We're Just Supposed to be Disciples

I just finished the book, The Great Omission, an excellent collection of essays on discipleship by Dallas Willard. I was convicted on numerous levels as I read through the different essays. He even got me in his parting words at the end of the book, when he references those who want to take the entire Mission of God onto their shoulders...guilty as charged.

I wouldn't say that I am your stereotypical "Type A" personality, but I definitely have those tendencies. I often want to "make things happen" and I want them to happen immediately. This is very frustrating when starting a new work from scratch in another country, which I can tell you, is anything but a fast process. You don't know anyone, you don't know how to do anything, etc. Needless to say, learning about your new culture, meeting new people, and finding ways to minister in your community is a very slow process (even in places where you know the local language...and if you don't, then you can add the slow process of language learning to the list!) So if you plan on church planting, especially in another country, you might want to start praying for patience well in advance!

But for me, it's not just impatience, it's also my own anxiety driven leadership style. I often feel that everything is going to fall apart if I don't rush in and save the day. Or that God's mission is somehow dependent on me to "make things happen." I realize how ridiculous that probably sounds, but that is my tendency. Some might call it a Messiah complex. Of course, one of the problems with that, and I think that this is something most people in ministry struggle with, is that you become so focused on what's happening out there with everyone else, that you neglect yourself, your own spiritual health (or sometimes even physical health). Which is why I found the closing words of The Great Omission both convicting and comforting at the same time. Here is the quote (portions have been omitted for space - if you want to read more, click the link above to order from Amazon):

Parting Word:

What do we do now?! Convert the world? No. Convert the church? No. Your first move “as you go” is, in a manner of speaking: convert me. If we wish to convert the church and the world, we begin with ourselves. Our maestro never told us to convert the world or to reform any religious organizations. Instead, the Master said to his disciples, “make disciples.” We have no other God-appointed business but this, and we must allow all else to fall away if it will.

So as now “we go,” we go as disciples. Never forget that the tiny group to whom Jesus gave his Great Commission were very ordinary people indeed, but people who for about three years had chosen to be with him in the most intimate of fellowships. Perfect they were not, but in his fellowship that was simply not an issue. Everything turned upon what they were learning and who was “master”-ing them.

My first step then, “as I go,” is to be his disciple, and constantly to be learning from him how to live my life in the Kingdom of God now—my real life, the one I am actually living. Not just in church or on “religious” occasions. Once we are disciples with some substance of the Christ-life, the person of Jesus himself, then we are in position to bear “witness,” to bring others to know, to bring them to awareness of reality. Then they can learn who they are and what God intends for them.

Well, but, someone says, what about the church and the world? Don’t these need to be straightened out? No doubt about that! But it’s not your job or mine. And if we undertake on our own to straighten out the church and the world, we will hurt a lot of people and make ourselves miserable. It is God’s job, and he will do it, and in the way it should be done—of which we probably have little or no idea at all.

But must we not do something about our situation in this world? No doubt we must, and many good opportunities will certainly present themselves to us. Do them the best you can. Just don’t take it upon yourself to carry the load, to make it happen. Always keep in mind who is really in charge of the greater scene—it isn’t you or me. Be humble before others as well as before God—especially before those who are sure we are wrong.

Most important, don’t allow your thoughts and efforts to change things to come before or take the place of your practice of discipleship, walking with Jesus. This is to be your constant preoccupation, and what comes of it will witness to and powerfully influence others around you. This is the sure path to changing things, in the church or in the world.