Where it has been practised, it has sometimes been misused or left mainly to a well-meaning but untrained laity. When ‘discipleship’ is discussed the word is used (1) to encourage a particular lifestyle or (2) to refer to the relationships between Jesus and his disciples and to construe similar actions as appropriate for followers today or (3) to help establish new believers in the faith by the exercise of Christian ‘disciplines’.1 However, it seems that more searching theological, philosophical