“NOT CHURCH MEMBERS, … BUT DISCIPLES”

BLOG: 7/30/12. “NOT CHURCH MEMBERS, … BUT DISCIPLES”

Did you ever notice that in the New Testament there is never any mention of church members? Never. Or, that there is never any invitation to join the church? (Nor is there any mention of any such category as clergy, or church professionals, … but that is for another time.)

What one does find, however, is a significant focus on disciples, on the command to “repent and believe,” and on the invitation to “follow me.”  And what one finds is, rather than clergy or church professionals,that there are gifted leaders who are those with specific and proven gifts given to equip and facilitate the church in its mission, which is to: “Go and make disciples:” disciple-makers.   Such disciples are each, then, to be those who spontaneously, themselves, make other disciples, so that the church is always growing organically: “like leaven.”

Such a principle of disciple-making seems so utterly, utterly, foreign to such a huge percentage of those who constitute the church institutions as “members” or “communicants” in this North American scene. It becomes highly questionable whether the lives of such have anything at all to do with New Testament Christianity, or with the Kingdom of God and the mission of God.

But disciples? Disciples are those who are being transformed into the image of the Son of God (Romans 8:29), being conformed to Christ’s likeness.

How does this happen? Well, for starts, begin with Jesus, who chose twelve to spend significant and ‘up close’ time with himself, … he invited them to come be with him, taught them all about his purpose in coming, all about the gospel of the Kingdom of God which he was inaugurating, all about his suffering, death, and resurrection. Then he sent them out on missions of do what he had taught them. He called them back and processed their experience.

Ultimately, he gave them (and the whole church and all of its participants) the command to go and make disciples, i.e., to do with others what he had done with them.

Face it: people need models. They need not just information, but models and coaches. Paul states this disciple-making role beautifully: “What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Philippians 4:9).

Or, as my dear friend, the late Pete Hammond explained it to me: “Disciple-making is spending such significant time with others until you reproduce yourself in them.”

Sound strange? Try Paul’s principle: “Be imitators of me as I am of Christ” (I Corinthians 11:1). Disciple-makers are not just teachers, but models of what they are teaching.

Not members, … but disciples.

[… To be continued.]

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

CommentLuv badge