The Evangelistic Nature of Discipleship

Recently, I found myself in a room where Francis Schaeffer and the F-word were used in the same conversation. Not a typical pairing — but strangely, it was beautiful. Because in that moment, something holy was happening. It was the messy, redemptive, unfiltered reality of discipleship taking place right in front of me.

That conversation captured what I’ve come to believe about the evangelistic nature of discipleship: that it doesn’t mainly happen in classrooms or programs, but in real life and with real people — people moving from death to life, from hearts of stone to hearts of flesh.

The Messy Miracle of Transformation

The Christian story holds this profound tension: transformation is both instantaneous and lifelong. In one sense, it happens in a moment — justification — when we receive the finished work of Christ. But it is also a slow, lifelong process — sanctification — as the Spirit works that reality deeper into our being.

To peer into anyone’s story, at any moment, is to witness this divine mystery in real time. The Spirit is at work in the cracks and conversations, in the awkward pauses, in the moments we least expect.

Discipleship, then, doesn’t begin after water baptism or when someone joins a small group. It begins much earlier — the moment someone meets a true follower of Jesus and begins to observe their life.

This is how God often pursues us. Like Jesus calling fishermen and tax collectors before there was any evidence of maturity or faith, discipleship often starts before someone believes.

Jesus didn’t wait for His followers to “get it.” He invited them to follow first, to be with Him. His call wasn’t “believe and then follow,” but “follow Me, and you will come to believe.”

He walked with sinners, ate with them, loved them. He didn’t treat people as problems to solve or projects to fix. In fact, He often withheld His divine power to fix situations in order to love people instead.

That’s the essence of relational discipleship: love that walks alongside rather than reaching down from above.

Relationships are not a side dish to discipleship — they’re the main course.
Every story of transformation begins with someone who decided to love long enough to be misunderstood, to stay close enough to see the mess, and to speak truth tenderly enough to be heard.

That’s why that conversation — the one with Francis Schaeffer and the F-word — struck me so deeply. I caught this individual in the middle of their story. They weren’t cleaned up yet. They were still wrestling, still raw. But they were also being pursued — by God and by brothers in Christ who loved them well.

And in that space, a quote from Francis Schaeffer flowed as freely as an F-bomb. It was a picture of grace meeting humanity, of holiness entering ordinary language, of discipleship happening in real time.

The Final Apologetic

Schaeffer once wrote that “Christian love and unity are the final apologetic to the watching world.”
In other words, how we love one another — in the middle of our stories — is the most compelling evidence of the gospel’s truth.

Evangelism and discipleship are not two separate endeavors; they are two sides of the same coin. Evangelism introduces someone to Jesus; discipleship shows them what life with Him looks like. The line between the two is rarely clean, because real life isn’t clean.

When believers love one another through the long, uneven, frustrating, grace-filled process of transformation, the world sees something it cannot explain: divine love with dirt under its nails. I like to imagine that the hands of Christ weren’t perfectly manicured or soft, but instead rough and worn—more like the hands of a farmer.

The Long Game

Discipleship is a long and adventurous game. It will rarely look the way we expect. It may sound, at times, like Schaeffer and the F-word sharing a sentence. But if Jesus is leading, it will always be exactly what we need.

It’s not about producing perfect people, but about forming patient ones — men and women learning to live honestly, to repent quickly, to forgive freely, and to love deeply.

When we embrace that vision, we stop treating discipleship as a curriculum to master and start living it as a calling to embody. We stop trying to make converts and start cultivating relationships where the love of Christ can take root and grow. And in those sacred, ordinary moments — around tables, in conversations, in the tension between old habits and new hearts — the kingdom of God breaks in again.