By David Lowes Watson
“Rather than pastoral care or doctrinal instruction, disciples setting out in the Christian life need a helping hand from someone who knows the way ahead just a little better than they do—someone who can show them by example. This is by far the best credential for leading in discipleship. It combines practical experience with shared pilgrimage, making the leader at once a guide and a fellow traveler. The training for such a role is almost always acquired ‘on the job,’ and the respect accorded by those who follow is usually well earned. But since our delaying tactics have made discipleship such a complicated and sensitive issue, it is a leadership role that has come to rest almost entirely today with the pastor and church professional staff.
“The problem is that pastors and church staff rarely have the credentials for this basic leadership in discipleship. For one thing they are trained in very particular areas of the Christian life, undergoing rigorous intellectual and spiritual preparation for their various ministries. It is not a good use of pastoral resources to expend these skills on basic guidance in the Christian life—to say nothing of the routine administration of the church.
“Just as important is the fact that professional church staff seldom practice their discipleship in the same worldly arena as the members of their congregations. They are almost always at a distance from where ordinary Christians live and work and witness. Just as the authority of the [early Methodist] coal miner at the midweek prayer meeting came from living out his discipleship alongside the other members [of his class meeting], so leaders in discipleship today need to be in the front line alongside the disciples they endeavor to lead, witnessing for Christ at times and in places where pastors and church staff are unlikely to be present. The most important credential for these leaders is to walk with Christ in the world alongside the people they are leading.”
(David Lowes Watson in Class Leaders: Recovering a Tradition, pages 13-14)
Steve Manskar
I greatly appreciate the spirit in which David wrote and intended this instruction. I wonder? Might we replace the word “leader & leadership” with “servants” or “service” or “disciples” or something much more inline with biblical context. Paul told the church, “follow me, as I follow Christ” not “follow me, as I lead.” Christ is the only “leader” we need. Followers and servants are what we are called to be. I intend no negative criticism, just a genuine desire to remove secular titles and concepts from the purity of the faith.
Thanks very much for your comment Greg. However, I must disagree with your assertion that the office of leader and leadership are somehow non-Biblical and secular. You highlight the witness and ministry of the Apostle Paul who admonished the people of the early church to follow his, and the other apostle’s, example as they seek to live in the world as followers of Jesus Christ. Leaders in discipleship are both leaders and followers. They are leaders because they are followers of Jesus Christ.
People need leaders to show them the way of Jesus in the world. Leaders are simply followers of Jesus who have walked with him in the world and conformed their lives to his. Christ equips them to show others his way.
David Watson writes: ““The problem is that pastors and church staff rarely have the credentials for this basic leadership in discipleship. For one thing they are trained in very particular areas of the Christian life, undergoing rigorous intellectual and spiritual preparation for their various ministries. It is not a good use of pastoral resources to expend these skills on basic guidance in the Christian life—to say nothing of the routine administration of the church.”
Just look at what this says because I see two troubling things that David reveals here that maybe he does not even see. The first is that word BASIC used in front of LEADERSHIP and GUIDANCE. If having these credentials is important for the laity to have in the Christian life then don’t you think it
is important for the church pastors and staff to also know this BASIC stuff about the Christian life? The second is that not having this BASIC knowledge tin favor of some administrative knowledge speaks of hand-cuffing our pastors… Does this make any sense at all? Encourage our pastors and staff to get grounded in the basics too….
Dr. Watson assumes that professional church staff are well versed in “basic leadership in discipleship.” However, because of their vocation serving the church as clergy their discipleship is different from that of the people they are appointed to serve. Their workplace is the church. They are not “in the trenches” of secular workplace where the laity live their lives. Therefore, clergy are ill equipped to offer leadership in discipleship to the laity. In fact, they learn about the fullness of discipleship from lay women and men in the congregation.
Watson is saying that lay people are much better equipped to disciple one another because of their shared experience. The laity are called and equipped by God to lead in discipleship. Clergy are called by God to the ministry of word, sacrament, and order. The two need one another as partners “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-14).
Hence the need to re-tradition the office of class leader and the class meeting for today. Clergy and laity must work together as equal partners in the ministry of disciple-making.
In essence then it appears to me we are simply talking about appropriate people getting inspired to open their hearts to others and share their walk with Christ as agape people… but in a disciplined and organized sense with the purpose being to train one another in becoming disciples???
Yes. The Wesleyan way of disciple-making, which is what we’re talking about here, is about equipping disciples who make disciples who make disciples.
Well, Steve I symphatize with the end result aimed for here that of making disciples who make disciples but I really believe that we need to use more down to earth terms and not be so vague in describing what it means to share the gospel so lives are changed and people are encouraged to share what Christ means to them. Now maybe instead of talking we need to put our efforts into prayer, planning and searching for ways to do that from Pastors and Laity who are doing this already… just not necessarily in the format which you are describing. After all most of the UMC churches in our area have less than 200 attending on a given Sunday… But minister to many thousand through their secular lives… So blow that trumpet Boss and call these folks to action…