Call to Commitment

From the very beginning (Mark 1:16-20), Christian discipleship has been the answer to a call. It has never been a matter of choice — at least, not the sort of choice to which we have become accustomed in our consumer-oriented culture.

We have been taught that self-affirmation is to be extolled, and personal preference indulged, to a very marked degree. By contrast, our choice as Christian disciples is quite limited: to accept, or reject, the invitation of the risen Christ to join him as co-workers in the power of the Holy Spirit as the world is made ready for the fullness of God's salvation. It is a choice between obedience and disobedience, between service and self-centeredness, between losing ourselves in Christ and an ultimately destructive self-preservation (Mark 8:34-37).

Disciples and Followers
The New Testament accounts of Christ's ministry make clear that the number of such disciples will always be limited. He had many followers, of course. Without any hint of irony or resentment, he called them his flock, because they needed a shepherd to guide and enfold them (Matthew 9:36, 10:6; Mark 6:34; John 10:1ff., 21:15ff.); and when they were stranded in the desert without food, he fed them (Matthew 14:15-21).

Yet for his disciples, there seemed to be an altogether more demanding role. Jesus was blunt, if not brutal: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, even his own life, he cannot be a disciple of mine. No one who does not carry his cross and come with me can be a disciple of mine (Luke 14:26-27 [New English Bible]).

Moreover, in describing himself as the Good Shepherd (John10:11, 14), Jesus clearly expected his disciples to assist him with that task. When he fed the multitude of followers in the desert, it was the disciples who handed out the food (Matthew 15:19; Mark 6:41; Luke 9:16). And after his resurrection, it was his direct and threefold instruction to Peter (John 21:15-17).

The Call to Follow
This has been the pattern across two thousand years of Christian history, no less than in our own day and age. There continue to be those who follow Jesus Christ; and, as always, they are far more numerous than his disciples. Many of them do not belong to the church, and they may or may not lay claim to the name of Christian. But they instinctively know that Christ has the bread of life, and that the church is its richest source. They are hungry for this spiritual food and must be fed no less readily than the thousands to whom Jesus handed out the loaves and fishes so many years ago.

In a country such as the United States, well-churched and Christianized, many followers are also to be found in the church. They come to worship, often with marked regularity. They endeavor to follow Christ faithfully in the world, believing his teachings, and obeying his commandments. And not infrequently, they honor him at great personal cost. For all these reasons, they value the fellowship of the church family, where they are fed by the living Word. They know that this is where they receive the grace to take their Christian witness into the world and to exercise the duties of their faith as well as its privileges. Indeed, the church was called into being not least for this task, and it was entrusted with the means of grace to feed the flock: Word, Sacrament, and Community.

The Call to Discipleship
By the same token, however, the call to discipleship is as direct and demanding today as it was for the twelve. Not only do the disciples of Jesus Christ continue to witness to the world, byt they also help to feed the flock, so that the church as a body can minister to the world with grace and power.

The call is difficult to accept; and even if accepted, difficult to comprehend. It requires the discipline of commitment, yet it rarely brings recognition, still less prestige. Even the first disciples came to understand the role slowly, and at times agonizingly. But eventually they came to see that Jesus had not chosen them for a special status. Rather, he wanted them for a special task (Matthew 20:1-16; Mark 10:28-31; Luke 13:22-30). Their relationship with Christ was for a purpose: to feed the flock and to be servants to all the world (Mark 9:33-35).

If there were any doubt about his meaning, he made it unequivocal as he washed their feet (John 13:1-17). Those who are called to Christian discipleship must expect no favors.

Early Methodist Discipleship
So it was with the early Methodists. Wesley was at pains to instill into the society members that they had been raised up by God, not merely for their mutual edification in Christ, but to reform the church, and through the church, the whole nation. If they began to see themselves as privileged rather than responsible, grace would cease to flow through them, and they would become "a dry, dull party."*

Their task, therefore, was to pursue obedience to the living Christ, which would make them channels of grace, in word and in deed. They were not only to follow their Savior joyfully, but also to follow him doggedly and methodically, so that they might be means of grace for their fellow Christians and for the world in which they lived.

Discipleship Today
In our churches today, there are those who, like the early Methodists, have been called to discipleship. Their task, no less than their eighteenth century forebears, is to feed Christ's flock — within the church and beyond it. The call cannot be answered lightly, because it is a call to obedience that takes precedence over all other concerns and objectives. It can be answered only in the power and grace of the Holy Spirit, for such was the prayer that Christ prayed as he left his first disciples with their commission (John 15:11-17; 17:6-11).

All of which means that, as in Wesley's day, Christian disciples need a structured method for being faithful to that commission. It is this that Covenant Discipleship Groups are designed to provide. For if the call to discipleship can be answered only in the grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, failure to be open to God's grace is spiritual death by starvation for Christian disciples. Their very life depends on grace; and their utmost priority, therefore, must be to ensure that they receive it, regularly and methodically.

* "Further Thoughts on Separation from the Church," in The Works of John Wesley, 14 vols. (London, 1872; reprint ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979), 13:272 73.