What is Jesus’ purpose for FLC?

Then Jesus came to them and said, 

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  

Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, 

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 

and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Matthew 28:18-20

Dear Friends,

In today’s email, I continue the inquiry and discernment about, What is our purpose?

Any conversation and exploration of Jesus’ purpose has to include reflecting on the above passage. At the end of the gospel of Matthew, right before Jesus is about to ascend into heaven, he gives them these marching orders. We call this the Great Commission.

In my experience, congregations tend to internalize this as: Go out and get new members! I would assert that this misses the heart of what Jesus is calling his disciples… his Church… us to do. To draw out Jesus’ purpose for the Church, I’m going to focus on the verbs (action words): Go, Disciple, Baptize, and Teach.

GO!

Jesus’ very first command is the go! Just imagine if you were one of the disciples. You had just been on about a three-year journey with Jesus culminating with the roller coaster of Holy Week and Jesus’ death and resurrection. Now Jesus was standing before you and your faith and commitment to following Jesus has been vindicated. They could have gone home relishing this extraordinary experience and recounting these stories to anyone who wanted to come by and hear them. If so, they would have all returned to Capernaum and gathered together every so often to make sure that they hadn’t just made it up.

Instead, Jesus commands them to go. Jesus’ desire is that these disciples be the heart of a movement that is about transforming the world. Jesus is not interested in creating another religious institution but instead a dynamic, loving group of people to move in the world challenging the death-dealing ways so pervasive in human societies.

MAKE DISCIPLES!

Disciple isn’t a word that has the best connotation. Part of the reason is that we associate discipline with disciple. After all, who wants to be disciplined? Here is my effort to redeem the word, disciple… A follower of a particular school of thought, practice or activity is a disciple. Jesus gathered around him 12 disciples who understood that their role was to learn from their master, Jesus. He then “graduated” them by calling them now apostles (people who are sent out). Those twelve aren’t the only ones who are disciples. I would say that a whole lot of our children and youth are disciples of hockey or basketball or football. They are engaged in developing their minds and bodies in the discipline of those sports. Other folks are disciples of engineering, accounting, business, plumbing, gambling, etc. Most of the things we claim as careers and past times are a sort of discipline. In Jesus’ Great Commission, Jesus is commanding us to go and make disciples… Go and invite, educate, and train people in the way of Christ. Just like being a spectator at a hockey game doesn’t make one a hockey player, so also being a member of a congregation doesn’t make one a disciple. That happens when people claim faith in Jesus for themselves and it translates to a different way of living in the world.

BAPTIZE

It often seems like baptism is something that we do. The heart of baptism is about what God has already done through Jesus Christ and what God continues to do. Though baptism is the entry rite into the Church, it is also a celebration by the community of God’s grace. In a very real sense, it is about living a life walking wet in the waters of forgiveness and grace. Baptism confers a new identify of being a child of God. This new identity we spend a lifetime living into. We are sent to baptize so that others may know that whatever the world says about them, that they are a valued and loved child of God.

TEACH

About half of each gospel is committed to the teachings of Jesus. Most of his followers called him, Rabbi, which means teacher. Jesus taught about who God was, the kingdom of God, and what it looks like to live a servant’s life following Jesus. Today, we haven’t so many different mediums and ways that people are trying to teach us to do things. TV, social media, radio, billboards, movies, video games, phone calls, texting… bombard us with words and ideas most of which are trying to influence us and train us to be consumers of their particular product.  What does it look like to have Jesus’ Word and teaching have a primary place in our lives in the midst of this cacophony? Teaching, coaching, mentoring, and sharing about our faith are all part of this endeavour to have Jesus’ words alive in our lives and our hearts AND in the lives and hearts of those around us.

How does this inform what we do?

How would summarize what our purpose is here at FLC?

Peace,

Pastor Phil