Walking the Path of Discipleship—Together

As you may know, our church's mission statement is "To save the lost and make the disciples of Christ." I am asking that we make a slight adjustment to our mission statement to read, "To save the lost and together become disciples of Christ."

I have a few reasons for this change. My first being that none of us would dare to say that we have completed our own journeys as disciples of Jesus! The path of following Jesus as his disciple is a lifelong journey that is only completed when we die and meet him face to face. I don't want to leave our own discipleship out of the mission statement.

My second reason is that I think the change reflects the kind of humble servant-hearted attitude that I'm hoping that we can all embrace. The more I repeated it to myself, I found that the previous wording of the mission statement, "and make them disciples of Christ," could be misinterpreted to imply that there is a kind of greater giving to the lesser as we make disciples. I don't think anyone actually thinks this, and this wording adjustment would make clear that we are all on this journey together.

Finally, in this wording adjustment, I wanted to communicate a conviction about the process of growing as Christians—that the only way that we can grow is by growing together. An individual, doing their own study, practicing spiritual disciplines alone, living a "just me and Jesus" kind of Christian life, should not expect to make any kind of meaningful progress in growing as a follower of Jesus. Why is that? It is because life in intimate, loving connection with others is a foundational requirement, according to our understanding of the Bible.

We need one another to grow as Christians, and so our mission is to save the lost and together become disciples of Christ.