The mission of The United Methodist Church is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” I wholeheartedly agree with this mission, and I believe disciple making is the most important undertaking with which we should be engaged.
We have assumed that if a church provides consistent events, biblical information, and appealing programs for the people, and the people consume those offerings, then people will grow. But this isn’t what Jesus had in mind. When Jesus began his public ministry, his top priority was to recruit and train disciples. So what if we followed his model, which can be found in Matthew 4:18-22: As Jesus walked alongside the Galilee Sea, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew, throwing fishing nets into the sea, because they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” he said, “and I’ll show you how to fish for people.” Right away, they left their nets and followed him. Continuing on, he saw another set of brothers, James the son of Zebedee and his brother John. They were in a boat with Zebedee their father repairing their nets. Jesus called them and immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him.
Follow me – this phrase speaks volumes. It defines a disciple as a follower, and tells us that we are to imitate the one we are following. Notice that Jesus didn’t say, “Believe in me,” or “Think about me,” or “Consider me.” Every time he calls someone, he tells them to “follow me.” To be a disciple of Jesus is to leave the route you are on and take a narrow one-way road behind him. To follow Jesus means picking one direction, one person, and immediately dropping everything in order to follow them. Too often we’ve defined the Christian faith in terms of what we believe about Jesus, instead of focusing on actually following him and doing as he does.
Jesus didn’t come to bring a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life or more information about God. Jesus came to show us a new way to live. Information is important but it’s not enough. Imitating Jesus is really what it means to be a disciple. It’s at the heart of discipleship.
We will explore this idea of discipleship and how Jesus trained the first followers, in a future post. In the meantime, let’s follow Jesus, imitate him, and do what he did. Love God and love others.