Disciples How the Early Church Made Disciples
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NEWS: GC15 Worship │ Winona Lake │ Backpacks of Food LIGHTLIGHTANDLIFEMAGAZINE.COM+ LIFE │ JULY 2015 MAKE DISCIPLES HOW THE EARLY CHURCH MADE DISCIPLES DIETS AND DISCIPLESHIP JOHN WESLEY’S GENERAL RULES OPEN OUR EYES LEARN HOW TO PARTNER STRONG OPENERS BY JEFF FINLEY JULY 2015 │ Whole No. 5277, Volume 148, No. 7 MANAGING EDITOR, Jeff Finley LEAD DESIGNER, Erin Eckberg COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, Jay Cordova COPY EDITOR, Dawn McIlvain Stahl CONTENT STRATEGIST, Mark Crawford DISCIPLE OR CIRCULATION MANAGER, Katie Ehle BUSINESS SALES ASSOCIATE, Marvin Gray WEB ARCHITECT, Douglas Britt DECLINE DESIGNER, Kelly Holt he church in the United States is having FOCUS GROUP: a rough time of it lately, according to the Raisa Fabre Jason Roberts news media and pollsters. David Kendall J.R. Rushik Rob McKenna Denny Wayman TRecent headlines include “Big Drop in Share of Jason Morriss Trisha Welstad Americans Calling Themselves Christian” (New B. Elliott Renfroe York Times), “Millennials Leaving Church in JEFF FINLEY SPANISH TRANSLATION: Managing Editor Droves” (CNN), “Christians in U.S. on Decline as COORDINATOR, Rodrigo Lozano Number of ‘Nones’ Grows” (NPR) and “America Is Ezequiel Alvarez Alma Jasinski Jazmin Angulo Karen Kabandama Losing Its (Christian) Religion” (The Week). Fredy Caballero Esther Ortiz The headlines resulted from a Pew Research Carmen Hosea Center survey, “America’s Changing Religious WEBSITE: lightandlifemagazine.com Landscape” (fmchr.ch/pewacrl), that found EMAIL US: [email protected] NEWS AND SUBMISSIONS: [email protected] “between 2007 and 2014, the Christian share of ADVERTISING: [email protected] the population fell from 78.4% to 70.6 %.” ADDRESS ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO: The church isn’t just struggling to win new Light + Life Magazine, 770 N. High School Road, converts. It’s struggling with discipleship. Indianapolis, IN 46214 (317) 244-3660 Definitions of “discipleship” vary, but I like Light + Life Magazine (ISSN 0024-3299) was established in 1868 by the Free Methodist Church. Published monthly by the wording on the website of the Akron (New Light + Life Communications. © 2015 Free Methodist Church York) Free Methodist Church: “Discipleship is to – USA, 770 N. High School Road, Indianapolis, IN 46214. 09 Views expressed in articles do not necessarily represent become more like Jesus.” the official position of the Free Methodist Church. All rights BISHOPS reserved. Except for brief quotations, no portion of this We are called to be disciples of Jesus and to magazine may be reproduced in any form without written Investment in others permission of the publisher. All Scripture quotations are from “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19). But how do we the New International Version unless otherwise indicated. BY MATTHEW THOMAS go about making disciples? Printed in U.S.A. One answer may be found in the “Book of Member: Evangelical Press Association, 11 Discipline”: “Free Methodists today seek to con- Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability tinue the mission of first-century Christianity Periodicals postage paid at Indianapolis, IN, ACTION and additional mailing offices. Partner Strong which was recovered by John Wesley and the early Methodists, who declared they existed ‘to raise up Postmaster, send address changes to: BY SABRA DYAS Light + Life Magazine, 770 N. High School Road, a holy people.’” Indianapolis, IN 46214 In this issue, you’ll learn more about the disci- 13 pleship practices of early Christians and Wesley, DISCIPLESHIP an 18th-century British evangelist who spent time Diets and becoming in America. You’ll also hear from Bishop Matthew PLEASE RECYCLE like Christ Thomas, who will speak this month at General THIS MAGAZINE BY KEVIN M. WATSON Conference 2015 about making disciples. For evangelicals, the Pew survey wasn’t as 17 bleak — only a drop of 1 percentage point since LET’S CONNECT! 2007 — as it was for other Christian groups. NEWS Still, we and our fellow evangelicals should stay Winona Lake facebook.com/ instagram.com/ lightandlifemagazine fmcusa celebrates committed to living out the Free Methodist BY MINDI GRIESER Church’s mission “to love God, love people and twitter.com/ CROMWELL make disciples.” n lightandlifemag fmchr.ch/fmcgplus fmchr.ch/fmlinkedin vimeo.com/llcomm LIGHT + LIFE │ 01 │ JULY 2015 instagram.com/ fmcusa fmchr.ch/fmcgplus vimeo.com/llcomm HOW THE EARLY CHURCH MADE FEATURE BY STEVEN D. BRUNS image and likeness of Christ. Wesley called this process of discipleship “sanctification.” Discipleship is not a nebulous endeavor. It is something with an end result: a disciple. If we are talking about making disciples of Jesus, there is only one entity that has been empow- STEVEN D. ered to do that: the church. A strong church BRUNS is an underlying assumption in all of the early is the pastor of the Newton church writings and