Corporate Worship as Discipleship
Luke Miller
What do you think of when you hear the word discipleship? For some of us (including myself), this may take some significant reflection, because discipleship is one of those words that we tend to use without much thought. So let me phrase the question a little more intentionally: What do you imagine when you hear the word discipleship?
Maybe you imagine yourself in the morning, sitting on your couch in your PJ’s, 2 Corinthians open on your lap. Maybe you picture yourself in a more communal environment, like your favorite coffee shop, sharing biblical wisdom with a teenager in your youth group (who doesn’t seem to realize how much he needs it). Or, you might think of your small group that meets at your friend Johnny’s split-level on Tuesdays, where you share prayer requests, talk about God’s Word, and tell your kid that they can’t have a seventh cookie.
But here’s what I would really like to know: When we hear the word discipleship, do we ever picture our church family all gathered together on Sunday morning, singing God’s praise (or at least making some form of joyful noise), listening to his Word preached, being led in prayer, and eating bread and drinking grape juice from tiny plastic cups? If I’m being honest, I would have to say that I usually don’t imagine discipleship this way, and I bet you usually don’t either.
But I’m going to argue that we should picture discipleship as corporate worship more often. This is not at all to take away from the importance of the other examples of discipleship above. We all agree that these and others like them are vital. But this is to say that corporate worship deserves to be very high on our list of discipleship activities. Why? Because corporate worship is the most significant act of Christian discipleship each week. Here’s a couple of reasons why.
In corporate worship, we are discipled by encountering Jesus in a special way.
There is no better disciple-maker than Jesus himself (he kind of came up with the idea), and there’s no better way to disciple someone than by showing them more of him. Jesus is the one his disciples are supposed to look like, and looking at him is the main thing that makes them look like him (2 Cor 3:18). So wouldn’t it be awesome if we could bring the people we are feebly attempting to disciple into his glorious presence in a special way...every single week? We can!
When a local church gathers for corporate worship, something out of the ordinary is happening: Jesus is present with his people in a special way. Yes, Jesus is with us “always” (Matt 28:20), both with individual believers and smaller groups during the week. Nevertheless, there is a difference between our experience of the presence of Jesus during the week and our experience of his presence during the Sunday gathering.
We see evidence for this in Matthew 18. There, Jesus makes the famous promise that “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them” (Mat 18:20). What is often missing in the many quotations of this verse is the context: church discipline, which, in the absence of repentance, ends with “the church” (i.e., the entire assembled local church) removing the individual from membership. Paul speaks in a similar way in 1 Corinthians 5:4-5, declaring that the local Corinthian church is to remove an unrepentant person from membership when they are “assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus.” Now, is Jesus also powerfully present with these believers when they are not assembled? Of course! So why do Jesus and Paul bother to say that he is among them when they are assembled? Here is the broader principle that I think is behind what they’re saying: When a local expression of the body of Christ gathers together in one place, in Jesus’ name, and to honor Jesus’ Word, Jesus’ presence is experienced in an extraordinary way. John Frame writes,
Jesus promises a special blessing—indeed, his special presence—upon his people when they are gathered in his name...When Christians meet in the name of Christ, the gathering is not merely worship in the broad sense, though it is that...Something more is happening, and it deserves a special name...The difference between worship in the broader sense and worship in the narrower sense is a difference in degree. All the earth is God’s temple....On various occasions, however, God seems to draw nearer. What the New Testament teaches is that when God’s people meet together in the name of Jesus, God actually does draw nearer [1].
What does this mean for discipleship? It means that every Sunday, as your local church gathers in your outdated sanctuary, Jesus the master disciple-maker shows up in a special way, ready to make disciples in a way we never can in ourselves. It means that every Sunday, the glory of Jesus is present in an extraordinary way among those people sitting on 90’s green stackable-chairs, transforming every disciple who sees that glory a little more into his image (2 Cor 3:18). Perhaps Frame says it best: “Truly, we should expect much from worship” [2].
In corporate worship, the entire church is discipled at the same time.
Have you ever felt overwhelmed by the number of people in your church who need to be discipled? If you're a finite being like myself, I’m sure you have. So here’s another encouraging truth: corporate worship is mass-discipleship. Again, we are not minimizing the essential, smaller gatherings of discipleship that are happening throughout the week. But we are recognizing that there is something particularly helpful about everyone being together for corporate discipleship.
During corporate worship, certain individuals are discipling everyone at the same time. When someone leads in prayer, everyone is discipled by (1) praying with them and (2) being taught how to pray by them [3]. When a pastor preaches the Word, everyone is discipled in Christian doctrine, in Christian practice, and even in how to interpret and apply the Bible for themselves.
More than that, during corporate worship, everyone is discipling everyone. In congregational singing, we are addressing each other in song, reminding one another of the truth that we believe while together affirming it anew. In the Lord’s Supper, we are together remembering what Jesus has done for us, together communing with him, together promoting disciple-like unity and holiness in the body, and together seeking to live as disciples as we look forward to Jesus’ return.
But there is more: During corporate worship, every Christian is also calling unbelievers to be disciples of Jesus. Every time we gather, and our unbelieving friends wonder why we do so instead of staying home in our slippers and watching Sunday NFL Countdown, we are testifying to the Lordship of Christ and to his right to call people to follow him (especially if we actually have this gospel conversation with them). Every time we assemble and proclaim God’s word clearly, we may find that “an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you” (1 Cor 14:24-25).
Corporate worship is mass-discipleship: Everyone is discipled, everyone disciples everyone, and everyone calls the lost to become disciples.
Conclusion
I’ve been a licensed worker in The Alliance for over ten years. In that span of time, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve been warned against putting too much emphasis on the Sunday gathering. Let me say very clearly that I deeply respect the motive behind those who have said this: They want to make sure we are not producing Sunday-only disciples. God forbid! But I think there may be an unintended danger in this kind of talk. Because if we hear again and again that we shouldn’t over-emphasize the Sunday gathering, eventually we may find ourselves under-emphasizing it, along with the disciple-making means of grace that come with it (Word-governed preaching, prayer, singing, baptism, the Lord’s Supper, discipline, fellowship, and offerings).
No, we do not want to create Sunday-only disciples. But what if the most effective way of preventing Sunday-only disciples is emphasizing the importance of making disciples on Sundays? What if canceling the Sunday gathering a few times a year with the good intention of having “Family-Discipleship Sunday” or “Outreach-Discipleship Sunday” is actually working against disciple-making? What if giving significantly less attention to our Sunday sermon and significantly more attention to our Tuesday administration is producing well-organized “disciples” who aren’t actually becoming a whole lot like Jesus?
What if corporately encountering the word, people, and special presence of Jesus really is the most significant act of discipleship each week?
Luke Miller - Westwood Alliance Church - Mansfield, Ohio
[1] John Frame, Worship in Spirit and Truth (P&R Publishing: Phillipsburg, NJ), 31-35.
[2] Frame, 35.
[3] For more on this, see Dan Wetzel’s excellent 1:9 article on pastoral prayer: https://www.oneninealliance.org/articles/the-power-of-pastoral-prayer