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.