Who is discipling you?

naming who forms us

It’s been a wild few weeks in public life in America. Outside of writing last week’s post, which was about Scripture more than anything else, I’ve been watching and listening, listening and watching. It’s been…alarming, to say the least. Over and over, I’ve come back to the same idea: this is a discipleship issue.

Who

If we were to sit down at my kitchen table—or in this beautiful September weather, on my patio—and have coffee, one of the first things I would ask is “Who is discipling you?” No, really, take a few minutes and make a list. Put it on paper or in a note on your phone. Say the names out loud.

For myself:

• our small group

• two male friends in ministry

• Sharon McMahon (yes, even though her content is political and not religious)

• Nijay Gupta

• Ruth Haley Barton

• Esau McCaulley

• Jess Connolly (I listen to her podcast every week and I own all of her books)

• Rich Villodas

• Glenn Packiam

• our new pastor (should have seen me underlining/thinking during the sermon on Sunday)

• Bible Project

• The friends I spend the most time with/have the most discussions with

• Cal Newport (am I now thinking about what should be different in my life in January? Yes, I am.)

Write your list down. Look at the names.

Definers

Now take a few moments and answer some questions about those people:

• Do they all live in the same region of the country/world?

• Do they have the same color skin?

• Do they attend the same denomination of churches?

• Do you know any of them in real life?

• Do they change their mind in public if their work is in public?

• Are they experts in everything?¹

The unnamed

We don’t often think about who is discipling us. We might not recognize that everything is forming us in some way, either toward transformation in Christ or malformation away from true humanity. The algorithm is what is forming most of us. We know what the algorithm is doing to us. It feeds on our fears. It silos us in echo chambers where everyone is reinforcing our ideas. It accelerates our feelings and our reactions until we are swept up in a tornado of destruction.

I try to spend less and less time on the internet, but it has been crucial over the past two weeks. The fear and the outrage is palpable. Some of the “solutions” I’ve seen swirling around are demonic.

As the church, I am asking us to slow down. I am asking us to examine our lives. Who is forming us and to what end?

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If someone is proclaiming the name of Jesus in the public square and it is persuasive to some people and yet our brothers and sisters of color report that the person is racist, we need to hold both of those together.

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If someone is proclaiming the name of Jesus in the public square and it is persuasive to some people and yet it is also deeply tied to allegiance to one particular political party, we need to hold both of those together.

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If someone is proclaiming the name of Jesus in the public square and it is persuasive to some people and yet they remove the fruit of the Spirit or the markers of communal holiness from the message, we need to hold both of those together.²

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Again, I’m asking who is disciplining you? You will start to reflect them. You will start to look at the world the way they do. You will think and talk about others the way they do. Their spirit will rub off on you. Now I want you to ask another series of questions about the people who are discipling you.

• How do they treat people?

• How do they talk about people?

• Are they deeply entangled in politics?

• Are they motivating you with fear?

• Do they react in real time, all the time?³

• Do they allow nuance or is everything a simple black-and-white viewpoint?

• Are they able to criticize the groups they belong to?

• Do they make much of themselves/public figures or Jesus?

• Does the fruit of the Spirit characterize their lives and their online spaces?

We are not people of pragmatism. The ends do not justify the means. If we forsake all the ways of Jesus for someone to spout “solid Christian doctrine” in public, we have lost. Salvation is an allegiance to Jesus, not just alignment with some statements. It is allegiance to a Jesus who went to the cross for others, who welcomed those who were known as sinners, who put things right for people spiritually and physically, who saved his harshest words for religious leaders obstructing the way for others. It is allegiance to a Jesus who welcomed the most unlikely people, who spent hours in prayer, who kept his eyes on the mission and not on the crowds.

Again, I’m asking, who is discipling you? Is there anyone in your real life? I know this is harder than it should be. If you are a person who is older in any way, take someone along with you. If you have no one, keep asking God to send someone. Ask someone, even if it’s awkward and they say “no.”

Look closely at who you are following on social media, at the podcasts you are listening to, at the youtube streams that fill your days. What is the fruit of their influence in your life? The internet can be a gift. There are people I learn from that I wouldn’t know of without the internet. But it can also be a curse if we aren’t paying attention to our intake.

Expand who you are listening to. Listen to people who you disagree with; refuse to dehumanize them. Refuse to stereotype them. Politics are a big deal and we do need formation politically. May I suggest the &Campaign.

Get off the internet. Get into your community where you run into people of all types. Ask Jesus for His love for other people, because He loves them all. Be inconvenienced by people and their strange ideas and the messes they make. Practice handling the discomfort of disagreement.

Pay attention to who is discipling you.

1. No one is, friends. That’s a red flag.

2. Perhaps, we are still so excited that someone famous is talking about Jesus. We know our young people are on their phones. If someone meets them there and stirs them up about Jesus, we are happy. Where are we meeting the young people in our lives to talk to them about Jesus? And I don’t just mean your kids, as kids get older and older, they need people who are not their parents also talking to them about Jesus. It makes a huge difference.

3. That’s not healthy for you or them.