I have been a pain in the United Methodist hind quarters ever since we clarified our mission in 1996 as “making disciples of Jesus Christ,” amending it a decade later to conclude “for the transformation of the world. In congregational planning workshops I immediately ran this string of questions that I felt were essential for our denomination to answer:

• What is a disciple?
• What is a disciple for?
• How do you make a disciple?
• What do you do with one once you’ve made it?
• What comes next?

For some reason, a number of bishops and general secretaries saw these as adversarial and negative questions, and I was actually asked to stop raising them. I kept on, not to be difficult, but because I actually did think they were essential questions.

I have always found it difficult to produce something when I am not clear on what it is I am asked to produce (duh). And if the purpose for which the product is unclear, how can you tell if you are being effective or not? “For the transformation of the world,” (I assume we intend a positive transformation) comes close to answering the “what is a disciple for” as long as we are clear on what kind of transformation, what gifts/skills/knowledge/resources the transformation will require, and how we will measure progress/success. Once again, the higher-ups in the denomination were not amused when I raised these issues. One bishop and one pastor of a large Texas church actually requested I be fired over my obsession with clarifying and defining our mission in practical and useful terms.

Thirty years later I raise the exact same questions. When one of our bishops defined discipleship as showing up to church and sitting in a pew, I objected. I fear that such a definition will be much too attractive to way too many people, but there is not now and has never been such a thing as a “passive disciple.” Discipleship is never passive. Biblically, it simply means active learning. A disciple is a student, a follower, an apprentice. It holds within it a contradiction and paradox – disciples are lifetime learners, but not only lifetime learners. At some point, disciples graduate to become teachers, leaders, displaying mastery and improvement. In our scriptures, the twelve followers of Jesus are referred to as disciples until Pentecost, then they are never referred to as disciples again; their followers are named disciples.

So, at the very least a disciple is a lifetime learner who becomes a steward of all they learn, with a responsibility to pass on their learning to others. By definition, discipleship is putting lifelong learning into lifelong practice. Admittedly, this is a progressive Protestant definition of discipleship, one that is currently under attack. Recent comments have been made that religious progressives committed to social justice, mercy, aid to the needy, and protection of the vulnerable are not, even cannot, be Christian. Non-religious leadership has taken to judge and condemn recognized religious leaders as apostate. Readers of the Bible are dictating to students of the Bible to reject the teachers and teachings of the Bible. We are hearing more and more that we are to be disciples of political ideologies rather than of Jesus Christ.

None of us can do everything but all of us can do something. If The United Methodist Church is still on to something – that followers of Jesus should commit to a lifetime growth process of learning, engaging, leading, and guiding so that our world can more closely resemble the will, intention, and realm of God – then we desperately need to integrate our discipleship and stewardship in concrete ways to not simply cast a vision, but to commit to realize a vision that is divinely inspired instead of politically motivated. Write letters, take surveys, let your voice be heard. Attend protests, engage in community conversations, vote your values, and volunteer for neighborhood/community/city/state/world transforming efforts and organizations. Pray. Pray. Pray. I know of no one who takes prayer seriously who is not convinced that God is calling them not just to believe, behave, and belong, but to become salt, light, and a city on the hill, a full member of the body of Christ, incarnate to fulfill God’s promise and plan right now.