I could not address you as spiritual, but as worldly—as infants in Christ. I gave you milk to drink and I did not give you solid food, for you were not yet ready for solid food. 1 Corinthians 3:1,2

I have a Facebook friend who has been defining ‘Christian words’ and phrases you might be used to if you grew up in church, but are meaningless, or apt to be crazily misunderstood, by a non-believer or a new believers who come into our midst.

Done in a humorous way, it underscores just how comfortable we can be with an entire lexicon of church terminology that are lost in the translation for those who haven’t been filled in along the way. One of those terms is ‘disciple’ as in what we are (or should be) as Christians.

So what’s a disciple? A disciple is someone who finds their entire identity, purpose and meaning in Jesus. Jesus is the center of their lives. They are all in, fully committed to Jesus.

Now obviously, most newly-churched people don’t fit that definition… they don’t even know the definition. Sadly, many who have been in the Christian faith a long time don’t know it either. So to counteract that, we have something we call discipling.

‘Discipling’ can be traced to ‘succor’ which is an old fashion term for nursing (as in nursing a baby). This is what Paul was talking about in today’s verse. He’s been discipling these new believers with milk-like truths, easy to deal with. Early on they were babies in the faith and needed to be cared for like spiritual babies if they are going to become mature followers of Jesus. That’s the ministry of discipling in a nutshell.

The need for this kind of discipling has become more and more vital in our churches. In a postmodern world where there are so many broken people—so many clueless of spiritual truths—human relationships are so important as living example of Jesus-relationship. So spiritual nurturing has become a vital need in churches that have young believers in their midst.

It’s not hard to understand how children who have suffered from malnutrition or starvation need special diets and special emotional care in areas such as trust and wholeness if they are to recover, so they can go on to lead normal lives. It’s the same way spiritually.

Christians who have been spiritually starved, hurt, damaged by life need special spiritual care if they are going to trust God in the future and even trust other Christians. Sometimes the damage has come from outside the faith, but sometimes it has come from inside. Either way, this is where the true discipling / nurturing comes in.

Hurting Christians who are deprived of emotional nurturing at critical times require care and love if their sense of security and God-confidence is to be mature or be restored. Whenever love is minimal and abuse high, wounded people will require time and investment if the damage is to be undone, or at least reversed to some extent.

Often the time and care discipling takes frustrates the ‘already-churched’ who just want these newbies to jump on board and become just like themselves. The problem is, it’s not that easy, and when this kind of nurturing of new believers doesn’t take place, the whole body suffers (1 Cor 12:26).

More on this next time.