ICYMI: If you didn't get earlier hopeletters, find them here.

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At this point, there are a lot of words or concepts I don’t need to repossess from the difficult things that happened in my past. If I never hear them again, I will be fine. Through the course of my life, there have been so many contradictions within them that I just don’t need them anymore. I’m sure you have your list, too.

Here are a few of mine (in order from shortest to longest so it looks neat when typed out):

Pro-life.
Missional.
Intentional.
Evangelical.
Smokin’ hot.
Megachurch.
Church plant.
Moral majority.
Biblical worldview.
Can I get an amen?
Unpacking scripture.
Turn to your neighbor. *

But there is a word that Jesus used which was bastardized in my church experience that I just can’t move on from.

I’ve been hesitant to repossess it though, for a few reasons.

I don’t want to mishandle it.
I don’t want to misrepresent it.
I don’t want to misapply it.

I just want to be careful. If I’m going to repossess it, I don’t want to also manufacture some sort of extra-biblical reality outside of what Jesus is doing in the real world.

The word is disciple.

I wanted to write a clever build up where I keep you guessing, but instead I want to take a few paragraphs of this letter to lament the ways it twists me on the inside.

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Churches have discipleship ministries and even discipleship pastors. Think about that for a second. If making disciples is segmented into a time, a place, a program, a person, a course of study, a curriculum or the work of a specific team, what the hell are the other pastors and ministries doing?

The longer I’ve reflected on my experience in the churches I’ve been in, the training I had, the church conferences I attended and the methods of ministry where I was trained and even celebrated the work and wisdom of others, this is the most asinine misuse of a word and concept at the very heart of the great commission.

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Making disciples is not a specialized role. It’s the whole, entire thing.

I don’t want to get into the history of the word–the etymology, the nuances between the original Aramaic, Hebrew and Greek references to disciples and all that academic ambiguity. If you find that helpful, there are people a lot smarter than me who can help you with that sort of study.

Jesus commissioned his disciples to make disciples.

What I know is that the word disciple (one of those words that I talked about in my last hopeletter) doesn’t show up in scripture until we hear about Jesus in the New Testament. There are rabbis and disciples. No mention of them in the old testament, though. This is all part of the new system to try to keep each generation in relationship with God. Disciples follow their rabbis, learning not just what it means to interpret scripture and how to have a relationship with God, but actually, in many ways, becoming like their rabbi.

As they grow spiritually and become more like Jesus, what Jesus doesn’t do is commission them as rabbis. They aren’t making disciples of themselves, but of Jesus. This is a super-important, often overlooked nuance of the great commission.

We aren’t making followers of ourselves.
We’re making followers of Jesus.

But that’s not how it plays out in Church.

Without getting into all of the quirky ways that different denominations and affiliations craft their structures, as churchgoers we are expected in many ways to fall in line with the way in which someone else has been made into a disciple of Jesus. Then, instead of trusting the ability of the HS to convict, empower and sanctify each disciple of Jesus, people in positions of power become the deciders of who is a disciple, not because we are like Jesus, but because we fall in line with some other disciple.

On a macro level, I think there are amazing things to learn from Calvin and Wesley and Luther and Augustine and the list goes on and on. But in Jesus’ church, the disciples are his.

On a micro level, there are amazing things to learn from a pastor or minister in your town, from a counselor, from a teacher, from a leader, from a parent, from a parent in the faith. But in Jesus’ church, the disciples are his.

Jesus made a way for us to have a relationship with him, but we settle for relationships with people who know (or claim to know) him.

Instead of making disciples of Jesus, leaders make disciples of themselves.

Instead of becoming disciples of Jesus, we become disciples of our leaders.

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I sat across the table from a new friend last week, sharing lunch in a sun-soaked house-turned-restaurant, sharingstories about surviving difficult church situations–leaving, coming back, choosing to try, again, even when it hurts.

We talked about how it was the relationships that made us want to leave. And it was the relationships that made us want to try again.

As I’ve been processing through my own journey with Jesus and Church, it isn’t always easy to tell the ways that I was becoming the disciple of my leaders rather than Jesus.

This isn’t concerning to everyone, and that might be okay. There is a not-wrong argument that we imitate Paul as he imitates Jesus and it works out in the end. But that’s not how it is for me. Because some of my leaders flamed out in spectacular ways. They harbored selfish intentions that hurt people beyond their ability to calculate the consequences so that they could get some sick, perverted, personal benefit.

But on the surface, from the stage, in our meetings, when we would pray, in our brainstorms, in our dreaming, when encouraging each other, when working through conflict, I believed they were all in with Jesus.

I believed they were disciples of Jesus. You want to know the weird part? Maybe they were. Maybe they are. The difficult part is that I’ve got some nebulous ideas swirling around in my head about what a disciple of Jesus looks like, where the boundaries lie.

