Member or Disciple?

It is unfortunate that the term “member” has become synonymous with the word disciple. It is unfortunate because being a disciple requires that we apprentice with people who have let their Hearts be Opened to Jesus, and their Minds be Enriched by Jesus whereas being a member might only mean showing up on our membership rolls. Being true to the Great Commission (Matthew 28), means we must first be concerned with disciple making, and make means that as a Church, we take this responsibility seriously.

My friend Rev. Paul Gravley, who is pastor of Hutto United Methodist wrote:

The word disciple, best translated, means apprentice. An apprentice is part student and part follower, with the goal of learning from the teacher in order to be as good at what they do as their teacher. In the case of the 12 disciples, they studied and learned under Jesus so that they, to the best of their ability, might be able to do what Jesus did! Then, at the end of his ministry, Jesus offers this incredible edict to the disciples: “go and make more disciples, and teaching them…” Jesus apparently thought that the 12 could actually do what Jesus did and not only that, that they could pass on to the subsequent generations that they can do what Jesus did.

This doing what Jesus did has been passed down to each of us so that each of us, through God’s grace, in Christ, and through the movement of the Holy Spirit, we too can do what Jesus did when people come Home to God, at St. Philip’s United Methodist Church.

The word Home is incorporated into our logo at St. Philip’s Logo. H.O.M.E. - where each letter has meaning

H – Hearts

O – Open

M – Minds

E – Enriched

When we welcome people into our church our hope is that they will come H.O.M.E. to God, that is become disciples of Jesus Christ with their Hearts Open, and Minds Enriched. But this has not been an articulated, or disciplined hope. Instead, it has been our practice to get people involved in choir or a Sunday School class, or in one of the committees of the church, and hope that they would figure out what it means to be a disciple. Disciple-making is too important to be left to chance. It takes training and intentionality – just as Jesus trained the first Disciples, so too we must be trained to be disciples of Jesus.

It may not be how we in the church today became disciples, but I submit to you that the world is very different than what it was, and we too have to adapt and change. Paul Gravley writes:

Consider that families move. Often, on average, once every five years. As nomadic people if who live on average to 80, we would have moved 16 times. In the community that we find ourselves in (the greater Williamson County area), that rate is probably much higher. This fact has major implications for the church, particularly with regards to disciple making.

Quite simply, St. Philip’s has a small window in a person or family’s life to help create disciples out of seekers, and it is time we become intentional about our disciple making process.

Over the next few weeks and months you will hear about an intentional disciple making process Connecting Ministries has been working on called HOMESteading, our local answer to the practice of intentional discipleship.

Coming Alive in Passionate Worship

This week as we talk about Passionate Worship around the St. Philip’s community, and I have been reminded of a conversation I overheard this summer, on a bus in Ghana. We were packed in pretty tight so I couldn’t turn around and see who was talking. For three hours I listen to these two Peace Corps volunteers talk. I wrote this in my personal blog when I was in Ghana. These two women are on their way to join volunteers from around the country for a 4^th of July Celebration.

They catch up on each other’s lives, discussing everyone in the program and who they are currently “with”. I can’t avoid listening; they talk non-stop for three hours. One boy they talk about extensively, “like when you’re talking with him, he looks all thoughtful, and he gets that like far off look, like he’s thinking deeply about what you are saying…” the other jumps in, “but he’s not” she says. “There is like nothing going on inside.” I’m sure I’ve dropped a couple hundred usages of the word like. These women are such verbal processors, but their words burn in my ears. Am I like that? What would they say about me if they knew me? For three hours I hear them analyze their friends and colleagues, and that boy. “He’s passionate about nothing,” they say. Not that he isn’t passionate, its just that his passion does not have an object. Its talk without action, music without expression, art that can’t evoke an emotion. Passionate about nothingness except looking or feeling passionate. I think about myself, my situation, and wonder what makes me come alive, or back to my current situation, what would I jump across the crevasse to do, ignoring the danger of possible failure?

Someone once said “Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” [Howard Thurman] So have been compiling my list of things that make me come alive…

And one of the things on my list of passions is worship and that alone raises many questions. (If you want to read about the other two, here is the link to the complete blog post [click here]).

