this call still allows each of us to pursue our favorite religious theme, social reform, or moral issue while seeing it as a contribution to a higher goal: discipleship.
The Call of Discipleship doesn’t just unite catechists, it unites believers who come with different religious interests, questions, devotions, and perspectives. The Call of Discipleship provides a common purpose while leaving room for the diverse spiritual interests and practices of God’s children.
5. Intentionality
The Call of Discipleship brings clarity to our work and cleans up the ambiguity found in too many of our current faith formation initiatives. It allows us to distinguish between basic formation and something More.
Teaching for Discipleship honors the necessary work of basic formation and then intentionally builds on it. We will see that it requires a different set of skills and has a different purpose. Some of us are more natural at T4D (teaching for discipleship) while some of us are better suited for the important work of basic formation.
6. Discipleship requires study and application
We know that the root word for disciple is student. By definition, a disciple is someone who studies the ways of the One and lives by them. It is more like a spiritual path than a spiritual level of achievement.
You can’t be a disciple without study. It is a spiritual path one uses to direct one’s life and navigate through. It is the challenging path and a noble adventure that Christ describes. It is a path that requires lifelong learning and constant application. On it, we take two steps forward and one step backward. Sometimes we rest; sometimes we lose our way.
And let us make this clear: it is a path that comes with a cost.
This goes against the trend to develop a basic collection of beliefs early in life — without study — or to form beliefs and then stop studying. This goes against mentally accepting a collection of beliefs without the active commitment to apply them.
7. Places community in context
Newsweek/Beliefnet surveyed 1,000 religious adults who identified themselves as “traditional” or “non-traditional” evangelical, Lutheran, Catholic, Methodist, etc. Approximately 275 were Catholic. Here’s one question:
Which of the following would you say is the main reason you practice your religion (among traditional and non-traditional practitioners)?
| Trad. | Non-Trad. | Total | |
| To forge a personal relationship with God | 44% | 28% | 39% |
| To help you be a better person and live a moral life | 31% | 27% | 30% |
| To find happiness and peace of mind | 17% | 17% | 17% |
| To connect with something larger than yourself | 10% | 9% | 10% |
| To give your life meaning and structure | 8% | 11% | 8% |
| To be a part of a community | 3% | 3% | 3% |
| Other reason | 1% | 0% | 1% |
| No main reason | 5% | 19% | 10% |
| Don’t know | 2% | 1% | 2% |
We see that the top three reasons people practice their religion corresponds to the vertical, horizontal, and internal dimensions of their spiritual lives. They practice their religion because it mainly helps them improve their relationship with the transcendent God, treat others lovingly, and find peace. (There will be more on these three dimensions in Part Four.)
But how many traditional and non-traditional members of these denominations practice their religion for community? 3%.
I did a workshop on T4D in a diocese recently with the local bishop in attendance. Before the workshop began, I approached him quietly with a request: “Bishop, I could really use some feedback on this stuff. Would you be kind enough to give this material a thorough theological evaluation?” He agreed to do it and said we could discuss it together with his diocesan staff at lunch afterward.
During lunch he pulled out an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket. He had several points scribbled on the back of the envelope. We went through them. (To my joy, they were all positive.)
I asked him about the Newsweek/Beliefnet poll above. His response was immediate:
That’s what I hope people would say! For Pete’s sake, people shouldn’t be practicing their religion for community. They should be practicing it because of their love of God and faith in Christ. Not community!
While spiritual interests and pursuits among people in the United States increases at a record pace, congregational membership is dropping at a record pace. People are not in it for community. Even traditional members of our faith are not in it for community. Yet for the past two generations now, we have made community the focal point of our call to faith.
For the last thirty years, we have emphasized communal participation in our churches so much that it seems to be the principal indicator of faith. Communal participation and active membership seems to be the most important thing. We expect more and more of people as resources and talents of our churches dwindle while the need of our churches increase. We amp up the exhortations. Frustration increases. And so does the exodus.
The people have already voted with their feet. They ain’t coming, ain’t investing, ain’t participating, ain’t playin’.
They are not in it for community, which is all the more reason why now is the time for the Call of Discipleship.
Discipleship is a natural fit for the spiritual interests of the day because discipleship is first and foremost an individual act, not a communal one. At its most basic level, discipleship requires that an individual decide to study the ways of Christ and apply it to his or her life. It’s a path with an easy on-ramp: making a personal commitment.
To me, the bishop mentioned above was echoing the words of Christ, who said clearly, and simply, “Stay in my word and you will be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
But the Call of Discipleship is best nourished and lived out in community. Christ intentionally established the Church as the community of disciples. He called Peter to lead it.
The Call of Discipleship does not dismiss community. It places community in context.
It names the purpose of community.
We believe that discipleship is best lived out within a community of disciples — the Church. After all, “Where two or three of you are gathered, there I will also be” (see Mt 18:20).
The Vatican’s General Directory for Catechesis says as much:
In the Christian community the disciples of Jesus Christ are nourished at the two fold table: “that of the word of God and that of the Body of Christ” (DV, 21). (70)
Jesus shows, equally, that the community of his disciples, the Church, “is, on earth, the seed and the beginning of that Kingdom” (LG, 5), and, like leaven in the dough, what she desires is that the Kingdom of God grow in the world like a great tree, giving shelter to all peoples and cultures. “The Church is effectively and concretely at the service of the Kingdom” (RM, 20). (102)
The Call of Discipleship simply changes the emphasis of our past approach without losing any elements of it. Instead of making community the principal focus from which one might pursue the spiritual life, it makes the individual act of discipleship the focus and presents community as the best way to support that life.
The same two elements of individual decision and communal membership remain — neither is lost. Yet the emphasis corresponds more directly to the spirituality of people today. This is one of the ways T4D is different than our past approaches.
8. Resonates with people’s desire to help others
From tsunami relief to earthquake relief, from donating for malaria-preventing mosquito nets to celebrity-driven causes, from Going Green to Doctors