May 1 - Making Apostles

Ben Godsden in UM-Insight (http://um-insight.net/blogs/ben-gosden/the-danger-of-unasked-questions/page-2.html) challenges the lack of definition of the catch phrase “Making Disciples for the Transformation of the World” which is the stated goal of our denomination. I had to respond and did so with the following comment (typos corrected this time):

Making Apostles

I was a disciple in Sunday school. And, given our understanding of education as being a life long endeavor, I am still a disciple.

But I had to enter the adult world. And, thanks to some wonderful Sunday School teachers and leaders at Wesley Foundation when I got to college, I realized that I also needed to be an apostle.

There's a huge difference.

Whether or not I had a lot of gifts and graces, Jesus called me to use them as a means of showing God's love. Transforming the world would take care of itself because that was God's job. Mine was to be His/Her missionary wherever I was.

I've tried to do that by helping in the church because the local church is where fellow disciples and apostles met regularly to upbuild one another. I tried to be a good worker in my various part-time and summer jobs while I was in school. I tried to be a good neighbor. I tried to help on mission projects set up by the church. I tried to do that as a student. Then I got to try it in my vocation, which happened to be as a pastor in the United Methodist Church. I've tried to do it by working with other churches' pastors, by teaching confirmands and giving them mission opportunities, by setting up local church ministries to the city's hospital, county jail, etc., by helping pastors and laity in trouble with the denomination's administrative and judicial processes, and by using legislative and judicial options open to an individual to help move our denomination in directions I thought consistent with a Christian apostle's mission.

In retirement, I have had to focus declining energies and gifts, but I hope you see me hanging in there for a few more years.

Making disciples is not aiming high enough. Making apostles, turning loose God's people to be missionaries where they are and where God takes them, would be a better description of what the church actually does when it follows the Spirit.