John Coyne: 27th February 2011 "
"Living God we thank You for calling us to know You through our Lord Jesus Christ and we pray that as you called your first disciples and shaped them to share in your mission so may we recognise that call and the claim upon our own lives and serve your purposes in this place for Jesus sake. Amen"
A young vicar was delighted to be appointed to a particular parish: it was vibrant, the people there had a real sense of God about them. The church was growing, but like most churches, they had their issues. Their issue was a major building project and it so focussed the attention of the congregation that they lost sight of why God calls His church into being. The young vicar still delighted to be appointed there knew that the challenge facing him and them was to orientate themselves, away from keeping the show on the road, away from keeping their building together. Not simply having a building, but having a building with the people serving the purposes of God in that place. And so young as he was, inexperienced as he was, that was the test of his leadership and in turn the greatest test for that congregation: To grow as disciples of Jesus Christ so that they may serve the mission of God in that place.
And as we look at how Jesus developed those who would serve and lead with Him and after Him there is evidence in the gospel particularly here in Matthew of the calling, the equipping and sending out of disciples. It's a theme present throughout the gospel, earlier on we see it in Matthew 4 here in chapters 9 and 10 and the later in chapter 28. "Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations". Going into all the world is one thing, going into Malvern is another and these passages of scripture are not suggesting and I'm not suggesting from them that Jesus gave us a concrete blueprint of how to do this for every time. But it is the case that we can learn much from Him and the way he drew His followers into active discipleship and then into leadership for some and mission for all.
So firstly I note from this passage of Matthew 9 and 10 how He recruited followers. Whilst not all of the followers of Jesus are meant to be leaders. It is the case that He set about growing disciples intentionally and among these there was an expectation that some followers would eventually develop and move into leadership roles. But in the first place, in the first phase of His ministry people like Andrew and John sought Him and out and asked to be His disciples as we read that in John 1. Then secondly Jesus took the initiative and sought out enquirers - the inquisitive - who became followers. That includes Philip also Peter and James. From Mark and then here in Matthew 9:361 we discover that Jesus saw the distressed multitudes. He felt compassion for them and said to His disciples these words: "When He saw the crowds, He had compassion for them, because they were harassed" and then He said "The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few. Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest, to send out labourers into his harvest." And if you pray that prayer you have to be willing, as they were, to become its answer. To be the labourers who make known the good news of Jesus Christ in our communities, so if you bear any resemblance to Jesus of Nazareth then this will be a church which takes the calling and growing of disciples seriously.
I'll put the question then: How does that happen here? How attentive are you as a Christian community to helping new Christians become established and then helping mature Christians move on in their discipleship, mission and service? I want to suggest that one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century is that of discipleship, of helping people not simply to come to faith in Jesus Christ but to become His active followers and it's more challenging in this time because, if you like, the heritage of the Christian past has all but gone. We start from scratch and therefore we must accept that in helping people embrace what it means to name Jesus as Lord they're starting from a different place and the challenge is a longer and more demanding one. And today also the focus on discipleship is changing, often in the past a discipleship training course would focus on how you could serve God in the church, how you could help the local church do what it does, but now the challenge we have discovered afresh that discipleship is much wider than that it involves allowing every part of life to be under the influence of God.
Discipleship training today is not about helping people to be disciples in church, but to be disciples in the communities in which we live, work and enjoy our recreation. Jesus provided the classic example, He lived distinctively as He went to homes, market places, festivals, weddings and designated places of worship. He spoke about marriage and divorce, taxes, government, wealth, work and disease, He got involved in discussion and debate. His statement "Love your enemies" was a highly political statement in a country where the Roman rulers there were hated. He taught His followers to pray "Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" We'll be praying that prayer in a short while, it's a big prayer and it's a prayer about bearing the image of Christ in the communities, in the homes, in the places where we live and work.
But secondly Jesus selected leaders from amongst those who became His disciples as time went on Jesus began to call out those who we might say were apostolic leaders, leaders in the mission of God - leaders in helping the church make the good news known where they are. In Luke 6 He spent a whole evening in prayer, then called the disciples to Him and the next day designated them to apostolic leadership (Luke 6:13). The point is if we are serious about developing leaders the whole process needs to be surrounded by prayer at every stage, many are drawn into leadership roles by default or by a notice in the weekly parish news. So I put it to you, not your clergy, but the church as a whole, how intentionally do you seek to develop leaders and those who will play a key leadership role here in the church that will help the church to fulfil its mission?
And thirdly, this doesn't just happen, there needs to be training and Jesus undertook that too. The next area was that Jesus trained these apostles in leadership. Though Jesus ministered to the crowd it is clear from the Gospels that as time went by and the ministry continued He spent more and more of His time with fewer and fewer people, those who were closest to Him with the express intention of helping them to continue His mission when he'd gone. It's as if He was giving them a DNA transplant. His DNA, the DNA of sharing a passion for God's mission. This included a period of succession planning because He knew He'd be leaving them and whilst again I say He doesn't give an exact blueprint it's clear that he prepared them for ministry and then gave them the opportunity to minister and then out of that experience gave them some further training.