But the reality is that Judas is Jesus’ disciple on the night of his betrayal. Jesus washes Judas’ feet, serves him communion, allows him to kiss his face–all of the backstabbing, the deal-making, the secret keeping, betraying his friends, betraying Jesus and he is still Jesus’ disciple.

We don’t get to decide who is in relationship with Jesus or what that relationship looks like. It is between Jesus and each person.

Jesus’ disciples are Jesus’ disciples, until they aren’t. This may be difficult to read/process depending on the places and people who helped you form your theology, but it seems possible from scripture that we might become a disciple of Jesus and then later choose not to be. Jesus chooses Judas, but Judas doesn’t always continue to choose Jesus.

And there isn’t this weird foreshadowing in the gospels where all of the disciples are following Jesus around, but really everyone knows that Judas never really was one. I can imagine the soap-opera-esque cuts where there are these boisterous offering givers in the temple and this widow that gives only two denarii and as Jesus wraps up his story, the focus slowly pans to Judas, zooming in on his face as he plots his betrayal.

That didn't happen. He was one of the twelve. He was Jesus' disciple. He did what Jesus did and walked with them for years. Of course he was Jesus' disciple.

But everyday, we get up and have a choice to make, follow Jesus or do whatever is right in our own eyes, even disciples of Jesus. The alternate, unfortunate, realistic end of the spectrum are those who do all of the things that disciples do, but they don’t know Jesus. They learned how to perform a life of service to Jesus without ever getting to know him. They are the new testament equivalent of the people standing at Mount Sinai, saying to Moses “Speak to us yourself and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us, or we will die.” They learned the rules, but they didn’t know God. And they will wonder why Jesus says he never knew them.

I never want my life to end up like this. If I followed (which I very much did) the follow-me-as-I-follow-Jesus model, I was on the path to becoming like someone other than Jesus. Depending on who your leaders are, that model might work out. But for those who were leading me, please Jesus, I never want to end up like them.

How much of my life in Christ is me becoming like them and how much is actually Jesus?

This isn’t something I’m willing to just ponder and hope for the best.

The work we were doing and the structures that created the bounds of what trusted people celebrated as Church-done-right produced a long line of men who fall into my Judas and Herod categories.

I don’t want to be like them.

The reality, however, is that I could. Any of us could. It seems like insanity looking from the outside in, but the worlds we craft to meet our own needs, feed our own egos, and control our own narratives are fertile ground for growing the unbelievably wretched.

Powerful, principled pastors.
Death dolled-up as discipleship.
Tombs whitewashed in Ivory Dove™ semi-gloss.
Powers and principalities posing as progress.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

For every secretive Judas, for every posturing Herod, there are thousands of women and men faithfully serving Jesus, making disciples of Jesus and enjoying the simplicity of what it means to live in Christ.

Netflix isn’t knocking down their doors to make a documentary.
TMZ isn’t buying photos of them making celebrities into their disciples.
Church boards aren’t making excuses to keep them employed.

We’ll probably never hear their stories.
And they want it that way.
Because they aren’t trying to make a name for themselves.
They’re actually all in on Jesus.

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Which brings me back to my own life, back to your life, too.

If we’ve gone through some stuff, how much of that experience is redeemable, is holy, is Jesus’ heavenly kingdom invading the spaces and heralding hope and peace and truth and love?

How much of it is suitable for the bonfire, to ash it shall return?

I’m not sure I have the answer for me.

I’m definitely sure I don’t have the answer for you.

But what I do know is
when it comes to the word disciple,
I’m gonna need that back.

Over the next few hopeletters, I’m going to talk about my own journey with repossessing disciple and how heavily it impacts another way.

A disciple of Jesus is helped by another, the HS.
A disciple of Jesus is known by the way they love one another.

In the meantime, I would truly appreciate it if you hit reply and shared a bit of your story, especially as it relates to being a disciple of Jesus and exploring another way. It can be brief, or it can be long. I’ve got responses in my inbox that look like hour long therapy sessions and inevitably, somewhere around the end, you’ll write something like “I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I guess I’m just processing this.” I’ve got other responses that are short because they have to be, because it’s just too much.

If you haven’t replied yet, I want you to know that this is a safe space. And if its not time to share yet, that’s ok too. I’m grateful you’re here and reading and hopefully realizing that you’re not alone.

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Much love, friends.

–Kurt

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* p.s. if you’re wondering why I’m ok with moving on from the phrases from the top of this letter without needing to repossess and hopefully redeem them, I wrote out the reasons below. I won’t go into all of how I got here, and I’m certain I won’t remain with these thoughts for ever, if even for a little while. I’m growing and changing and dealing with my own past and responding to where the HS leads me to explore. I won’t ask you to join me in every path, but I will encourage you to process through your own journey in a way where the HS can help you let things go and repossess them as needed.