Being passionate about Worship, I wonder is that the same as Passionate Worship (AKA loving God in return)? Or is Passionate Worship the act of loving the love of God, that is the emotion of love without the object of it.

If there is a purpose to Passionate Worship, then is it to evoke passion in us?

Is Passionate Worship’s affect to increase our passion for God? Or is it like what I heard someone say about art, “I’m not sure what it is, but I know it when I see it,” or in our case experience it.

Here is I know about being passionate about worship:

Worship - I’m not just saying that because I’m a pastor, and should include something religious on my list (how sad would that be?) I do love worship, I love planning it, attending passionate worship services, feeling the playful love that goes into the service when everything works together, the danger when someone calls an auditable. I love being lost in the experience, as the work of worship helps me approaching the divine. This work can’t be measured by minutes, but only what that experience does, where it takes you. I love a well structured sermon, singing hymns I’ve never sung, connecting words of the hymns with the message, being lead by a talented lead worshipper, or listening to the perfect song following a sermon, like a good cup of coffee after dessert. I love that feeling after the benediction when I feel changed, encouraged, or challenged. I love it on Wednesday when my mind is still working through a “some assembly required” aspect of the sermon, or when I’m wondering years from now, about a particular point or story I heard.

So maybe I can adapt that Howard Thurman quote to look like this

“Don't ask yourself what your church needs. Ask yourself what makes your faith come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people of faith who have come alive.”

Radical Hospitality - You Are Welcome

There is this expression in Ghana that everyone new to the country grows to understand.

“You Are Welcome!”

Even now as I write these words, they sound perfectly normal to me, but I remember when we first moved there, how odd they sounded, like the response to someone saying thank you. But what these words “You Are Welcome” mean is just that, that you are welcome in this place, be it our home, our church, or in our company.

The practice of radical hospitality is generally considered a keystone to a church’s success, of making people feel welcome. In his Oct. 6, 2009 blog posting, “The Battle is Won or Lost in Your Lobby,” Bishop Schnase reflected on a talk given by Claudia Levy at the Leadership Nexus event in Shreveport, La., in September.

“She said a preacher may preach the best sermon since the Apostle Paul … but if someone walks in your front door and is ignored, neglected, rudely treated, pounced upon in an overdone fashion, or welcomed in a mechanical and perfunctory manner, then you will likely never see the visitor return.”

Schnase responded: “I’m not suggesting every usher, greeter, staff member and volunteer must be perfect. But they must be authentic, hospitable and attentive. Directed by the right motivations, sustained by a right Spirit, attentive in a right and caring way, we can do this right. We have to look at the guest experience through the eyes of a visitor,” or how we would hope to be welcomed.

“Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Romans 15:7)

For the past year United Methodist Churches have been challenged by figuring out what Radical Hospitality means to them in their ministry setting. We wonder where does Radical Hospitality lead, and I believe that if it does not lead anywhere, that is OK. The blessing of Radical Hospitality comes from its practice in our lives, in our personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and in our church is enough because of what it does to us, not to where it leads or it’s affect on the people around us. Practicing Radical Hospitality makes us better people, a better church, it helps us become more like what we were created to be, and that my friends that is reason enough.

Archbishop William Temple once wrote, "The church is the only organization that exists for the benefit of its non-members." And as long a we remember that, we’ll do OK at extending Radical Hospitality, but when we shift our thinking to believing that it exists for us, we’ve lost any context for Hospitality.

There is another expression in Ghana, “Am I Invited?” that one will ask when waiting outside a room one wants to enter. This lesson came to us in a hospital where our daughter Grace was being treated for Malaria, and the chief nurse stood outside the curtain saying “Am I Invited?”

I think that is the implied question that guests to St. Philip’s ask, “Am I invited?” Are the people here going to invite me into their lives, their practice of faith, their community? Is St. Philip’s a place that has room for me? Its not only our gests asking, “Am I Invited?” is the question that I think God asks us every day. Am I invited into your life, into your relationships, into the joy and pain of a believer’s life?

So if the question is “Am I Invited” then as we grow in faith, and practice Radical Hospitality, our unspoken answer to God and those around us will be “You Are Most Welcome!”