Each
year nearly 1,000 United Methodists come together at Annual Conference to do
the business that keeps the church operating. But in the midst of discussions
on insurance premiums and open carry policies for conference events, the real
business of the church is discussed in the hallway, at lunch and even between
business session. The “real business of the church?” you ask “Making disciples
of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” This is THE business of
the Church (paraphrased from Matthew 28:19-20). Everything the Church does is
toward this mission. If it is not, I don’t know what it is, but it is not the
Church. Our conference teacher, Alan Hirsch, claimed that this mission produced
the church, not the other way around. He claimed, “… almost every movement that
is significant is obsessed with making disciples.” Making disciples is not what
we do, it is who we are!
A
disciple is not someone who learns all that they can about someone. That is a
fan or maybe just a creepy person. A disciple is someone who does everything
they can to be as much like that person as possible. Alan Hirsch said that
disciples of Jesus “do the same kinds of things Jesus did for the same reasons
Jesus did them.” Our mission is not to become a fan of Jesus; our mission is to
become like Jesus, to be a disciple. When we worship, when we sing, when we
pray, when we study the Bible, we are making disciples. (Just a reminder, our
first focus should be to make a disciple of the person in our mirror. If we
aren’t disciples ourselves, game over!) While the necessary “business” of Annual
Conference was completed in Waco, the work of the Church really starts when we
all go back home; when we make disciples.
But
it is odd that we have no record of Jesus sitting in his favorite pew in
worship. We have no record of Jesus talking only with his friends (in fact we
have stories of Jesus talking with some pretty strange folks). And Jesus never
rode a bicycle, wore a white shirt and black tie, knocked on doors and told
non-believers they were going to hell. In fact, Jesus’ harshest words were
reserved for the believers (I fear that is us today) who had tons of rules, but
were failing to share the love of God with others. While Jesus loved the
Temple, Jesus loved people more. Jesus met people where they were, WHEREVER
they were. Jesus interacted with people outside his social circles. Jesus
didn’t find fault with people who had made really bad decisions, but neither
did he enable them to keep making bad decisions. He shared with them the fact
that God loves them and then said, “Yeah, don’t do that bad stuff again”
(Brad’s paraphrase of John 8:11b).
So
here’s the punch line. If we want our church to be significant, if we want our
church to grow, if we want to continue to have dynamic worship that changes
lives, if we want FUMC Coleman to be a dominant presence in our community, if
we want our children and grandchildren to be a part of a thriving youth group,
WE MUST BE A DISCIPLE MAKING CHURCH! The alternative is to do what we’ve always
done and expect what we’ve always got. The problem is the world is changing
around us. While God remains the same, the way we communicate the love of God,
the way we live out God’s love in an ever changing world and the way we make
disciples has changed drastically. In the 1950’s, if we built it they would
come. Today, it’s built but few are coming. We need to go and make disciples OR
we can be insignificant and live in open disobedience to what God told us to
do. The choice is ours.
