Video: Disciplemaking is Done in Community

Day 4: Team Up

God offers us more than just bartering with him in prayers, tithes, or serving in ministry so we can have a better life or get something specific in return. That’s a transactional relationship—something a consumer does. Instead, God has committed himself to us in a different way—through a covenantal and unbreakable promise.

This covenant is one of the ways we bear his image and experience the Kingdom as we journey together with others. We are called to connect to one another the same way God connects with us. Can you truly engage in a communal adventure as a consumer? No. Strangers may climb on the same mountain, be friendly, and even hike together, but they don’t tie themselves together with a rope. That mutual support is a different level of commitment. God calls us to be team members in the Kingdom, not solo heroes. God intends for us to belay one another, catching each other if we fall. And ultimately, when someone falls, we’re not left holding the rope alone. God has all of us.

The twelve disciples understood this covenantal relationship. They committed to follow Jesus even when they did not like where they were going. Following Jesus involved sacrifice in their personal lives. They imposed upon one another and inconvenienced each other. They frustrated each other. It got messy. And even when they did abandon Jesus after his arrest (all except John), Jesus did not accept their rejection. Jesus chose to bind himself to the disciples, and after the Resurrection, the disciples reciprocated, binding themselves back to him and to one another.

Transactional relationships are clean and can be severed at any time. They are designed for mutual control and can be broken by either party. Discipleship is much more interdependent. We rely on each other to make it through the climb. If we are to experience the richness of all that Jesus died to give us, we have to move from transactional relationships to covenantal ones. We must have committed, non‐breaking bonds with one another.

Disciplemaker Pro‐Tip

We should not call out every issue we see. Sometimes the most obvious sin is not the one God wants to address first. Sometimes God is doing a deeper work in a place that is unseen. Our words need to not only reflect God’s will, but God’s heart and God’s tone—and it needs to be said in God’s timing.