By Bishop Jennifer Brooke-Davidson
When the diocesan mission strategy was first announced, it was made clear from the start that it was intended to be organic and dynamic, growing and changing as our work within it progressed. Since its launch, more than one priority has been renamed to reflect more accurately the work happening around it. “Racial Reconciliation” became “Racial Reckoning, Justice & Healing.” “Vulnerable Congregations” is now “Congregational Vitality.” And now the work under the “Formation” priority calls for a new name to reflect its deeper purpose.
We have changed the priority’s nomenclature from “Formation” to “Discipleship” and reorganized our staff to reflect more dynamically the adventure into which baptism invites you. You’ve been given a beautiful, valuable gift. Discipleship asks: Will the gift gather dust and decay, or will you use it to make the world a little bit more into the Kingdom of God?
It’s like this:
“Once there was a woman who was a brilliant musician. When she died, she gave her two most prized possessions to her two grandchildren. To the first, she gave her violin; to the second, her piano. The first, who had been learning the violin for some time, gradually transferred from her own instrument to the old, much-loved one. Eventually, she could play it just like her grandmother had done. The second, who likewise had had piano lessons for some while, went on playing his own piano. He put the splendid old piano in the best room in the house, where it looked fine but gradually went out of tune. Nobody noticed when the wormwood set in until it was too late, and it was chopped up for firewood.
If you have ears, then hear.”
(Following Jesus: Biblical Reflections on Discipleship, N.T. Wright)
At every baptism the candidate is asked, “Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your savior? Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love? Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?” Every confirmand is asked to reaffirm those vows.
When we baptize, we hand the newly baptized a treasured violin, a fine piano, and we ask them if they will work to master it instead of their old instrument. That process, mastery of the new instrument of life in Christ, is called discipleship. The church exists, in part, to help Christians work out what it looks like to “follow and obey.”
What does it look like to practice this new instrument—to gradually transfer our life, our creativity, the attachments and expressions of our souls, from an old, familiar instrument to a new one? How do we work toward mastery of that instrument? How do people learn the tunes?
Starting from the Beginning
The beginning is always a good place to start. When Jesus gathered people, he most often said, “Follow me.” He meant it literally as well as figuratively. Those who did so most closely—certainly the 12 but sometimes larger groups—are called his disciples in Scripture. There are many, many definitions of a disciple, but they all point toward something more than a pupil. The original 12 physically followed Jesus around for a few years, walking the roads of Israel and its neighbors and living life together. Disciples today still follow Jesus by committing to the journey, absorbing Jesus’ teachings, modeling their lives on his life, obeying his commands, and now carrying on his mission of teaching, healing and making more disciples.
So where is Jesus leading? Christians will sometimes say, “to the cross,” and that is true. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said that when Christ calls a (person), he bids them come and die. That doesn’t necessarily mean physical martyrdom, but it always does mean that disciples put Christ in the center of the universe, not themselves. Every decision is measured against Christ, not against our personal preferences and predilections.
But the path does not end at the cross. It emerges from the empty tomb into resurrection, the world in which all things are made new. Jesus leads us to the thin veil between the world as we have made it and the world as God intended it. Some people call it the Kingdom of God, some call it heaven or paradise. By any name, it’s the place where all the evil has been burned away and all the good remains.
It’s the work of discipleship to turn away from the ruined world, the world of pain and violence and despair, and build for the world of resurrection and light and grace, where sorrow and pain are no more, where nobody weeps, and where God doesn’t need a temple because the whole world is the habitation of God. Disciples do what it takes to stay on that path and to get back on when we (inevitably) fall off.
Nobody can do this alone, and nobody should try. Following Jesus, being a Christian, is a team sport. Jesus didn’t appoint a single successor—he had 12, and one didn’t work out. Scripture says the remaining 11 cast lots and appointed Matthias. When you were baptized, the spiritual dice came up with your name on top. YOU are the 12th disciple, and so am I, and so are the millions who have been baptized into a life of following the dusty rabbi from Nazareth. We have been handed the teachings, the stories and the prayers. We have been invited to the table at the Last Supper. We have been met in the Upper Room, on the beach and in the countryside. And we have each other to help each other as we continue to follow.
The Evolution of Christian Education
The church has always been, since its beginnings, a place for Jesus followers to gather, learn, plan, confess, praise, share bread and offer a hand to the next follower. This has taken many forms over the centuries. In early days, new believers spent months and sometimes years learning the ways of Christ before their baptism, a process called catechesis. The Apostle’s Creed and the Lord’s Prayer were central to this instruction, and sometimes the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes. Those preparing were allowed to stay in worship services only for the readings and reflections, but not for the Eucharist. Baptism was an involved and deeply symbolic rite, and the newly baptized were finally allowed to be present and participate in the Eucharist. Baptism was followed by more instruction in the sacraments of the church and deeper integration into the life of the church, sometimes called mystagogy.
