Hunger For Discipleship by Brian Yeich

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.” Matthew 5:6

In the Inspire Movement, the ministry that my wife and I share as Missioners, we teach four core values of discipleship that can be found as we look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels: 

• Seeking growth in our love for God and neighbor
• Using spiritual disciplines as a means of grace
• Sharing fellowship with spiritual friends
• Engaging mission in everyday life. 

These values help frame a way of life that is aligned with the life that Jesus calls us to. The first of these values, seeking growth, is almost a prerequisite to the rest. If we are not hungering for more of God in our lives, or at least hungering to have a hunger, then our disciplines, fellowship and mission will just be going through the motions. However, if we are hungry for more of God, our disciplines will bear greater fruit, our fellowship, whether in bands and house fellowships, will draw us closer to Jesus and our mission will be empowered by the Holy Spirit. 

The Power of Spiritual Hunger: Why Desire for God Fuels True Discipleship

I recently returned from Benin in West Africa and I had a wonderful experience with a great team and a receptive group of Christian leaders, hungry for more of God. The people in Benin have a rich history and culture and the group of Christian leaders we worked with shared stories of how their church in the past had been evangelistic and discipleship focused. However, in recent years they had experienced decline and their diagnosis of the cause of the decline included a move away from Wesleyan bands and classes. As I presented some training on the Inspire way of life and how groups like fellowship bands and house fellowships can provide a catalyst for following Jesus more closely, they were enthusiastic! They engaged in bands during our time together and came away with an expressed desire to start as soon as possible. I am waiting to hear stories of fruit that may have sprung up as a result of our time together. 

Reviving the Church Through Wesleyan Discipleship and Fellowship Bands

A common theme in churches that we work with is a focus on discipleship as knowledge. While that is certainly an important aspect of discipleship, what seems to be missing at times is a space where people can come together to talk about their life with Jesus without other curriculum guiding the conversation. We need each other if we are going to follow Jesus faithfully. A hunger for knowledge is good, but if a hunger for more of the love of God and neighbor doesn’t accompany it, then we are missing the transformation of our hearts. 

John Wesley’s Heart-Warming Experience: A Reminder That Faith Is More Than Knowledge

In many ways, this was the experience of John Wesley prior to his Aldersgate experience. It was on May 24, 1738 that John Wesley reluctantly went to a Christian meeting on Aldersgate Street in London. This was the meeting place of a group called the Moravians, who had been influential on Wesley. Just a few months earlier, John had returned from a mission trip to America, which had not gone well. In fact, he came back from that trip doubting his own faith and struggling with fear. People from this Moravian group had been trying to help him work through his crisis of faith, and so maybe Wesley thought that attending one of their meetings might be helpful. As he sat at this Christian meeting, he listened as the speaker read from an introduction to a Bible commentary on the book of Romans by Martin Luther, the German pastor credited with kicking off the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s. As the speaker read the words from the introduction, John was reminded that Christ had died for him and through faith in Christ he was forgiven of his sins. This faith was a gift and Luther’s words echoed in John’s mind, “Ask God to work faith in you; otherwise you will remain eternally without faith, no matter what you try to do or fabricate.” But at that moment, it was more than just something he believed in his head. John records this event in his personal journal: “I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: And an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”

Scholars like to debate what happened to John Wesley at Aldersgate. However, I think we could say that Wesley was already a Christian – he was raised in church, he was a pastor, he went to seminary, he went on a mission trip to America and he practiced strict spiritual disciplines. Yet he realized something was missing and that hunger led him forward. Hungering for more of God may start with a simple recognition that there is more to life and faith than what we are currently experiencing. What are you hungering for?