I taught for four years at a theological college. I taught a subject called "Practical Theology", helping people earth their theology in the practice of Christian life and ministry and we had there mixed mode students who would actually do their training to be ordained actually on the job. And it's only as they undertook the mission of God in that place that they came to theological college for a time to reflect on what that had been engaged with and what they had done. Leaders therefore are not grown in isolation from the task of being leaders you can't learn it in a class room. Good leaders never stop learning and growing but if they do stop they cease to lead well. So I again reflect back to you to the task of your clergy, to youth workers, to church wardens, to all those who lead ministries in this place. We need to be developed, we need to grow, we need to mature and I am delighted to hear that in the past you've run the course produced by my colleagues James Lawrence and previously Simon Heathfield called "Growing Leaders". It's an outstanding program for helping a local church grow its leadership and that's in prospect again perhaps for the future.
But fourthly, what we see in the bible reading for today is an emerging pattern. First Jesus appointed followers or disciples from which he went to select those who would be apostolic leaders. These he trained, coached and developed and then sent. So in Matthew 10:5 and 6 he told them to go initially only to Israel, to their fellow Jews, "Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" it says there. He gave them a mission that was right under their noses. Theirs was Israel, ours might be at the school gate, at work, at the rugby club.
One of the students I trained was a young man who was a pioneer minster and he formed a church around a football club and it eventually grew. My wife and I both work for Christian agencies, so don't take this the wrong way but we spend too much of our time with Christians. So we have deliberately, in moving back to our own home, joined or formed clubs in the local community, principally to enjoy them but secondly that we might meet those who are at this point in time strangers to the love of God in Christ. So feel your way for what God has been doing and most importantly be open even from this historic setting to Him working with you in new ways. For in a post-Christian world the gospel is that which is unchanging but the context in which it is shared is vastly different.
In your mission it's imperative that you discover not only what God has done but the doors that God may be opening. It is a salutary reminder of the very general principle that mission is never a matter of taking God where He hasn't been before and introducing Him to a lot of kind strangers. In every act of mission God is there ahead of us, so keep your eyes and ears open, for the door God is opening: the place where God has already in some way turned over the soil. It may be a long way from the church door but very near to where you spend most of your week.
And then in verses 7 and 8 Jesus gave them a clear mandate in ministry "As you go proclaim the good news `The kingdom of heaven has come near'." Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons." And perhaps one of the first things we should say is God is nearer to seekers than we think. The good news is that God is on the way to you before you have begun to be on the way to God. Mission and evangelism is not about introducing a distant and rather shy God to people He has never met before; it is much more a question of saying to people that "God is more interested in you than you are in God".
I spent 17 years as a military Chaplain and a question was often put to me "Padre, why are you here?" My normal answer was simply that every single person matters to God and therefore even those in the military and those particularly as years have gone by serving in places of danger need the care and witness of those who know God, love God and commend Him by care to others. Mission is release from all that creates non-health in life be it a disease of leprosy, the demonic or the destructive forces that suck human beings down into darkness both inside and outside.
As we drove into Malvern today we were struck again, it's about ten years or so since we've been here, by the beauty of this place: a place of great culture. But I promise you, and I reckon you know that even in a place as beautiful as this there is a darkness of those who are strangers to the love of God in Christ. And when this magnificent building was put in place it wasn't as a tourist attraction, it was that those who belonged to God in Christ in this place might bring the light of the gospel into the community around them. We are here, you are here, to bring a Christ shaped transformation into the situation and context in which we live.
And then as I draw to a close in verses 9 to 10 Jesus gave His friends further practical instruction on what to take with them and what to leave behind. "Take no gold or silver or copper in your belts, no bag for your journey or two tunics or sandals or a staff, for labourers deserve their food." And within those words are many messages but they clearly imply that initiative comes first and resources come later. Anyone involved in mission has a real challenge in these words. Churches need to ensure that they are not so wedded to what they have inherited that they miss out on the very things that matter to God in the present time. Mission then and now means that we travel light. Jesus again and again emphatically says to His friends in the gospels "travel light". You may find yourselves going into a new situation so encumbered with what you think you need that you are unable to perceive and respond to what the people need most of all, the love of God shared by you and through you. And so the pattern goes on from Jesus through his friends to each succeeding generation, from seekers we get followers, from followers or disciples we get leaders, from leaders we get mature leaders calling the church to its core business and from leaders infused with the DNA of God's mission we get a church fully engaged in the mission of God for the twenty first century.
Let's bow our heads to pray:
"Living God we ask that you will send your Holy Spirit upon us that these words of scripture will come alive in hearts, our minds and our lives so that we who were once seekers may be active followers of Jesus that from amongst us you would call out those to be the leaders who will not simply sustain but develop this church and its life into the future and we pray that as a consequence of us being here the light of the gospel of Christ will shine with a brighter vision throughout this community of Malvern. In Jesus name. Amen."
John Coyne
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