by our bishop, the Rt. Rev. Craig Loya
originally published in the ECMN email newsletter
Beloved in Christ,
The church has one purpose and one core task. Our purpose is to join God’s project to heal the world with love. Our core task is to make disciples of Jesus, whom we believe is the fullest expression of God’s healing love. A disciple is a student, an apprentice, someone who is dedicated to becoming like their teacher, living as the teacher lives, doing as the teacher does.
This was clear for the earliest Christians, who simply called our faith the Way, the path. The New Testament and early church history show a group of people who changed those around them because of how they lived, how they loved, how they lit up their communities by offering an irresistibly compelling way to be in the world.
Over the centuries, we somehow lost that sense and came to act as if our core work is recruiting and retaining church members who believe the right things, attend worship and programs, and help fund the institution, rather than making disciples whose relationship with Jesus becomes the center of their whole lives.
I believe reclaiming and recentering our core task is the most important call of our generation.
I recently encountered John Mark Comer’s book “Practicing the Way,” and it is one of the best and most comprehensive accounts of what a return to simple discipleship looks like for us as individuals, and for us as a church. His three-fold pattern of what it means to be a disciple—be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do as Jesus did—is both remarkably simple and rich in its depth. I found my own discipleship profoundly impacted and renewed by reading this book in recent weeks.
I hope you will all consider reading it this summer. I believe it can be a great help to us as we continue to do this work.
In a season of political turmoil, I found that it strengthened my courage and resolve. In a season where most of us are just plain tired, I found it an invitation to set some things down, and relearn how to rest. In a season when there are so many challenges facing those of us who lead the institution of the church, I found it a nourishing reminder of what truly matters.
I truly believe that if we do not focus on radical discipleship, nothing else we do as a church will matter much. And if we do regain that focus, nothing will be able to stop what the Spirit of God can and will do through us. I hope you’ll join me in using this summer to recommit to the basic pattern of being with Jesus, so that we can become like Jesus, and together, full of the Spirit’s life, do as Jesus did, for the sake of the world he died to save.
Grace and Peace,
The Right Reverend Craig Loya
Bishop X
Episcopal Church in Minnesota
