Eugene Peterson states that there are two distinctions that separate people of faith: disciple and pilgrim. As disciples we are people who spend our lives apprenticed to our master, Jesus Christ. Pilgrim tells us that we are people who spend our lives going someplace – going to God – and whose path for getting there is the Way, Jesus Christ. The Bible is obviously our best text for understanding the concept of discipleship. These five books will provide you with some profound and practical supplemental material for you journey.
- The Cost of Discipleship. Costly grace turns to cheap grace without discipleship. Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that the only man or woman that has the right to say that he or she is justified by grace alone is the man or woman who has left all to follow Christ.
- Follow me. David Platt is convinced that many people in our churches are misled as to what it means to be a follower of Christ. Western culture has drained the lifeblood out of Christianity and replaced it with a watered down version of the gospel that is so palatable that it ceases to be real.
- A Long Obedience in the Same Direction. This book comes at you at a time when no one talks about either “long” or “obedience.” Our attention spans have been conditioned by the thirty second commercials and 140 characters on social media. Eugene Peterson explains how that religion has been captured by the tourist mindset. The Christian life cannot mature under such conditions.
- The Master Plan of Evangelism. This book by Robert Coleman is a classic. In our day of the global village and the pluralistic society, we need to find our direction from Jesus Christ, our mentor as well as our redeemer.
- I am a Follower. Leonard Sweet explains how Christians in a corporate-obsessed culture have shifted from a Jesus art of following toward a popularized form of leading. The summons of Jesus and the message of the New Testament point clearly to an emphasis not on imitation but on incarnation, not on leading but on following.