I would say that in this spread-out society, even if we work 40+ miles away from home (or never leave the home), we can still be lights where God has placed us. Seeing as we are each the Church, discipling those you see everyday – at your best and at your worst – can be more of a true model of discipleship, versus grabbing coffee or doing a Bible study for an hour/week.

Waiting around for the assignment of ‘discipler’ or ‘disciplee’ can quickly lead to laziness, playing straight to our comfort zone. I am not saying, however, the latter method cannot work, as I am a product of both assigned and chosen discipling. Both can be effective, yet how many of us would choose the former?

Also, learning from the older generation, while also realizing I am an ‘older generation’ for some, is imperative. What a perfect model Christ has shown us! Now, onto implementing it…

However, I think that scripture in no wise indicates that a person must even reside in the same city. Wasn’t Paul the discipler of Timothy, even though both traveled and were not really of any particular city’s church? This may be a rare exception when speaking of the “local church”, but I think the point is necessary. Discipleship requires locality and frequency with a true believer, in person, and according to the Word of God, not necessarily based on a specific building, denomination, or locality.

As a whole, I believe the “local church” to which a member belongs should hold him accountable to what he is teaching/learning, and oversight is not limited to one’s own church, but to the true Church, the Bride of Christ. We are all accountable to one another, not just our “local churches”, for we are in fact one (John 17:21). The “local church” and denominations are constructs men have concocted to make things easier to classify and label but are not laid out as necessary in scripture.

I do have one question. In your second to last paragraph you talk to making disciples. You state that “We do not have a list of action steps telling us in exact detail how to do so…”. Would you agree that, although we might not have what we would label in modern terms as an “action plan” or “job description” for making disciples, scripture does tell us that making disciples is to be done in the context of the local church?

My thought here is that if it is true that disciples are to be “made” in the context of the local church, and since we do have the identity and purpose of the local church given to us in the scriptures, could we conclude that perhaps the way we make disciples is simply learning how to “function” within the community that makes up the local church? I think that’s what you were getting at as well, but then when I read, “We must come together in prayer and discipleship, both within and WITHOUT (emphasis mine) our church, and spur each other on towards the image of Christ in us” I wondered if you were submitting that discipleship should occur outside of the context of the local church. I don’t think that’s where you were going, but just want to clairify in case I read it wrong (which I am very prone to do

My fear is that we have tried to make this thing a LOT harder than it is as it comes to models of discipleship making (and missions and a whole lot of other things as well). But at the same time, because we want to re-invent everything, we can’t even follow the simple explicit commands that the scriptures give us.