What is the role of discipleship in both family and church life?

Robert Bosley highlights the critical responsibility of discipleship bestowed upon the family and the church. The family, where new life emerges, and the church, where new believers are taught and transformed, are natural settings for discipleship. However, Bosley observes that today's church often overlooks discipleship, treating it as optional or reducing it to a mere program or industry. Instead, he asserts that Scripture presents discipleship as an organic process, occurring naturally in daily life and interactions.

Discipleship is not about ticking off boxes or following a rigid program; rather, it involves a comprehensive approach encompassing all aspects of life. It requires families to teach their children the ways of the Lord and churches to faithfully preach the word, administer the ordinances, and provide the means of grace. When families gather together in churches, they can encourage each other to love God, obey His commands, and serve others. Discipleship, therefore, is a dynamic process that fosters a deeper, more committed following of Jesus.

Hebrews 10:24-25 (NKJV): 'And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.'

The family and the church are given that primary command to disciple. That would be the natural place for discipleship to happen. I mean, the families where new people are brought into the world, and the church is where these people are then taught what God commands them as his image-bearers, and where people are often remade as they hear the gospel and become new creatures in Christ. So it makes sense that the family and the church would have the main emphasis, the main thrust of discipleship put on them. The modern church largely falls into one of two ditches in my experience.

Either discipleship is completely neglected, as if it's optional or even non-existent, or it's turned into just an industry or a program to follow, where you just check off these boxes and, you know, I've read this and I've done this and we'll move on from here. Whereas the scripture presents a much more natural, organic approach to discipleship day in, day out. As you rise up, when you lie down, parents are to instruct their children on what it means to follow the Lord. And in the church, you have the regular meeting of the church, the preaching of the word, the administration of the ordinances, the means of grace. All of these things come together organically to create disciples, to make people better followers of Jesus.

It's not about a program, it's about a whole-of-life approach where you have the family on one hand and then the gathering of a group of families in most cases coming together to say, hey, let's spur one another on to love and good works, love God, obey Him, and love other people and serve them. It's not just this approach of checking off boxes. It's not a factory.