Remember all that trigonometry stuff you learned at high school? Sine, cosine and tangent: sides and angles of triangles? Unit circle trigonometry – I used to be good at it. I could apply the formulas and get the correct answers and pass the tests. Thirty years after I aced my last trig test, one of my kids asked for help with their maths homework. I recognised the terms and formulas, but I just couldn’t remember how to put them to use.
Conversely, I still know how to write, do arithmetic, construct basic woodwork joints, weld, solder and analyse a newspaper article. These too are skills I learned at school decades ago. I have retained them because I use them. I have no occasion to put trig to use in real life, and I’ve forgotten how to do it.
So much of the western-world education system socialises us to sit and soak up information, with no consideration of integrating it into daily life. ‘Learning’ is about right answers and good grades. We’re effectively taught to disconnect what we hear from how we behave, even if we give our nodding agreement to what we hear.
When we take an information-transfer model to discipleship, we risk creating churchgoers who can recite correct answers to Sunday school questions, but never mature into disciples who exemplify the ways of Jesus. Jesus commissioned his disciples to “…go make disciples…teaching them to obey…” Note he didn’t say “teaching them to believe” or even to “understand.” We think of formation as catechesis, the teaching of doctrine. This may be an important precursor, but disciples obey – they don’t merely subscribe.
I like to think of the prophecy about the sheep and the goats in Matt 25 as a kind of ‘entrance exam’ into the eternal kingdom. Those who ‘pass’ feed the hungry, quench the thirsty, clothe the naked and visit the imprisoned as if they’re serving Jesus himself. Those who do not ‘fail’. It’s not a teaching of salvation by works, it’s an acid test of belief by obedience.
Jesus said “…everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” The wise housebuilder is a metaphor for the obedient disciple. I wonder if we’ve been filling our churches with foolish housebuilders, who can recite the teaching of Jesus but whose lives are as self-interested and indifferent as your average unbeliever. .
Jesus’ critique of the pharisees was not a debate as to whether they were theologically orthodox, but rather their failure to embrace the ways of God beyond formulating and keeping rules. “…you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God.”
We can teach doctrine from out pulpits and in our classrooms, but formation in obedience is much more life-on-life. “He appointed twelve a that they might be with him…”
Next article we’ll look more at life-on-life disciple-making. To think more deeply on discipleship and disciple-making, sign up for this short online workshop on August 5th: https://pathways4mission.com/product/the-discipling-minister-online-workshop/