If revelation is to come to human beings, they need to be changed entirely. Faith itself must be created in them.
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Act and Being

We are what we are because of God’s initiative, not our own. I suppose this idea is fundamentally the problem some have with evolution. How can we be the result of rational evolutionary processes and at the same time the product of divine creation?

The apparent contradiction, however, is false. It is false because it tries to “out-rationalize” science itself. Creationists use logic to defeat logic. Faith may be intelligible, but it need not be rational. It is first and foremost revelation – an act of divine disclosure – that allows us to be open to ever deeper dimensions of God’s being and acting in this world. Evolution is simply our effort to understand the development of biological species in the context of dynamic environments. It is a valid way of knowing in so far as science allows us to go. Revelation, on the other hand, is only grasped by faith. Faith itself is form of revelation – the envelope in which God delivers the messages about God’s self to us.

I think it is one of Christianity’s worse mistakes to condemn those who do not believe as we do. Such a position ironically undoes faith itself, since it credits the thinker as the origin of the thought. Is not God’s revelation a gift to us? Is not grace an act of God’s own choosing, freely extended to us from beyond ourselves? And if it is not, than what is there to believe?

God is acting in this world. I can’t prove it. But I can believe it.

Service and prayer can never be separated; they are related to each other as the Yin and Yang of the Japanese Circle.
– Henri Nouwen in The Living Reminder

When we prayer, we serve. When we serve, we pray. Our actions are simply our prayers given flesh. I often marvel at the insistence that we open and close our meetings in the church with a perfunctory prayer. While these prayers serve as useful “bookends” to the meetings, they seldom raise to the level of prayer as prayer. I remember one of my seminary professors who was confronted by a student who objected to the fact that this professor never began his classes with a prayer. The professor’s response was “What do you think we are doing all hour?”

Prayer is not simply the utterance of formal words. It is the expression of our deepest yearnings. Sometimes we articulate these yearnings with words in solemn petitions. Often it is our actions and deeds that give form and shape to our deep desires. All is prayer.

Today, with ashes on my head and a heaviness in my heart…

Christ is the center. That is the affirmation of my faith. Not that I put Christ at the center of my life. Rather, God reveals Christ to me as the center of everything. And that is all I have, ultimately, to bet my life on.

Lent is a season of re-centering. Not of putting something in the center, but of returning to the center that is always already there. Perhaps that is the heaviness of heart I feel – a deep, gentle, but decisive tug pulling me closer to that center of all, like a tiny asteroid spiraling around the sun, ultimately to be consumed by its fire.

The center is reveled to be Jesus. God lived and breathed. And died. The center is reveled to be weak, broken, torn, poured out. The center leads us back to the edges and the fringes and the brokenness of our world.

Welcome to the only one in whom we can hope.

What would a new model for discipleship look like?

Well, a new model would of course be faithful to the oldest model – that utilized by Jesus and his disciples. Here are some elements of a new/old model for discipleship that migh be helpful for us in the old-line church to consider:

1. Discipleship is about forging relationships. A “disciple” is a student, which suggests that there is a teacher. Our ultimate teacher, of course, is Jesus himself, who called the first disciples. And the relationship that Jesus had with his disciples should be the model for discipleship in the church. We are first of all a community of disciples – which means we are in relationship with each other. And, of course, the fundamental word we use to describe the nature of this relationship is love. The basic instrument for defining our relationship to each other is the covenant.

2. Discipleship is integral to all that we do. Discipleship is not a separate program. It is not limited to learning opportunities (an educational model) or to community outreach (a service model) or to committee membership (a bureaucratic model). Everything that we do as the church is a form of discipleship. So, when we gather as the church, we should be deepening our relationships with each other and God as we cultivate our discipleship by being the church.

3. Discipleship is a life-long journey. Though we affirm the idea of perfection in the Methodist tradition, we always remain disciples. People need ongoing opportunities to grow in their faith, and the church can provide a wide variety of ways that people can engage in discipleship based on where they are in their faith walk. One-size-fits-all approaches fail to acknowledge the various phases of life and the different needs of real people.

4. Discipleship is an open process. God calls us as we are. There are no requirements for starting on the journey of discipleship. Everyone is invited. God calls us all. A special focus should be placed on those who are entering the life of discipleship for the first time, and the church can be intentional in extending the invitation and creating entry points for those new to discipleship.

5. Discipleship is dynamic and engaged. Disciples gather in order to accomplish a goal or fulfill a purpose. Fellowship, learning, growing are all valid reasons for disciples to gather – but the reason should be clear and everyone should be committed to the purpose. Disciples support each other in their shared journey of discipleship in a loving relationship defined by covenant in order to discern and fulfill their calling.

Maybe discipleship can be defined in other ways. Perhaps there are modifications to these ideas that you would suggest. But I think these five points serve as a good foundation for a discussion about what discipleship is and how we, as the church, might facilitate people in their response to God’s calling in their lives.

Then Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.”
- Luke 5: 10b

I wonder what happened to that idea. Somewhere along the way, the church stopped catching people. Or, I should say, the mainline protestant church in America stopped catching people.

The mission of the church, from the days when Jesus walked the earth to the present moment, has essentially been the same: make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. It is a clear, simple mission, and yet it seems so hard to rally the mainline church around this fundamental task. We have become overburdened with buildings we built to accommodate large congregations that only lasted for a season. We have invested in the nurture and care of the needs of our present congregation at the neglect of reaching out to a changing culture around us. We have encouraged our children to accelerate their careers and their futures while sacrificing their religious, ethical and moral development.

We need to rethink discipleship for a new time.

Discipleship can begin at any stage of life. For some, it begins at birth with baptism and a lifetime of growth and teaching in the church. But for many today, spiritual formation and faith development are agendas adopted later in life. The church is challenged to meet people where they are, recognizing that everyone is in a slightly different place. For some, the basics of faith – prayer, Bible study, worship – are alien concepts. For some, there is a hunger for a sophisticated approach to scripture. For some there is a need for a deepening spiritual awareness. Needless to say, no one pastor can provide all the needs around us. A comprehensive approach to discipleship will require the focused efforts of the entire congregation. Leaders will need to rise up who are willing and able to joyfully lead people through various stages of growth.

Discipleship is our business. It is the mandate Jesus gave the earliest disciples even as they themselves were being called into a life of discipleship. Our faith is worth sharing with a world that desperately needs the rich resources of our tradition, faithfully interpreted for a new time. As we look to the people of Greater Hartford, we are presented with an amazing challenge and a great responsibility. The gospel is ours to proclaim. As we extend the invitation we must match those who respond with an opportunity to grow that meets their needs.