How to Go from Church Member to Disciple
The most basic task of any church is to make disciples. This goes back to The Great Commission and continues until our Lord returns. But while making church-goers is tough enough, the work of assisting someone from attending worship to following Christ in a meaningful way is a step churches can miss. In fact, if your congregation has no intentional means offered to assist in the move from church attendance to discipleship, then you are more likely to make church members than followers of Jesus.
Read the Bible
A proven means to assist in this transition from church goer to disciple is through teaching and modeling spiritual disciplines. One basic example is daily scripture reading on a pattern to read through the Bible, which is central to our identity as Episcopalians. Normative for us is the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer, which is to be practiced by all clergy and remains the norm for laity. Typically our churches have copies of Forward Day by Day, which offers reflections for each day to fit the same readings as found in the office. Teaching this practice as a discipline to be followed no matter whether one feels like it or not is the most straightforward way to help parishioners make room for the Holy Spirit to break in day by day.
Create a Rule of Life
By experience, we all learn that if we don’t set and work to keep priorities, then life will overtake you and those things you consider important will be lost in the urgent. This is true for one’s relationship with God. This is why spiritual disciplines are vital. A time-tested way to set your spiritual priorities is to create, and in time modify, a Rule of Life. The basic idea is to note the important elements of your own spiritual life along with some plan for how you will carry it out.
For example, any spiritual rule of life should include worship. “I will attend church on Sundays when I am well.” To this could be added Wednesday worship or feast days of the church. But no matter what you decide, the rule of life will be most likely to work if you write it down. Keep what you write simple and specific. Do not use permissive language such as “I will try” as all of us try to do things. Write instead, “I will” or “I promise.” Want to know what to cover? Try this PDF file I created while at King of Peace: Creating a Rule of Life.
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Be Realistic
The temptation in creating a rule is to create an idealistic one. Saint Francis doesn’t need a Rule of Life anymore. Try instead to create a realistic plan for your life. Start by listing what you do now in the areas found in the brochure above. Then add one, or at the most two, new disciplines or an increase in participation in one area. The goal is to set out some spiritual priorities you can keep. You will be better off to start too small. In time you can revisit your rule and make changes.
You don’t want to overwhelm yourself with too much to do. Time spent on your spiritual journey is not meant to be one more list of chores in a busy life. Tending to your faith is more akin to giving yourself a source of rest and refreshment in a world too short on both.
The Church’s Role-Teach and Model
As congregations, if we are not teaching those who attend worship some practical ways to make our Triune God part of their daily lives, then we are teaching by omission that attending church is all there is to the life of faith. This is not only untrue, it is not fair as that sort of faith will not meet the demands of the real world. We need to give church goers the tools to become disciples.
-The Rev. Canon Frank Logue, Canon to the Ordinary
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