As the means of grace are faithfully set forth week after week in public worship, and God’s special presence is manifested among his covenant people, God is actively discipling his people. The making of disciples in fulfillment of the Great Commission, therefore, is not just something that happens “out there” on the mission field.

Lord’s Day worship is the grand theater of Christian discipleship. It is the main context in which Christians are fashioned into mature disciples of Jesus Christ, through the ordained means of grace. It has been so from the beginning.[1]

In our day, however, the biblical focus of worship as discipleship seems to be lost on many of our churches. The accent of disciple-making is placed upon small groups and one-on-one mentoring, rather than upon public worship and the means of grace. Indeed, many believe that discipleship predominantly occurs in living rooms and coffee shops, and not in sanctuaries with the assembled church. This unbiblical notion is more widespread than people realize.

Our churches need to recover the biblical priority of Lord’s Day public worship as the primary realm of Christian discipleship.[2] Furthermore, we need to reclaim the biblical elements of public worship as the efficacious means to spiritual maturity. In other words, we must recover discipleship on God’s terms. Before we explore the nature of worship as discipleship, however, we must first ask: What has gone wrong?

A Significant Shift

As it concerns discipleship, a significant shift took place in the first half of the twentieth century in both the United States and Great Britain. In response to the rising tide of theological liberalism in mainline denominations — on both sides of the Atlantic — parachurch organizations began to sprout and multiply. Understandably, Bible-believing Christians lost confidence in the church. So they began looking elsewhere for spiritual direction. They found it in evangelical parachurch organizations such as the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Campus Crusade for Christ, Christianity Today, Christian Student Union, and a host of others. Parachurch organizations like these rightly emphasized a high view of Scripture, biblical conversion, and lifelong spiritual growth and discipleship. Nevertheless, Christian discipleship was repeatedly presented as being only loosely connected to the worship and ministry of the church. It’s the idea “that real disciples are formed not in the theater of ordinary Word-and-sacrament ministry and the care of the elders and deacons, but in the parachurch enclaves for super-spirituality.”[3]

A prime example of this may be seen in The Navigators, a well-known and influential parachurch organization that has specialized in “Life on Life discipleship” since 1933. In the “about” section of their website, not one word is mentioned about the church. Moreover, their statement of faith, core values, and vision statement give no meaningful attention to the ministry of the church or the means of grace. Someone reading this site could easily be led to conclude that the church has very little, if anything, to do with Christian discipleship. It’s no wonder, then, why so many evangelicals do not make Lord’s Day worship a priority in the disciple-making process.

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