Discipleship or Discipling?

A colleague asked me recently, "Tell me what you do when you train your students in discipleship."

Well I kinda laughed to myself, because I tend to think of everything I do as training in discipleship, so how could I succinctly tell her how I do 'everything that I do'. My whole focus of ministry is on helping people go one step closer to Christ, or becoming more like Jesus everyday - whatever it takes.

First of all let's get one thing out of the way. For so many years there has been this confusion between discipleship & discipling or disciple-making. So some quick definitions:

Disciple - noun, personal, a person who is a follower of Jesus Christ. Technically it is just a pupil of a teacher, but it has come to be specific of Jesus as the teacher.

Discipleship - a noun actually talking about taking on characteristics of being more like Jesus Christ. Being more of a servant, or more of a healer or showing love to those without love, etc.

Discipling - a verb describing more of learning to be a disciple often involving another older/more mature disciple. Also an adjective defining a relationship between 2 disciples.

Disciple-making - a noun describing the intentional practice of helping a new or young believer become more like Jesus.

All seems a bit confusing doesn't it? Or if you are used to the terms they can be 'christianese' to keep others out of the lingo-circle.

So it seems like there is a movement to find new words to say this same thing in a better more coherent way. The current terms are Spiritual Formation or Spiritual Direction. There are tons of new books and periodicals helping us on the journey of spiritual formation. I can also consult a spiritual director (peer, lay or professional) to help me in my spiritual formation.

But how did I answer my colleague:
"I mostly do it on the fly depending on what I'm reading, thinking about etc.
For instance last year I used about 5 chapters from Donald Miller's books (_Blue Like Jazz_ & _Searching for God Knows What_.
Two years ago I did some Marcus Buckingham stuff
All of this is seasoned with a lot of "Barnabas", etc

Some basics though:
_Master Plan of Evangelism_, Coleman
_Soul Talk_, Crabb
_In The Name of Jesus_, Nouwen
_Working the Angles_, Peterson

One key is to help the student leaders define "What is a disciple of Christ?" or "What does it mean to be a Christ-follower @ your campus today?" (from their perspective, hopefully you will have tons of different ones)
that concept then frames what becomes their curriculum.

So it is...