One of the most satisfying and exciting aspects of my ministry has been discipling some new believers who I’ve tasked with going out on mission from the earliest days of their new walk with Christ. In each case God has met them in profound ways as they are sent out. In this I’ve sought to follow the pattern in Luke 9 and 10 of Jesus sending out his disciples.
Many might ask: Why did Jesus send out his disciples so quickly after they had begun to follow him? You can almost hear the complaints that immediately arose from the disciples: “We are doing what? But, Jesus, we aren’t ready yet!” or “Jesus we haven’t had enough training. What if we don’t know what to say?” And in reality they didn’t have enough resources and training… and this was exactly the point.
Jesus purposefully sent them without the resources they “needed:” “Take nothing for your journey,” he instructed them. “Don’t take a walking stick, a traveler’s bag, food, money, or even a change of clothes” (Luke 9:3). They had no resources and very little training. They hadn’t even been with Jesus for 5 chapters! But this he gave them: his own power and authority (9:1).
When we go out on mission something quite mysterious happens. We immediately recognize that we don’t have what people need. People bring their problems and pain and we don’t have the right answers or things to say. Immediately we recognize that we are empty people trying to fill others’ vacuous souls and we have come up dry. At that point, though, of recognizing our emptiness, a miraculous exchange occurs. God fills us, meets us at our point of need, so that we are able to meet the needs of others. We come to the end of ourselves and begin to depend on his authority and power to work in our own lives and in the lives of others.
Discipleship or spiritual formation without mission, even from the earliest stages of growth in Christ is incomplete to say the least. It is, as a friend of mine pointed out, a rediscovery of what it means to be truly human as God intended, a “being for the sake of others.”
Evangelical discipleship often emphasizes being “filled” which most often translates into a passive receiving of unidirectional teaching/preaching and a host of small groups, books and Sunday school classes. No wonder so many leave our churches looking for greener pastures and complaining of not having been “fed.” The problem often is that they have actually been “overfed” but haven’t been feeding others. Their hearts have become a stagnant pond of water without an exit strategy.
So what happens when these un-resourced, untrained disciples go out? By chapter 10, the 12 have suddenly become 72. A movement from the margins has begun.
In the next post we’ll talk about how movements usually begin in this way and are carried by the poor and outcasts of society, by those on the margins, and what one could look like here in Chicago started by Hispanic immigrants.
No comments:
Post a Comment