We’re all familiar with the words of the Great Commission where Jesus tells his followers to make disciples of all nations.

Our own denomination takes that seriously; the heart of its mission statement is “The Global Methodist Church exists to make disciples of Jesus Christ and spread scriptural holiness across the globe.”

The importance of discipleship to Jesus and to early Christianity is visible in a simple statistic: The word “disciple(s)” appears 294 times in the New Testament, after appearing only twice in the Old Testament. It is the way Jesus consistently refers to his followers, both the inner circle and those beyond it.

Discipleship has two aspects. In Mark 8:34 we read, “Then he [Jesus] called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.’” We are called both to be and to make disciples. Being disciples involves doing all that disciples do.

We often think of disciples as students, but it’s more than that. It’s not like modern schooling where you go through a time of learning, then graduate and move on to a time of doing. Instead, the learning and doing are intertwined; you never do one without the other, and you never stop doing either. Discipleship is more like apprenticeship. The apprentice learns through the teaching of someone who has mastered the craft, and also learns by doing. First efforts are usually tentative and clumsy, but they provide more learning than just listening to the experts ever could.

This fall we will focus on discipleship in Sunday morning worship services and also in a new 4:30 Sunday afternoon discussion time, where we will be watching the TV series, The Chosen.

The Chosen follows the disciples of Jesus as they are called and learn what it means to follow him, and in doing so gives us the opportunity to consider our own call and response.

Yours in peace,

Mark Fleming