For Jesus, discipleship was deeply personal and relational. He called and calls people to come follow him. While here on earth he discipled his followers by sharing life with them, walking with them, teaching them by example, and setting them free to develop their own disciples. Even now he is with us. He sends his Spirit in us and on us so that we are never alone.
Jesus didn’t gather twelve people into a small group that met on Thursdays at 7:00pm and then hand them a scroll, and tell them to read a portion of it in preparation for the next meeting when they would discuss it. When he calls for us to go and make disciples, he isn’t telling us to invite our friends and neighbors to read Tim Keller latest book or sign up for a course on ‘Basic Truths All Disciples Should Know’ or head to the ‘Disciples R Us’ website for some stellar online training. He calls us to friendship and affection and intimacy. He calls us to lead by example. He calls us to rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. He tells us to irritate each other on to good works. All of these thing require relationship. All of these things require proximity. All of these things require vulnerability.
Discipleship outside of relationship is almost impossible. “As you’re going,” Jesus enjoins us, “make disciples.” It is a call to be aware of those God has placed in your path. It is a call to form relationships with those we find along the road of life. Jesus immediately follows this up with a call to baptize them. Being asked to baptize them assumes that they are not already believers. So much of our church discipleship is based on making immature Christians into more mature Christians. Young Christians into older Christians. Ignorant Christians into more knowledgeable Christians. All these are important elements, but the call to disciple is a call to minister before a person ever comes to belief. Jesus invites us to consider the people who surround us who are unaware of the kingdom of God and what it looks like to walk with them into faith.
Jesus calls his disciples to leave what they are doing and come follow him. Proximity matters. He doesn’t teach them his ways from a distance. He models the ways of God from close up. In a world where social media and social structures lead us further and further away from each other, the call of the gospel is to greater and greater proximity. Proximity is uncomfortable. We rub up against each other in awkward an
The Village Church’s sermon podcast is more than just a weekly message. It is an invitation into the great and ongoing story of God’s work in the world. Pastors Eric, Mark, Susan, Daniel, and other leaders open the Scriptures not as a collection of abstract ideas but as the living, breathing witness to God’s kingdom breaking into our midst. Each episode is a call—not merely to listen, but to take part, to step forward into the life of faith with renewed vision and purpose.
Week by week, the pastors and leaders explore the deep rhythms of Christian discipleship—prayer, fasting, generosity—not as isolated duties but as part of a larger, richer, and more beautiful whole. They unpack these ancient practices in light of Jesus himself, the one in whom heaven and earth have come together. But they also turn their attention to the realities of everyday life—relationships, finances, the struggles and joys of being human—demonstrating how the gospel is not merely about what we believe but about how we live as God's renewed people in the present age.
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