practices. In the first three (Illinois) Free centuries of the church, the overriding concern Methodist in discipleship was to ensure that it was within Church. He HOW THE EARLY adapted this the framework of true Christianity. There were article from a myriad versions of Christianity during that series on ancient discipleship time, and most of those alternate versions of CHURCH MADE (fmchr.ch/ Christianity were very individualistic in their ancientd) he approach to the spiritual life. Everyone was on wrote for Asbury John Wesley lived in a time when the church Theological had grown weak and inept, and the faith of their own personal journey. A church was an Seminary’s many had grown cold. We find ourselves in a optional add-on for them. True Christianity, seedbed.com. similar situation today. We live in a pluralistic however, saw the necessity of the church in culture in which attitudes about Christianity Christian growth and discipleship. range from mild interest to indifference to Jesus said all authority in heaven and earth outright rejection. Our culture still contains was given to Him, and then He immediately Christian ideas, such as going the “second told the church to make disciples. Today, we mile” or being a “good Samaritan,” but tend toward the alternate view of individualism Christianity is no longer the dominant voice when it comes to faith: We are all on our own shaping our culture. journeys, and — while we may like a particular Wesley’s solution in his organization congregation for its music, teaching, preaching of Methodism was to look to the primitive or fellowship — church itself is not really nec- church. He saw the church of the first 300 essary for our salvation, let alone our spirituali- years as the prototype of a vibrant expression ty or discipleship. of the faith that would turn the world upside To talk about disciples, we have to talk down once again, creating committed and about the church and its place in our lives. passionate disciples. We also look back to our past — to Wesley or the primitive church —for our model. WESLEY’S STUDY OF THE One of the key foundational texts for early Christian discipleship was 2 Peter 1:3–4: “His PRIMITIVE CHURCH LED divine power has granted to us all things that HIM TO CONSIDER PRAYER, pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own SCRIPTURE, WORSHIP, glory and excellence, by which he has granted THE LORD’S SUPPER AND to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partak- CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY AS ers of the divine nature, having escaped from THE MEANS OF GRACE BY the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (ESV). The theological term for WHICH WE GROW. this process is “theosis”: being renewed in the LIGHT + LIFE │ 04 │ JULY 2015 FEATURE BY STEVEN D. BRUNS Otherwise, we will end up with ancient gospel. They understood that their status church practices in a framework of DIG as a new people held them to a higher individualized spirituality and a personal DEEPER standard of living in the world. journey that is not entirely Christian. This group identification held the early BISHOP EMERITUS Christians together and encouraged them to WITHIN CHURCH LIFE RICHARD SNYDER continue in the faith. No one was ever alone Discipleship was always within the life SHARES TIPS FOR in the faith or on an exclusively personal of the church. It was together that Chris- “BEING DISCIPLES journey. Every Christian together was a tians encouraged one another through — MAKING part of the kingdom of God and the new, persecution and in the mundaneness of redeemed creation. By intentionally being DISCIPLES” IN A normal life. Christians were different, unique and different, by intentionally cre- 33-PAGE BOOK and they were intentionally different. ating a new people in the world, Christians THAT CAN BE Their spiritual lives as faithful disciples reminded themselves that they were not only brought them into tension with the cul- DOWNLOADED AS purchased at a great price; they also endured ture around them. They lived as members A FREE PDF FILE: and supported one another at a great price of the Roman Empire, obeying its laws fmchr.ch/rsnyder — because no one else would do it. and participating in its civil life so long as Rather than striving to blend in to that life did not conflict with their Chris- the world around them, Christians strove tian identity. They were expatriates of the APPLY IT to be disciples together. Their distinct kingdom of God in the empire of Rome. identity shaped that discipleship because When people became Christians, FOR JUST $5, it reminded them that they had a higher their lives became oriented around life PROVIDE A BIBLE allegiance than to any one ethnic group, in Christ together. The church and its FOR A NEW language or empire. The Christians of members became the center of the con- those first three centuries saw themselves BELIEVER IN JESUS vert’s world, and their faith became the as a set-apart group that used certain disci- CHRIST.