June 12, 2016

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.