Church and Discipleship - A Guest writes. . .

Our guest contributor writes:

I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of church and discipleship – partly due to a course called 'Closing the Back Door', currently running at our church.

In last week’s session, George Fisher (the course leader) used a quote from a retired Anglican priest:

“The big issue when we volunteer is that we set the agenda – when, how much, where and what it is we will volunteer. We are not tied down to anything or anyone. The person in charge often treats volunteers like royalty, tip-toes around mistakes and finds it hard to hold volunteers accountable.

When you are a disciple you don’t give up your time. You realise that you possess (or own) no time of your own. God created you, gave you life and time in this life, so it is his time! Disciples are more committed than loyal; they act without regard for admiration or recognition!’

It got me thinking about the difference in attitude between disciples and volunteers.

A volunteer is identified as one who gives their time voluntarily (i.e. is unpaid); and can also then withdraw that gift at any time. This is why many church leaders find themselves ‘tip-toeing around volunteers’, because any perceived offense or disagreement can send volunteers storming out of the door leaving the leader to pick up the slack. Volunteers fit in their voluntary commitment around their life, so that a change in their circumstances can also lead to a sudden withdrawal of labour. When the church event clashes with another life event, then church is put aside. This can also be true of a Sunday service; many church members make an active decision not to attend church because they ‘have something else on’.

By contrast a disciple is described as a follower, student or devotee. A disciple is committed to a journey of knowledge and growth, and so is less likely to turn away. They are more likely to deal with difficult situations and even use them as growth experiences. A disciple fits their life around their commitment – as the above quote states: when you are a disciple you don’t give up your time. Church is not just something that the disciple does when it suits, but is an immoveable commitment on their diary. Non-attendance is limited to reasons of illness or holiday.

It strikes me that the difference between a volunteer or discipleship mind-set is influenced heavily by the way we perceive church. For many – certainly for ‘volunteers’ – church is an organisation (much like a club) that they have joined and they choose which activities to attend, whether that is a service or other church event. However, just as Jesus did not tell us to go and find volunteers, he also did not tell us to start an organisation. He calls us to make disciples and he calls the church his Bride. Jesus sees the church in a much different way to the reality that it often is: he emphasises the place of relationship; the relationship between a bride and her groom.

Our daughters have developed a habit of watching “Don’t Tell the Bride’ – one of those awfully addictive low-quality TV programmes. A couple are given £12,000 to pay for their wedding, on the provision that the groom does the planning and arranging. The couple have no contact for three weeks, during which the groom books the venue, buys the dress, plans the hen-do and makes all other arrangements for the big day. What I find most interesting is the difference between the vision of the bride and groom. Usually, the bride dreams of a fairy-tale affair, straight out of a bridal magazine. What the groom arranges tends to be much more personal, reflecting aspects of their relationship and personalities. Although the bride is sometimes reticent at first, she is almost always won over by the end and acknowledges that her groom has given her ‘the best wedding ever’. He is able to do this because he knows his bride, sometimes better than she knows herself, and loves her. This is the relationship of the groom and bride: of Christ and his church! Our vision of church is often quite different to his; he sees a living bond that reflects our personality and his, not a structured set of committees and meetings.

St Paul describes the Church as the Body of Christ: once again a reference to a living organism rather than an organisation. All parts are dependent upon each other in a mutual relationship. However, quite often our churches seem to suffer from a debilitating illness where some parts only work at certain times (perhaps for a couple of hours on Sunday morning), but at other times are disconnected from the rest of the body – or more particularly, from the head. Can you imagine what it must be like to have a body that doesn’t respond to what your head tells it to do? I saw an interview with a paralympic athlete who suffered from cerebral palsy. She described how she had recently learned to skip; a simple action that most children learn by about five or six-years-old, but a huge accomplishment for her. When the body isn’t properly connected to the head, even the simplest actions become difficult.

The quote from G Allan Kerr I used earlier continues:

‘In baptism we are freed from the power of sin, death and the devil and we are freed from idolatry of self; to be freed from self is to be open for call; to be open for call is truly to be open to God.’ 

When we are freed from self, we are able to be better connected to something outside of ourselves.

So which are you:

a volunteer giving time freely to a favourite organisation,

or

a disciple of Christ and integral member of his body, organically and inextricably attached to him and others? 

Is church something you fit in to your busy schedule, or something that orders your world? 

If you don’t know, then ask yourself what difference would it make if you stopped going to church; how would your life change and how would you notice?