It is my belief that the greatest failing of The United Methodist Church over the last 50 years does not lie in the number of people we’ve lost or the dollars that have disappeared from our coffers. The greatest failure of our church is a failure to disciple one another.
Somewhere along the way church membership has been confused with authentic, life-changing discipleship. Maybe the cultural norm of church led us to believe that society and the church went hand-in-hand. We grew comfortable as an American institution. I believe much of the panic we’re experiencing as a denomination is not rooted as much in decline of resources as it is in decline of influence and priority in community life. It’s tough not being the center of attention. But we simply cannot be satisfied using discipleship as a means of regaining some sense of power and comfort that went with those days gone by. Authentic discipleship requires so much more. And it means we have to look at church life in new ways–this doesn’t happen when we’re consumed with simply trying to recapture old realities. Mediocre discipleship should no longer be an acceptable norm in our churches.
Previously in Our Series…
As previously mentioned, discipleship is a life-long process of growth and maturity. For me, the best way to illustrate the complexity of discipleship is to compare it to the life of a human being. We begin young and helpless. It’s a powerful truth to realize what it means to be a “child of God.” However it can become easy to simply want to remain a child in the faith. Just as children grow up, so too must disciples grow up and “put childish things aside” (1 Cor. 13:11). This doesn’t mean we stop being beloved children of God at all–it simply means that there comes a time that our relationship with God must mature and lead us to deeper waters of love and service to God and other people.
Discipleship is About Relationship(s)
We live in a world that likes to create islands for individuals to live. One of the bedrocks of our society is the concept of individual rights and benefits. All of this is fine but if the Church is to say anything about discipleship, it must begin by saying that discipleship is dependent on relationship with others. This is non-negotiable. You don’t get to come and work on your own personal faith journey at church. You don’t get to “be fed” at a table set for 1. No, you leave the world of individualism and come to church for a corporate experience wrought with the messiness of being in relationship.
Relationship Status: Always Complicated
We begin by noting that relationship with God is messy. Any formulaic approach to relationship with God is liable to be a sales pitch for cheap grace. The God of the Old and New Testaments found in the person of Jesus of Christ simply will not fit into a neat box. If discipleship has been sold as some sort of simplistic portrayal of how “Jesus died for our sins and now we live for him” while leaving out the sheer vastness of what that means, then it will inevitably result not in a worship of God but rather a worship of ourselves and our own ideals. Relationship with God is rich and complex and takes a lifetime to even have the hope of somehow understanding it.
If we talk about the complexity of relationship with God, we have to include the fact that discipleship requires a distinct way of being in relationship with other people. We cannot (and I can’t emphasize this enough) be Christian or in an active relationship with God if we don’t see how that also affects our relationships with others. Virtues such a peace, inclusively, grace, and forgiveness must become hallmarks of a disciple’s life with others. You can’t be a disciple if you think you can expect such virtues from God without also extending those virtues to others. Any pursuit of Christian perfection will lead us along the winding road of learning to live with and radically love other people.
Still to Come…
Discipleship in community is not passive in nature. Just as intimate friendships and relationship require a certain amount of commitment and work, so too discipleship requires a community of people to gather together and invest in the living out of discipleship together. This requires a certain amount of time, effort, and most certainly accountability. If discipleship is the process of growing in and being shaped by God’s sanctifying grace, then Christian perfection, and nothing less, is always the goal of discipleship. And if Christian perfection is the goal of discipleship, then we have to submit ourselves to a standard of living and being in the world and trust that other sojourners on the road of discipleship will watch over us in the kind of love that doesn’t settle for mediocrity.
NEXT POST–Accountable Discipleship: Reviving our Methodist Heritage for a New Era