselves. This is what most often leads to narcissism. 

In the top/down model of discipleship, narcissism, or wanting people to be with YOU, become like YOU, do what YOU do, can become very tempting. As I have lived and worked in Seattle, I have seen first hand the desire of narcissistic pastors to shape their churches to look more like themselves. It can be difficult to recognize because these same pastors and leaders will say they are living like Jesus, but define living like Jesus in a way that there is no space to live or act in a way that contradicts the person in power. 

If you are unfamiliar with Marc Driscol or others like him, let me shed a bit of light on his story for you. Driscol imposed a way of living faithfully that mirrored his personal brand and harsh style. He sought to build churches that were highly aggressive toward non-masculine Christianity. As soon as someone questioned his leadership, they were fired, excommunicated, and cut off from the entire church. Forever. 

This is obviously an extreme narcissistic tendency in leadership. However it rings true in smaller ways as well. In smaller examples, narcissism creeps its head up by making leadership and discipleship about the personality, brand, prestige and popularity of the one in charge. It becomes about power and control. Longing to see people loyal and subservient to you as the leader rather than to Jesus as savior. It almost always is masked by drawing people to “Jesus.” If you were to head north on I-5, the closer you get to Snohomish (a suburb of Seattle) you would see a giant billboard with the words “Sin Bad, Jesus Good, Come to Church” on the far right side of the billboard. The rest of the billboard is a giant image of the lead pastor holding a microphone as if speaking to a crowd.

When our image replaces the image of Jesus we have fallen into narcissism. (The photo above was pulled from that church's Facebook Page)

How can discipleship minimize narcissism?

The most obvious solution is to demand that people in leadership or discipleship roles actually be disciples themselves. One of Marc Driscol’s famous statements, which was also in the “Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” podcast, was of him saying that he couldn’t be subservient or discipled by certain national Christian leaders because those leaders had smaller churches than he did. The moment we determine our own ability to be discipled based on the human and earthly success of our ministries is the moment we will fall deep into our own savior complex, believing that we are Jesus’ gift to the nations for their benefit and spiritual formation. 

Second, we must constantly hold the truth and intent of discipleship before ourselves. Which is an intentional relationship where BOTH parties learn to BE With Jesus, BECOME LIKE Jesus, and DO what Jesus Did. The more we keep this intention in front of us, the more we will realize that WE are not the goal of another person’s discipleship. Jesus is the goal. 

Finally, discipleship has to be paired with a deep sense of humility. None of us has completed our growth and discipleship with Jesus. We all have areas of our lives where we look less like Jesus than we should. As leaders, we must enter into discipleship relationships with a great sense of humility, believing that we have something to learn on the journey that will further shape our own hearts.

The second failing of discipleship is burnout. Probably a more common problem than narcissism is the feeling that “we can’t do this anymore.” It’s the feeling of being stretched so thin by caring and leading others that you throw your hands in the air and declare, “I’m Done.” Burnout is a very real problem created by a culture of top-down discipleship where the pastor or leaders are the only ones pouring themselves out and who never receive back from the people they are discipling. 

If you remember the blog on discipleship as a web of relationships, we mentioned that discipleship is a horizontal line with Jesus in the middle pulling both people closer to himself. This model demands that we create vulnerability in our discipleship so that we are also, at moments, being filled and led by the people we are discipling. The web of relationships also sets you up to visually see who you can go to in order to be filled and cared for when things are difficult in your own life. You cannot and should not feel responsible for every person’s spiritual walk with Jesus. You are a guide who is going to train others to be people who disciple as well and help carry the burden. Paul talks about carrying one another’s burdens in Galatians 6. You cannot disciple every person you see or know. So teach other people to become disciplers as well. 

I recently heard a pastor say that he and his wife have had no friends for 14 years. He was telling this to a church who was supporting him, as if it was a badge of honor to show how sacrificial they had been. When we see ourselves as “above” our people who can’t be discipled or cared for or friends with our people, we will almost always look around at a room of our friends and find ourselves standing alone. This should not be a place of joy for us, rather a place of deep failing. Friendship in ministry and life is critical. Discipleship can and should lead to deep friendships.

When both you and the person you are discipling are growing closer to Jesus, learning how to be WITH Jesus, BECOME LIKE Jesus, and Do what Jesus did, then friendship will be a natural outcome. And burnout will be far less frequent. 

Guarding against burnout means that you will constantly be looking to hand off discipleship of others to the people around you. This can sound like you are skipping out on people’s discipleship. Isn’t it your responsibility to disciple them? No. It is your responsibility to help people get into discipling relationships, which often means passing the baton of their discipleship to someone else. The Church should be a place where we work to develop a culture of discipleship, a culture that trusts the people around you to help the people around them grow toward Jesus. This is certainly a place of vulnerability and great trust because it releases our control and empowers others to lead. This is exactly what we want for people, though: discipleship that intentionally creates opportunities for people to disciple and lead other people. It is the greatest way to create a culture where everyone is carrying the burdens of everyone else. This will help to minimize the burnout we experience from feeling like we are the only ones discipling the people in our church. 

Discipleship is the key to forming deeply connected churches of people all growing toward Jesus together. But if we are not intentional, it can lead to these two common failings of narcissism and burnout.

Let’s be people who are intentionally working to grow closer to Jesus alongside the people we are discipling and who are actively working to minimize the pitfalls of narcissism and burnout in ourselves. 

Jared & Laura King planted and lead Missio Church in Seattle, WA