Discipleship = Apprenticeship

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How do you describe the disciplemaking process?

Recently I was listening to a podcast that was focused on the priority of making disciples. I liked the way the disciplemaking process was described…

“Apprenticing others into the likeness of Jesus.”

Unless you are involved in a trade, the apprenticeship process may not be familiar to you. Yet the image of being an apprentice conveys many ideas of disciplemaking.

apprentice:

c.1300, from O.Fr. aprentiz “someone learning” (13c.), from apprendre (Mod. Fr. apprendre)

“to learn, teach,”contracted from Latin apprehendere

(Dictionary.com. Online Etymology Dictionary. Douglas Harper, Historian. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/apprentice
accessed: June 26, 2012)

1. An apprentice is a learner. A disciple of Jesus is one who learns from Jesus!
2. An apprentice is a follower. A disciple of Jesus is one who follows in the footsteps of Jesus.

But more than just learning from Jesus or following Jesus – a disciplemaker is actually “apprenticing others into the likeness of Jesus.”