[DISCIPLESHIP] 6. The History of Discipleship

Seeing Jesus with Paul Miller

Paul, Jon, and Liz continue their discussion of discipleship, talking about the history of discipleship practices.

"By about 200 AD, every person who wanted to become a Christian went through a year of discipleship. They did this through a form of catechism, or questions and answers, and then the graduation was on Easter. That's when you were baptized. I think one of the reasons the church does that is I'm sure they had experience with converts just being light and fluffy, so they had actually gotten stricter as far as we can tell than the New Testament."

"Culture 'disciples' us in profound ways -- everybody is being shaped by something."

"The discipleship era we live in has been profoundly shaped by the revolution begun by Charles and John Wesley. They really are the fathers of modern pietism. They popularized the prayer meeting, the small group. They didn't invent these things, but they certainly made them worldwide. Methodism as a strategy went way beyond Methodism and captured the imagination of the whole church. That’s why we still have prayer meetings, discipleship groups, and even the idea of discipleship with individuals."