Do Disciples Exist?

For Overflow Collective, we believe discipleship begins with spiritual conversations, so I love hearing from people about how they're being used by God throughout their rhythms of life. I was recently helping someone unpack a spiritual conversation they had with a co-worker, and I was blown away by what this person shared. Here's a recap of their spiritual conversation...

Co-Worker: I was on the Overflow Collective website reading about disciples, and I have a question. "Are there disciples in every church?"

Person within Overflow Collective: There should be... I mean the church is the people who are disciples of Jesus. Why are you asking?

Co-Worker: Well I'm asking this because I've tried a lot of churches, but I don't ever recall meeting a disciple, so I'm struggling to believe that most people who profess to be Christians actually are disciples of Jesus.

WOW! Here's a little context behind this conversation... This co-worker is asking a lot of questions and wanting to know what it means to really follow Jesus. This questioning is coming from a real place of trying to find God and know Him personally and is just one of many spiritual conversations between these two people.

From my perspective, I was floored by the honesty in this co-worker's response yet deeply concerned because of it as well. Do we (self-professing Christians) know what disciples are? Are our churches made up of disciples or just people who like to attend services and participate in programs? Jesus told us to "make disciples," so we can't afford to misunderstand the essence of being a disciple!

What about you? Do you understand what it means to say that you're a Christian, hence a disciple of Jesus? It's become so cliche to say that you're a Christian in our culture, but have you processed through what this really means?

Check out the 2-minute video clip below from Pastor David Platt, author of "Radical" and "Follow Me," as he quickly explains the tragic cost of not understanding discipleship.

We've discovered that having a clear understanding of a "disciple" and the "church" is paramount to making disciples and being the church. Unfortunately, in our church culture, these two words are often improperly defined. I urge you to wrestle with this and process through what it means to be a disciple. Then, lead others around you to wrestle with the same things. If I can help in any way, please don't hesitate to let me know: joshoverflowcollective@gmail.com