Today's Post
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Discipleship, the Jesus Way
October 27, 2026
Discipleship is a key ingredient in renewal so let’s return to Alan and Debra Hirsch to talk about discipleship from their work in the book – “Untamed.” (See alanhirsch.com)
The Hirsch’s run directly to Jesus as the cornerstone and model. They write, “Focusing our discipleship on Jesus forces us to take seriously the implications of following him, of becoming like him… like God. The spiritual agenda for discipleship is thus set: Jesus is our primary teacher, model, guide, savior, and Lord. He is the standard by which we assess discipleship and spirituality. And we must become living versions of him -- ‘little Jesuses.’ (p. 37)
They throw down the gauntlet for us. Keep reading.
“Jesus spent his ministry freeing people from evil and misery. This is what God seeks to do [through us]. Jesus wars against spiritual forces that oppress people and resist God’s good purposes. This is what God does [through us]. Jesus loved people others rejected – even people who rejected him. This is how God loves [through us]. Jesus had nothing but compassion for people who were afflicted by sin, disease, and tragedy. This is how God feels [through us]. And Jesus died on the cross of Calvary, suffering in the place of sinful humanity, defeating sin and the devil, because he passionately loves people and wants to reconcile them to God. This is how God saves [through us].” (p. 36)
Rather than discipleship as I knew it growing up, the Hirsch’s start with emulating Jesus and build from there. This is quite different than: read the Bible more, pray more, attend church often, volunteer at church, give, invite, avoid evil…
Alan and Debra continue this theme saying, “The first and absolutely most foundational thing we can say in a book on missional discipleship is that it must be based squarely on the founder of the Christian faith – Jesus the Messiah. And while this might seem obvious, one can easily be excused for not being able to recognized anything approximating Jesus in some of the people who claim his name. This discontinuity between Jesus and the religion that claims his name, what Jacques Ellul calls the ‘subversion of Christianity,’ has led countless people to say with political humorist Bill Maher, ‘I don’t know anyone less Jesus – like than most Christians.’ It also prompted researchers David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons to write the book called ‘unChristian,’ which is based on what most non—Christian twenty – somethings said about so – called Christians.” (p. 35)
“The Gospels are full of stories of sinners, the bungled, the broken, and the bent clamoring to be near Jesus. Jesus was different. He wasn’t like the other holy rollers, the religious folk of his day. There was something magnetic about his person (possibly love, empathy, or compassion, mercy?) that caused even the most desperate to do the unthinkable and violate not only social etiquette of the day, but risk further marginalization by being close to him. Think of the woman with the issue of blood [and many others]. (Mark 5:25-30)
What is it about Jesus that caused sinners to flock to him like a magnet and yet managed to seriously antagonize the religious people?” (p. 45)
One Gospel writer asked, “What manner of man is this?” Our discipleship must also delve into this question as well.
It is possible to see from our resource authors that in contemporary Christianity the church has failed to make disciples, especially Jesus-like disciples. If that is true we all may agree with the ‘Reveal’ study at the Willow Creek Church (Bill Hybels) that we may be attracting people but genuine disciples are not being formed. It is possible that our ‘Achilles Heel,’ to use Hauerwas’ words would be that we have many ‘admirers’ of Jesus but few disciples. With this in mind the main focus of our blog, ‘Anakainosis for the Church’, is to talk about building people up in the FOUR Pillars so they will become ‘followers of Jesus’ rather than simply believers.
