With Martin Luther King’s birthday just passed and a Congregation-wide Day of Service just ahead, I was already thinking about what our faith calls us to do, even before I heard Agnes’s sermon about how even the news can call us to discipleship.
Disciple isn’t just something we are, it is something we do. I want to imagine “disciple” as a verb, a word connoting action as well as identity. When we disciple, we are growing in the faith, being intentional about prayer, worship, service, and Christian fellowship, committing to letting our faith out of its box and into our whole lives. When we disciple, we are asking God difficult questions and waiting on the answers, learning to be family in a way that emerges directly from our faith, to construct a budget, to drive a car, to mow the lawn, to vote, all as expressions our shared faith. “I disciple” would mean, “I see my life drawn forward as a follower of Jesus.”
It would also mean being willing to share what we believe and what we do. It would mean not that we seek to convert others to our own set of beliefs, but that we see this path we walk as a life-giving one, as a good and beautiful place to be, and we are willing and able to show that beauty to others—in service, in conversation, in all kinds of nurturing relationships. Doing discipleship means sharing what it means to be a disciple, in every way we can. I look forward to discipling with many of you this Saturday in service and this Sunday in study and worship. Meanwhile, let’s practice saying it together: “I disciple.”
