Impact of Discipleship: Sam Bellefy
“In the midst of this self-assurance, my worship rang hollow.”
From the start, I knew that CAYA was weird. Not weird in that peculiar-yet-winsome way which so many self-styled “quirky” people hope to achieve, but weird in the sense of “I am very uncomfortable.” Yet, as I stood awkwardly on the dingy linoleum of the St. Paul’s cafeteria and watched the throng of young folks socialize, I was in a bit of a bind. I had already been going to Myles Cheadle’s Bible study for several months by this point, I didn’t have anywhere better to be, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to walk around the UMKC campus without being greeted by someone from Midtown I vaguely remembered. Too deeply invested, I resigned myself and kept coming, week after week. About a month in, ignorant of what discipleship was but eager to please, I went to the next Cost of Discipleship class. Shortly after that, I received the fateful email: I was paired with Romeo Bagunu and Sam Miles Jr. (who, after a period of uncertainty, I discovered was not our lead pastor).
Beginning discipleship, I felt relatively sure of myself. I had been saved and baptized from a young age, always believing God’s word to be true. I had grown up in a Bible-believing church, doing my best to pay attention to the sermons week after week. Growing up with parents who held opposing religious views (my mother is Christian, my father is Jewish), I had been forced to choose a side early, and I had always esteemed myself to be a faithful Christ-follower. Though I rarely read the book, I always tried to do what I thought the Bible said. I knew Christ, in the sense that I knew a ream of Bible-adjacent facts, going so far as to spend years in high school and college learning ancient Greek.
In the midst of this self-assurance, my worship rang hollow. I did not really know what I was doing. Until I started in Myles’ Bible study, I almost never read the Bible for myself. I was receptive to facts, but not to doctrine. Looking to 1 Corinthians 8:1, I had the knowledge that puffeth up, but not the charity that edifieth. Though at a deep level I wanted to please God, I wanted to do so on terms, at my schedule, my way, through my achievements. When I looked at CAYA and rendered judgement, plotted my way through life, or regarded preaching, I did so through a misplaced lens of my pride and so-called wisdom, as if I alone knew what was right.
What a fruitless and unsatisfying waste!
“Where I once wanted to achieve for myself, I now wanted to please God. ”
Though so much changed, I must say that the greatest impact of discipleship for me was the unravelling of myself. Notions fortified in willful ignorance were forced to be confronted, truths I acknowledged nominally but hesitated to embrace wedged themselves edgewise into the doors of my heart. Through time with Romeo and Sam, through learning the eighteen lessons, through Bible study, through the fellowship of the church, through time in God’s word, I found myself unconsciously changing, lessening, conforming.
Throughout my life, I had been driven by my ambition, my own path. Those around me, believing I had some sort of potential for achievement, encouraged my endeavours. I sincerely believed that by the force of my own determination, my desire to succeed, my drive to surpass others, I would achieve some purpose, some happiness, some fulfilment born out of my own will. Through discipleship, I discovered how wrong I was. Yet this discovery did not come through some sudden revelation or beam-of-light epiphany. It crept like a panther, until, largely unaware, I found my desires inclined to a much different direction. Where I once wanted to achieve for myself, I now wanted to please God. Where I once saw my purpose in the works of my hands and mind, I saw the mission for souls. Where I once viewed the study of God’s word as an obstacle to the pursuit of my feeble dreams, I now saw my desperate need to learn my Father’s heart.
The two notions —serving God and serving myself— could not work alongside one another. This did not stop me from trying. It was like Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel, a wheel bolted upside down on the seat of a four-legged stool. In this fashion, the two objects were utterly useless: the wheel could not be balanced, and the stool was no good for sitting. As I tried to vainly bolt my will to God’s will for me, I was similarly useless. Something had to give, something had to die, and the last time I checked, there is no outlasting God. Through discipleship, I had to learn to die to myself, to be a living sacrifice, surrendering the life that I never truly possessed to its true owner.
“...change came only by his power, his word, his working. ”
Our world, of course, revels in personal success (and excess) and the independent, self-driven will. The Kendrick Lamar song “Now or Never,” as fun as it is, fills me with an odd sadness when I listen to it now. In the lyrics —devoted to the glories of fame and personal achievement— the chorus goes “I know it's my time / And it's now or never / I shine so bright I light the night / And it feels so right, ain't nothing better.” This is the thought process of the world, one held by me as well, waiting, working, hoping, for “our time” to come. It was, and will never be, “our time,” yet, blinded by the placebo of success, we continue in it. Until the truth of God’s word laid bare this notion, cutting and revealing the true worth of worldly things, I had no idea what I was doing wrong. Through discipleship, I learned to read God's word (in the KJV, no less) and hold it as a measuring stick to life.
The catalyst of the inner work of discipleship was not found in myself, in my disciplers, or in Midtown Baptist Temple. Like the Ephesian church of Revelation 2, it is easy to be set firmly in the work of the ministry, of growth, of preaching, practically worshipping it, while simultaneously losing sight of our first love, the Lord Jesus. Though God used the process and structure of discipleship, change came only by his power, his word, his working. He is faithful, and his love for his sons and daughters, people like me, enabled the conforming of hearts, identities, and lives to him. I have seen those who, excited by the human prospects of discipleship, end up leaving as they begin to test the limits of their enthusiasm. I know there would be no “impact of discipleship” for me if it was dependent on my works, or the works of my disciplers. Only God has the power to work a harvest through a fallow field, to make disciples of unready men.
This work of conforming continues through today. Yet, through this time of discipleship, a foundation was laid, and the old trappings of my own ambitions and inclinations were stripped away. Moving forward to D2, to LFBI, to discipling another man, I still have so much to learn, and so many ways to change. But the skeleton is here, calcified by right words of truth, invested in love by faithful men. The knowledge that once lay on the surface, purely intellectual, is now bone-marrow deep, the concern of the heart. Without this work of discipleship, I can only sorrowfully imagine a life directed by my own will, purposeless and misspent, content in the naivete of ignorance. Thank God that this is not my story, and that I can have the joy of being part of his.
Phil 2:3 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do his good pleasure.
Sam Bellefy is a member of Midtown Baptist Temple and is a part of CAYA. He serves on the Postscript team, CAYA hospitality, and the LFF and CAYA blog teams. He is a part of a UMKC men’s Bible study.
