I dabble in woodworking, and I love camping. No one would ever accuse me of being a master carpenter, and I learned everything I know about camping from Bear Grylls. But I have learned one thing: a wood shop and a campsite require very different tools.
In a wood shop, I can choose a tool designed for the task in front of me. I wouldn’t expect a planer to do the work of a hammer or a jointer to do the work of a jigsaw. Each tool has a purpose. A multi-tool might help me in a pinch, but I would never try to build a table with one.
Out at camp, a multi-tool will do just fine and can do almost everything I need. While an entire wood shop would never fit in my backpack. Yet I sometimes wonder whether we have treated preaching like a multi-tool in a wood shop; we expect one valuable tool to do the work of an entire workshop.
Don’t get me wrong, I love preaching. I knew I was called to preach way back in second grade. Okay, not quite, but that is when I got my first lead role in the school play. But I have spent the better part of 25 years doing the work of exegesis and learning the science, history, and art of crafting sermons. I have seen what the Holy Spirit can do through a sermon and how God can use our words to pierce people’s hearts. Even so, preaching alone can never produce a discipleship culture.
What Preaching Can and Cannot Do
Preaching (and teaching, for that matter) can challenge assumptions, declare the beauty of the gospel, stir conviction, and cast vision for the kind of people that God is creating us to be. A sermon can show us what a disciple looks like, but it cannot create every environment needed to form one.
Most church leaders would probably hear that and think, “Of course preaching alone is not discipleship.” But our practices often tell another story. We organize our meetings, planning, strategy, and thinking around the Sunday gathering, but don’t give as much thought to how people are formed Monday through Saturday. This means that when people show up to church on Sunday, they have already been discipled by something all week. Whether the news, sports radio, a blog, podcasts, books, or family and friends, the other discipleship voices in their lives are loud. If the simplest way to define discipleship is to “be a learner or apprentice of something,” then all of us are being discipled by something.
This means a 30-45 minute sermon on Sunday is only one input among many, and it often competes for their attention and life change. It enters a conversation that has already been shaping people all week.
How Jesus Formed Disciples
Jesus understood that formation required more than information. He taught his disciples about the kingdom of God, but he also invited them to follow Him. They watched Him, practiced what He taught, failed, asked questions, and received correction. Sometimes he answered them plainly; other times he let them wrestle. He sent them out, listened when they returned, and sent them again (Mark 6:7-13, 30; Luke 10:1-20). A sermon can begin the formation process, but a discipleship culture carries it into the rest of the week.
Talking about discipleship does not create a discipleship culture. Culture grows from what people repeatedly see, experience, and practice in the life of the church. The missing ingredient is often not another sermon, but an environment where people can respond to what they have already heard. We need places where they can wrestle with truth together, be known rather than merely attend, and practice the spiritual rhythms of our faith. They need room to ask questions, take risks, repent, serve, fail, and remain connected.
Build the Bridge Between Proclamation and Practice
We cannot manufacture spiritual growth; that is the work of the Holy Spirit. But we are responsible for cultivating environments where people can respond to what the Spirit is doing. The answer is not to preach less. It is to build a bridge between proclamation and practice. If I preach that prayer matters, where will people learn to pray? If I preach that we need one another, where will people become known? If I call people to repentance, where will repentance be modeled and practiced? Without those environments, I may impress people with my words without helping them live what they have heard.
Every church already has a discipleship culture. The question is not whether we have one, but what kind of disciples our existing culture is producing. Are we asking preaching to do work that requires an entire workshop? Preaching is a powerful tool, but it was never meant to work alone.
