"Making" Disciples
The official mission of the United Methodist Church includes "making disciples." Is this possible? First of all, I'm not sure that in this day and age, anyone wants to be "made" into anything. Secondly, I'm not sure we can "make" disciples, but rather the Lord works through us to attract others to Him. In that attraction as we walk by faith, we grow and become more faithful disciples.
Cornerstone was invited to be a Romans 12 Congregation and it gets me to thinking about our effectiveness and where we need to be working. The biggest challenge Cornerstone faces right now is how to be magnetic and contagious in our faith in a vast world of people that have absolutely no clue how much God loves us and desires to be in relationship with us.
One attempt that we're making is called Stepping Stones...an intentional process to grow people in faith. It seems to be working somewhat thus far, but we have a LONG way to go. We will never become healthiest, strongest, and faithfully growing until we learn to become magnetic and contagious. Lord, help us...
3 comments:
Congrats on the nod...it looks like a good program, and I'm encouraged that there are several smaller membership, rural congregations who were included, so it isn't just a suburban thing.
Just the fact that you're thinking about becoming more effective (or, in Wesleyan terms, "going on to perfection") is a wonderful thing. God bless you all at Cornerstone!
I also applaud your recongnition and inclusion in this program.
One thought about "mission" and its inclusion in the UM statement. Sometimes I think we over use the term that is biblical to describe a state of being in today's world. Certainly the church's mission in the world is to biblically, "make disciples."
But I agree with you that there is a disconnect there. I like to say that our purpose is to make disciples and then to further look at mission - current state of being, and vision - future state of being. so somewhere in that state of being biblically minded ist the desire for our churches to be about the work of discipleship and transformation of life.
Whatever the word is that we use - we must be about it. Transforming, ourselves, others, the world - making disciples of Jesus Christ.
Remember, too, that Jesus commanded us to, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations...", so there is a reason why that's our mission statement.
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