Abstract:
Discipleship has almost vanished from normal church conversations. I will argue in this article
that this is for more than one reason, but may be, because we have for some or other illogical
reason, equated confrontational evangelism with disciple making. Or maybe even closer to the
Afrikaans-speaking home: It is just too radical for denominations that, even more than 20
years into a democratic society, still prefer the ‘convenience’ of a culturally constituted and
dominated local church. This article will dare to move even further by not only taking the
rediscovery of this costly concept and ministry as happening, but also searching for what it
means for disciples to ‘seek the Kingdom and his righteousness’ (Mt 6:33). The background to
my research problem and question is that ‘we’ can just not afford that people, because of the
church, not being serious about herself, turn away from the church – but turn to God: ‘Every
day people are straying away from the church and going back to God’ (Lenny Bruce †1966).
This is just not normal.
Description:
This article is part of the
research project of Prof
Malan Nel, Extraordinary
Professor, Department of
Practical Theology, Faculty of
Theology, University of
Pretoria.
