What is the essential activity of the Christian? By extension what is the essential activity
of Christian Ministry? It is important
in the beginning of any discussion to define the terms that will be used. It is not possible to divorce the activity of
an individual from the corporate, therefore any look at any corporate endeavor
one must look at those members that make up that group. Here we are looking at Christian ministry so
we must look at the Christian. The Westminster
Catechism says that the chief aim of a Christian is to glorify God and enjoy
Him forever. This is a rather broad
statement that can be interpreted in a number of ways in any given context, but
at its core it is a valid assertion of what a Christian should be doing if he
or she is to call themselves a follower of Christ.
The focus of this discussion is to look into the idea
that we as Christians are to develop disciples that will follow and worship
Jesus Christ. The question is whether or
not this is to be the essential activity of a Christian or a ministry. I think that the answer lies in the above
statement. We are to glorify God in all
that we do and by doing that we are to enjoy Him here and then later in
Glory. The problem with this statement
is that it can be perceived as a very selfish statement if not taken in context
of the Bible as a whole. We are not
called to live on an island devoid of contact with the larger world. We have the answers to the greatest questions
that have plagued mankind since the dawn of time: chiefly, who am I and where
do I fit into the grand scheme of life?
Hiding those answers boarders on the criminal. So how do we do this and fulfill our chief
aim?
To find this answer we need to look no further then
nature. Every living thing on the earth
is created with the ability to create life after its own kind.[1] Furthermore all life on the earth seeks to
reproduce itself. Only mankind has instituted the concept of birth
control. The reason for this God given
imperative is that a species that does not reproduce itself will only live for
a single generation. All through the New
Testament the church is represented as a living body, and the Bride of Christ. As a living organism the church should seek
to reproduce naturally, if it does not then there is something wrong.
In light of all that the answer to the question of should
the church make discipleship its main focus I would have to say yes. In saying yes it must be qualified with the
understanding that one needs to fulfill the main objective of glorifying God
and enjoying Him forever. Jesus commands
the newly commissioned leaders of the first church to make disciples as they
are going about their lives. Jesus told
them to baptize them and by doing so Jesus seems to be saying by inference that
they will be replicating themselves.
The
call to follow Christ is not something to take lightly. It was not taken lightly then, when the
apostles walked the earth, nor should it be now. To be a true follower we are called to
forsake everything that we call our own; our pride, our reputation, our money,
our time, and our talent. This paradigm
runs counter to most schools of thought.
Barna alludes to this in his book when he talks about creating zealots
for Christ.[2] Having the kind of zeal that would allow us
to forsake even our own family for the cause of Christ is not an easy pill to
swallow, never the less it is what we are called to do.
In
following Jesus we are to do His commandments and one of those is to make
disciples. I would hazard to guess that
the reason that more churches are not engaging in this process fully is that
making disciples is messy and time consuming.
Messy and time consuming, in the sense that people are strange and
getting into another person’s life long enough to truly disciple them means
that we have to engage them on a personal and intimate level that we are not
comfortable with. We live in a plastic
and disposable age. Nothing is real or
permanent and everything should be disposable, including friends and
acquaintances. Making disciples just
does not fit neatly into our prepackaged lives.
After
looking into the question of whether or not we as the church of Jesus Christ
should be engaging in discipleship there still remains the question of why we
should do it. Every person at some point
in his or her life has a God given desire to leave a lasting imprint of themselves
on the world after they are gone. Some
never really are able to articulate this desire but the effects are still the
same. People have kids, write papers or
books, build businesses, and carve out niches for themselves in their spheres
of influence. We want to feel like we
are a part of something larger than ourselves.
John C. Maxwell points to John Wooden, longtime coach of the UCLA bruins
and a quote that he said often; “The guy who puts the ball through the hoop has
ten hands”.[3] If we really want to change the world, or at
least the world that we know then who are the other four pairs of hands?
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