Discipleship Summary

For the past 12 days we have been working through a series of posts that deal with a top level examination of what a disciple looks like.  If you have read the about section of this blog you will know that my wife and I were with the Navigators for about a decade.  What we have looked at over the past days has essentially been the Wheel illustration with some modifications.

The vertical spokes, the Word and Prayer, deal with our relationship with God.  The horizontal spokes, fellowship and witnessing, our relationship with our fellow man.  The rim represents our response to Christ who is the hub of the wheel.

The illustration is a good one that has from time to time been used in ways that are not so useful.  I have been guilty of that.  There was a time when I would have people grade the different spokes to see if their wheels were in balance.  I learned that from others who shared the same process.

There are a number of problems with that approach.  Most problematic is that it tends to focus one on their work rather than the work of the Holy Spirit and their completed position in Christ.  That approach to the wheel can make the spokes the ends rather than the means to appropriate what Christ has already accomplished in and for us.  I love and still use the illustration, but I share it in much the same way I have shared it here, as a way to quickly communicate the means God has provided for us to understand and grow in our appropriation of our position in Christ.