Dr. Ed Stetzer is the Executive Director of the Lifeway Research Division. Stetzer has obtained two masters degrees and two doctorate degrees, and he currently serves as pastor of Grace Church in Tennessee. In addition to being the Executive Director for a division of lifeway and a pastor, Stetzer is also a contributing author for Christianity Today, Executive Editor of The Gospel Project, Executive Editor of Facts & Trends Magazine, co-host of the BreakPoint This Week Radio Program, and a columnist for Outreach Magazine.
In his article, Better Discipleship: 5 Broken Views of Discipleship and How to Fix them, Ed Stetzer writes on the topic of discipleship. The thesis of this article is that there are five broken views of discipleship such as, we equate discipleship with religious knowledge, we try to program discipleship, we equate discipleship with our preaching, we think that we will grow without
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Ed combats this view with the idea that the point of discipleship is not information, but Christ-like transformation. The second “broken view” presented is the fact that we try to program discipleship. Ed infers that discipleship is so much more than a six-week course, and people are looking for relationships more than discipleship classes. The third “broken view” is that we equate discipleship with our preaching. In fact, 56% of pastors surveyed believe their weekly sermon was the most important discipling ministry in the church. Ed battles this idea with the truth of how discipleship is a daily process and commitment. The fourth “broken view” is that we think that we will grow without effort. Ed then implies that discipleship takes intentional effort to grow in their relationship with the Lord. The fifth “broken view” of discipleship is we don’t offer practical steps to discipleship. Stetzer argues that we need to be intentional about implementing discipleship