Army of Priests

I feel like the journey is only just beginning. I am slowly, but surely, getting a glimpse of the reality that Jesus taught – a reality of undeserved love, radical forgiveness, and sacrifice for enemies. After all these year, I am beginning – just beginning – to get a grasp on discipleship.

It seems to me that in most churches “a relationship with Christ” or “following Jesus” means not drinking, not smoking, not swearing, not looking at pornography, reading your bible, prayer, and church attendance. After intellectual conversion, Christianity has little more to offer. We believe in sanctification, but we understand precious little about what sanctification entails.

I used to be a very active member in the Australian arm of Campus Crusade for Christ. They were very keen on discipleship, often pairing a mentor and a protégé for weekly meetings where the mentor can pass on what they know. It was apprentiship. I appreciate their keenness to train new believers, but ultimately they only served to teach the same list of attribute listed above (reading your bible, prayer…); with one exception – a “disciple” in Campus Crusade terminology was self-reproducing (an evangelist).

So they created a cycle like this:

1. A new believer is converted
2. A new believer is trained in having a “relationship with Christ” and on how to evangelise
3. The believer evangelises and makes new converts
4. These new converts are trained
5. The new converts evangelise…

The cycle repeats in a multiplicative manor.

I was heavily invested in this process, but over time something just didn’t seem right. I realise now that we weren’t creating disciples. We were creating self-replicating converts. We were spreading an idea, but not a new way of life. We were giving people knowledge, but not changing their foundational world view and belief. We still made our first priority secure and comfortable jobs, the acquisition of possessions, and leveraging of moral superiority over our enemies. For all our training, we were secular people who went to church. Great Christians – but bad followers of Christ.

Intellectual acknowledgement of a set of theological ideas is not equivalent to faith. Reading your bible and praying is not equivalent to following Christ. Reaching out to your enemies, making sacrifices for the benefit of the underprivileged, and standing in the way of injustice are the actions which accompany a disciple of Christ.

I’ve grown a new understanding of salvation, and with it a new understanding of evangelism. I believe that it is not sufficient to convince people of a new set of ideas, we must invite them into a new way of being. We must offer the weak a way to be strong, the poor a chance to be rich, the prisoner an escape, the weary the opportunity of rest, healing for the broken, and love for the despised.

There are some big, fundamental differences between a disciple and the convert who reads their bible. Whilst the convert believes, there are limits to their willingness to apply those beliefs (or maybe they don’t really believe). The disciple doesn’t just believe, they repent. When the convert is slow to give themselves to the lost sheep, the disciple searches out opportunities to recklessly love regardless of the consequences. The convert will often go after the same things the world goes after (safety, security, self-actualisation) using spiritual means. (How different are Christian living books to secular self help books?)

This year, for me, is all about discipleship. It’s about being a disciple and creating disciples. It’s about becoming a follower of Christ, and not just a believer in Him.