All these things evolved over the years—volumes have been written for anyone wishing to dive deeper. The Roman Catholic Church used specified catechisms to teach the basics, and in the late medieval church, English clergy were required to preach specific catechetical sermons on a prescribed rotation. In the Reformation, Martin Luther produced a long and a short catechism, which became the basis of the catechism in the Book of Common Prayer. With the advent of the printing press about the same time, the catechism became the primary primer used in England to teach reading and writing. Anglican clergyman John Wesley greatly expanded the scope of teaching in the late 1700s, incorporating deeply intentional small group work that went beyond instruction and into spiritual practices and accountability as well as social reform and charity.
It was in the same years that Sunday schools began in England and became a model of catechesis for the mainline American church in the early 1800s.
Sunday school grew out of a Christian movement to provide basic education to impoverished children who, before child labor laws and universal public education, had no other access to basics like reading, writing and arithmetic. By the 20th century, denominations had publishing houses to produce curricula, and “classes” were usually age-graded, modeled on secular schools. Christian education delivered biblical and doctrinal content, and it was largely aimed at the head. There were books and worksheets, and sometimes crayons and construction paper, or if you were very lucky, a Montessori-based approach with tactile materials and quality art supplies. This model lasted for more than 150 years. In many minds, it’s THE model upon which the mainline Christian church in America was built. It corresponds in many ways to the worldview of modernity, the Enlightenment and industrialization.
“Christian education” as the default model fell out of fashion at the end of the 20th century with the rise of “formation” as the institutional norm. Formation has tended to be more focused on spiritual practices and the heart. Spiritual practices such as lectio divina, walking labyrinths, and praying with candles and prayer beads replaced the books and worksheets of earlier years. At the same time, the formational value of active engagement in the community, sometimes labeled “social justice,” became more widely recognized. In strongly liturgical traditions like The Episcopal Church, worship itself, and in particular sacramental worship, is often assumed to be the primary place of formation. Attitudes about formation tend to be more individualized and subjective, where Christian education tended to be more standardized and objective. Formation tends to correspond to a postmodern, deconstructed and relativistic worldview.
An Integrated, Whole-life Model
Both Christian education and formation have elements that are essential to a growing life in Christ. We need the foundation of knowledge that constitutes Anglican authority—Scripture, tradition and reason, or we are just floating in the ether and are “subject to every whim” against which St. Paul warned us. And we need the spiritual foundation of prayer, worship, discipline and service, or we are just on a head trip with no impact on our lives or the world. But we need a model for our time, and that model is “Discipleship,” an integrated, whole-life model.
Discipleship seeks a synthesis and deepening of the values of Christian education and formation. It seeks to tie the ancient, the medieval, the modern and the postmodern together as a holistic worldview and way of life. We believe that knowledge is important—the commandments, creeds, Lord’s Prayer, and Beatitudes remain central to basic instruction, and Holy Scripture forms the foundation of our faith. We believe that all people have the capacity to grow spiritually through disciplines of spiritual practice and reflection. We believe that the Holy Spirit leads us into the world to learn to be the hands and feet of Jesus. We believe that the holy mysteries encountered in the sacraments are effectual means of grace that change who we are.
And we believe that the journey of faith, the path of discipleship, is open to all, regardless of age or any other factor. Discipleship is the foundational mission priority of the Diocese of North Carolina, and we are prioritizing intergenerational formation, particularly in worship; we also continue other catechetical and mystagogical work. The way we do that is by supporting this work in the place where it actually happens: the local congregation and the home. The mission of our discipleship team is to equip and empower congregations to form disciples of all ages who know, love and follow Jesus with joy and work, in community and, with God’s help, to build the Kingdom of God.
We began at the beginning and so we begin at the ending. Last words carry great weight; everyone wants to know what a loved one’s last words were. In law, the “dying declaration” of a person is granted an exception to the hearsay rule and is admissible in court. Jesus’ last words, it turned out, were not, “My God, why have you abandoned me,” but rather “GO and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded—and I will be with you until the end of time.” (Matthew 28:19)
That’s quite a charge, and quite a promise.
To follow or not to follow Jesus is up to you; nobody can decide that except you. At your baptism you were given a priceless gift by people who love you—the instrument that you alone can decide to pick up and play. If you decide to study and practice and play that instrument, to take that marvelous journey, you will have tremendous support from the church, which vowed to do all in its power to support your life in Christ. The church, in the form of your local congregation backed up by the bishops and diocesan staff, are here expressly to help you and teach you to help others.
I hope you will be inspired to recommit to the journey of faith as the adventure of a lifetime and beyond.
May God bless you richly to make beautiful music as a disciple following Jesus into the Kingdom of God.
Bishop Jennifer Brooke-Davidson is the assistant bishop of the Diocese of North Carolina.
