Susquehanna LINK - January/February 2011 FOCUSED, CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1


“Making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” This mission statement has been adopted by our United Methodist Church and is fundamental to who we are as God’s people in our “Book of Discipline.” But long before it appeared there, it was recorded in the Gospel of Mat- thew as the words spoken by Jesus … com- manded by Jesus … to his first disciples who were now responsible to carry on the work of Christ in the redemption, sancti- fication, and transformation of the world. The NIV translation puts it this way:


Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. 17


16Then the eleven disciples went to When they saw


him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18


Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven


and on earth has been given to me. 19


and teaching them to


Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20


obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”


Matthew 28:16-20


It is safe to say that our United Methodist mission statement could not be more bibli- cal. To be faithful in our work is to focus on making disciples in order that the world might be transformed into the Kingdom of God as Christ exemplified in his life. The questions then become if our mission (pur- pose) is making disciples, are we equipped to do so? If every local church is to become a disciple-making, faith-forming commu- nity, does each church have a system in


If every local church is to become a disciple-making, faith- forming community, does each church have a system in place to engage in disciple-making?


place to engage in disciple-making? Historically our Sunday schools were places where faith formation took place and community was nurtured and finally persons were ready to profess their faith within the church body. Sunday school attendance was then larger than worship attendance. Then the culture shifted and many of our churches were overly con- cerned about decreasing numbers, and “membership” figures were measured as signs of vitality. The hen house method of faith-formation became popular in those days. That’s where we believe that if you sit in a hen house long enough, you’ll be- come a chicken. And if you sit in a pew long enough, you’ll become a Christian. The days of “making members” (which, by the way, most of our church systems are designed to do) are over. If we are to “make disciples” we’ll need to set in place a new system of nurturing people into rela- tionships with Christ. As I was inviting people to participate in


a “Disciple” Bible study some years ago, an intelligent woman became obviously disturbed by the conversation. I asked her why she was becoming excited over be- ing asked to join us in Bible study. She answered, “I’ll come and study the Bible, but I will not put on sandals and a robe and go door to door asking people to follow


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Jesus!” This raises a few more questions for me. Remember, not everyone coming to us today seeking a relationship with God speaks our language. What is a disciple? What has to happen to a person in order for them to grow into discipleship? Does everyone come to the church with the same level of spiritual ma- turity? And how will we know if we are making disciples? What will we measure?


And how will we know if we are making disciples? What will we measure? Will we measure membership or worship numbers alone?


What is a disciple? ...


Will we measure membership or worship numbers alone?


Your willingness to suffer through my words and the available space in this issue will not permit a full examination of these questions. Indeed, they are also questions that should be discussed in light of your lo- cal church context. Nonetheless, they are questions local churches need to re-think in light of this new day. The shift from “mak- ing members” to “making disciples” is sig- nificant. More than that, it is crucial to our future as a church. The “Book of Discipline” describes a


very basic approach to designing a disci- ple-making system. The graphic above suggests that there are four processes nec- essary in the formation of disciples.


STORY CONTINUED ON PAGE 14


long time ago, in a little village nestled deeply within a tall pine tree forest, the smell of freshly baked bread one day suddenly filled the air. A young man had come to open a shop and to live in the village. He hung a small, simple, unimposing sign above his door; it read sim- ply, “BREAD.” Each morn- ing, the aroma of the yeast and the flour first filled the village air, and then made it’s way across the country- side.


A


The little bell on the door of the bakery rang more and more often as people came from near and far ... just for the bread. Before long, the bread became their daily sustenance and they could not imagine life without the bread.


The villagers soon learned that there was nothing better than the bread fresh and hot, just out of the oven. And so they came and stood in line to get the bread, fresh out of the oven. After a while, some of the vil- lagers complained that the bread was too hot to handle right out of the oven, so the young man, wanting to please his custom- ers, designed a cloth sack in which the hot bread could be carried home. Although the sacks took time to make, he gladly offered them as a gift to his customers. As people sometimes are prone to do, some complained that the sacks were too wide and the bread bounced around too easily, and so the young baker made smaller sacks. The shorter customers com- plained that the sacks were too long and they would easily drag the bag in the dirt. So the young man spent hours perfecting the sacks in which to carry the bread. He even decided to insulate the sacks so the bread would stay warm on their long jour- neys home.


It wasn’t too long before the young baker was spending more time on the bags than on the bread. In order to keep his profit margin the same, he needed to cut his ex- penses. He decided to buy a cheaper kind of yeast. Sure it meant the bread wouldn’t rise as well, but he was sure no one would notice.


Over time, bread sales began to fall. The baker thought about what else he might do and decided he would bake cakes. Perhaps the cakes would make up for his sagging bread sales. Then he realized he needed to make containers for his customers to carry their cakes home. Next he began to make cookies and even pies ... wonderful cook- ies and amazing pies. Surely these would help turn his business around. Outside his bakery, without flash- ing lights or shiny glitter, hung that little sign above the door that still read simply, “BREAD.” How long it actually took or even how it


all came about was fuzzy. The baker was now so busy decorating cakes, icing cook- ies, and filling pie crusts, (not to mention making the containers and the sacks), that he just didn’t have the time to give to his bread baking, ... and fewer people seemed interested in his bread anymore. And so he didn’t let it rise quite as long and cut his costs even more by buying a cheaper grade of flour and reducing the size of each loaf ever so slightly. As his bread sales contin- ued to dwindle down, he shrugged it off and blamed the customers for being fickle and having “changing tastes!” The young baker continued to diversify ... and diversify again. He sold containers,


racks on which to cool the bread, and even kits with the ingredients and pans so that folks could bake their own bread at home. Outside above the door, there hung that sign, that sign that still read simply, “BREAD.” No one can quite remember when or even how it all happened, but the time came when the smell of freshly baked bread no longer lingered among the tall pine trees of the forest. Some said the young baker man had forgotten the one thing — the one rea- son — he had opened his shop in the first place. They said that he had forgotten that it was his bread that gave sustenance to the people of the village and the countryside. The story is told that if you walk through


the tall pine forest today, the little sign still hangs above the door of a now vacant bake shop. The sign still simply reads, “BREAD.” The village people and the people of


the countryside still get dressed early in the morning and journey to another place to get their daily sustenance. It’s a place where the smell of yeast and flour and bak- ing bread call out to them. They have found another baker whose sign outside above his door reads simply, “BREAD.” And inside ... it is all he ever bakes!


© M. Bealla 2008


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