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Posted by: Andrew Wooding - 16 June 2009
When asked about success of a church, many people think of numbers. Big churches are seen as success stories, smaller churches, often rural or city centre, seen as 'struggling'. When we do this we reduce the 'members' to 'bums on seats on Sundays' and make the church no more than a religious club. I may be overstating my position a little here but I do not believe the task Jesus called us to is to create churches. Nowhere are we commanded to do this. The word 'church' only occurs three times in two verses of Matthew's gospel. We are called instead to 'make disciples', disciples of Jesus.
Churches, especially those with 'professional' employees (often clergy) have a tendency to dis-empower members. At the worst, 'members' are simply the people who must sit and listen to the professional. Members are those who are there to learn, clergy the ones who are there to teach. Members are those who need pastoral care, clergy are those who provide pastoral care. Members are those who are there to be led in worship, clergy are those who are qualified to lead worship. In some churches these things are written into canon law. This seems to me to be contrary to what Jesus taught and the way he taught.
Jesus made disciples. Disciples are learners and disciplined. They are people of purpose who follow a teacher to learn all they can from him. They are people who are growing in their knowledge of, and ability to, live as their teacher has shown. They are people who pass on their learning to each other. They are people who learn by their experience of doing the things Jesus did. This is what those who the church refers to as 'members' really are – or should be. The primary job of the gathered body of Christians, the ecclesia, the church, is to make disciples of Jesus. Disciples who will evangelise, serve, care for each other and whose life is gathered up individually and corporately into a living act of worship of almighty God; disciples who share the mission of God.
The word 'missionary' has gone out of fashion. To many it is irrevocably damaged by connections with colonialism in the Victorian age. But it simply means 'one driven by and committed to a mission'. In a post-Christendom age we need missionaries not members.
Pete Pillinger has been the Methodist Church's Fresh expressions Missioner and a member of the Fresh Expressions Core Team for the last four years. In September he will become Chair of the Plymouth and Exeter District of the Methodist Church.
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Comments
Being a disciple
Posted by muriel sowden on 19 June 09 - 07:21
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20a). Jesus has incorporated this practice into the very definition of being a disciple and experiencing discipleship. We can't be disciples without being missionaries, we have to stop being passive spectators and break out from the "church box"
I think that we have been guilty of allowing the focus to be more about making "members" than making disciples and this has come about because we have,ultimately, replaced "bringing in the Kingdom of God" with "sustaining the church" as our "Mission"
Discipleship is more than an acknowledgement of God’s existence or a statement of belief regarding God. It is total devotion, head-over-heals-in-love-with adoration. It is the deep desire to know God, to be one with God, and to worship God. To be actively involved with what God is doing in the world. Not sitting within the walls of a "holy club" on Sunday mornings and waiting to be entertained.
Posted by Pam Smith on 28 June 09 - 11:29
This is so true - and yet (certainly in the C of E) the tension is that the giving comes largely from those in the "church box".
If people are given the space to become disciples most of them will readily engage with it, but so often we are asking them to do this course, go to that conference, follow these notes - making it as you say a question of acquiring a body of knowledge, whereas discipleship in the Bible is relational and mutual.
Clergy are trained to be a resource for other people's journeys of discipleship, but nowadays (at least in the C of E) are spread more and more thinly, so they have less and less time to engage in mutual relationships of discipleship and growth. Keeping the show on the road - maintenance - is seen as the first call on a vicar's time, with mission being done in the gaps or by other people - or not at all.