"Making Disciples of Jesus Christ"

Bishop Hoshibata has challenged us to “make disciples of Jesus Christ,” and to “give God our best.”  Jesus once sent his disciples out "taking no bread, no bag, and no money in their belts." It doesn't sound like the way we're used to making disciples, does it? Obviously, Jesus has great expectations for his disciples, just as we have great expectations for our church. The question is, are they one and the same?

Here’s a true story.  A pastor ran into a woman who only the Sunday before had visited his church with her family. He told her he hoped they would return and she replied, "We enjoyed the service, but we're just shopping around for the church that meets our needs."

That's an honest response.  Obviously, we want the church to “meet our needs,” but we need to be careful about how we’re defining needs here.  I don’t think the “needs” that we talk about most often are what Jesus was talking about in this story and I don’t think they’re what Bishop Hoshibata is talking about either. William Willimon writes, "We live in a day when many are convinced that the church should get into marketing, that the church should take its cue from business and be more 'consumer oriented.' Pastors are enjoined to create 'user friendly' worship.”(1)

But what would Jesus do? How does a user friendly, consumer oriented approach to ministry relate to the story of Jesus sending out his disciples with only the clothes on their back, telling them to preach the Word of God and, if people don't like it, to just shake the dust off their feet and go elsewhere?  It doesn't sound like a strategy for attracting new customers or consumers. Is Jesus being impractical, or is there something we're not understanding?

In a book entitled, Selling Out the Church, we read: "By living in a society in which most daily choices are consumer choices, people have come to view their relationship to the church in similar ways, but once people have come to view choosing a church in ways similar to choosing among competing styles of basketball shoes, then enormous pressure is exerted upon the church to conceive of itself in those terms as well." (2)

It doesn’t have to be that way.  I’ve just spent a week with a group of United Methodist teenagers, talking about the need to live more simply, that others might simply live.  And it wasn’t just talk.  We didn’t buy a single new supply for this week at camp.  Everything was recycled.   It wasn’t a political or even an ecological thing for us – it was spiritual discipleship.

I believe that what Bishop Hoshibata is talking about calls the whole notion of marketing into question. He’s preaching that our focus ought to be on spiritual formation, discipleship making and growing the Kingdom of God, forming people into living embodiments of Christ's love and compassion. I'm excited about the spiritual growth experiences that those teenagers had, and that many of you are having as part of your covenant and prayer group experiences.  I think that’s the cutting edge of true evangelism.  It may not be what people think they’re looking for, but God knows it’s what we all need!

Willimon writes that “Most people come to church for the wrong reasons. We come seeking confirmation of our preconceptions, but God tends to take our wrong reasons and reform them, redirect our desires, give us more than we would have known how to ask for. In the reading and preaching of God's word, our preconceptions get challenged and changed. We come seeking mere fellowship with other people - and are astounded to receive friendship with God." (3)

I think that’s an important thing to remember as we move into the next stage of our building program.  We obviously need dramatic changes in our present facility, but we need dramatic changes in our discipleship as well.  May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be more interesting, more challenging, and more provocative than all your expectations.  Give God your best, make disciples in Christ’s name, and may Christ be your shalom.  Amen.

(1) William Willimon, "On Not Meeting People's Needs In Church," July 6, '97

(2) Philip D. Kenneson & James L. Street, Selling Out the Church, p. 68

(3) op. cit.