Here’s a little personal insight into where I am for each one:

Pro-life > I’ve discovered the history of weaponizing ideas that can get churched people to vote in a certain way in order to get people elected who don’t actually care about this and other issues. At this point, I’m anti-abortion and pro-choice. Some people will say that I can’t have this view, but here I am, having it. But the hypocrisy of the pro-life movement that doesn’t fight for rights or even possibilities for people to live life to the fullest, let alone move beyond survival into thriving makes this term un-needed for me. I wish the political stance would be called pro-birth because there is a giant lack of care for life beyond birth that also matters but isn’t addressed within this term.

Missional > This is a trigger word for me that indicates someone is working within the structures of Church, hoping that well crafted words will mask their attempt to be great within the structure. I am with Reggie McNeal where he says that the church doesn’t have a mission, the mission has a church.

Intentional > In my experience, people who use the word intentional are often utilizing it as a cover for hiding their true intentions. Outside of true accidents and thoughtlessness, everything is intentional. Going out of your way to qualify something as intentional is unnecessary at best and manipulative at worst.

Evangelical > Anything formed by the evanglelion should be something rooted in the good news for all people. So much of the work within the Evangelical world is good for those who are already in it or rationed out specifically for those who are demonized and diminished as needing the goodness of those who are already in it. This isn’t good news for all people, so I just don’t need it anymore.

Smokin’ hot > this is a joke, but also true. Lots of men in pastoral roles would talk about their smokin’ hot wife and add to the objectification of women. Unnecessary and at least a little bit barfy to me at this point.

Megachurch > In general, I’m done with the idea of the us-and-them in the church world. The very idea that there are a whole lot of people who belong to one brand of Church and not to each other or to all of us is amplified in the idea that building a big Church, cordoned off with our brand of mission/vision/values/membership/logo/etc is an unnecessary label that typically serves to separate and diminish Jesus in favor of Megamentality. I could go on, but it is exhaustingly uninteresting and/or sad to me.

Church plant > I strongly lean into the thoughts from Dave Ferguson and Alan Hirsch in their book On The Verge which encourages people to stop planting churches, but rather plant the gospel and see what kind of church it grows into. For all intents and purposes, the American models of “church planting” are indicative of creating new space for existing believers to reimagine what it means to follow Jesus over here with a slightly different group of people and bylaws. But I'm starting to believe that we don’t get to plant churches. Again, kind of done with our-Church, your-Church mentality. There’s a church. That’s it. Everything else centers the work of humans rather than work of Jesus. I do like the idea of the church in Bentonville, the church in Denver, the church in Santa Ana, the church in Philadelphia, etc. There’s one church, but we live in different areas and issues come up in those areas in a way that God speaks to and moves, but no one steward or servant or clergy member is the special manufacturer or maintainer of the movement of God in any area.

Moral majority > Similar to the above (in the Pro-life explanation), my research on weaponizing views to create political outcomes led me to believe that this is a hoax. Also, the idea that we can elect a bunch of moral, God fearing people and that will fix our issues is wrong. Take, for instance, the churches around us. For the most part (greater than 95%?), everyone in leadership in our churches are born-again, Bible believing Christians and they perpetrate all kinds of immoral behaviors, so I just don’t need to pretend that this could even be close to a true phenomenon that would somehow fix our political world.

Biblical worldview > My view on the Bible is that it points at and helps us know Jesus. If you haven’t read my free e-book called How To Read Scripture With Your Imagination Intact (or HTRSWYII for short 😜), let me know and I’ll send you a copy or you can fill out the form on kurtlibby.com. I don’t believe that the Bible helps us see the world correctly. I think it helps us know God in and through Jesus. I believe that the way Jesus sees the world is more important than what any man or woman says is the right way to see the world because of some scripture that "backs it up."

Can I get an amen? > Just, stop. Please. Either they’re with you or they aren’t, but asking for it isn’t helping them or you.

Unpacking scripture > Ugh, I hate this one. I’ve said it so many times. Confession: I used to believe in my subconscious (because it's just too much to admit if it ever was a conscious thought) that there was this key to unlocking the scriptures in a way that the preacher/speaker could find and fit together that would transform the listener. But these days I’m more interested in hearing a perspective and allowing it to be owned by the speaker. That's it. A perspective. There is no mystical unpacking that happens in scripture. Jesus doesn’t tell parables and then unpack them for people. Part of the relationship that we have with God is letting scripture unravel us rather than searching for the correct way to tell the story within the story.

Turn to your neighbor > This is always perfunctory, quick and uncomfortable. Maybe instead of turning to our neighbor and repeating that one thing the person on the stage said, maybe we actually get to know the people around us and spend time learning about them and sharing about who we are. Every time this comes up I am reminded about how little space is created within Churches to get to know the people who are there with us and instead create these little moments that are supposed to feel like get-to-know-yous but are actually reminding me of how alone I am.

If you're feeling spicy, what are some of yours and how'd you get there?