Missionary Discipleship!
As the Church, in Her various dioceses and parishes has become more comfortable with the language of evangelization, more and more ink (and pixels) have been “spilled” talking about missionary discipleship. Pope Francis speaks about it frequently, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops recently created a resource entitled Living as Missionary Disciples! It seems like only a few years ago Sherry Weddell wrote her groundbreaking book, Forming Intentional Disciples, that helped shift the conversation around evangelization–particularly in the United States–and now we are wrestling with missionary discipleship.
The problem is that for many pastoral leaders, key volunteers, and Catholics in general missionary discipleship is a mystery. Because of the crisis of discipleship within our communities, our personal experiences of missionary discipleship are limited. Often leaders lack even an imaginative category for such an expression of discipleship. Therefore, It is hard to begin with the end in mind when that “end” is essentially a theory or, even worse, an unknown developmental stage. Even when we as parish and diocesan leaders understand that the developmental goal is missionary discipleship (which itself is rarer than you would think), how can we lay a solid foundation for the development of missionary disciples in our programs and processes of formation when we ourselves are unsure what we are building toward?
In order to help parishes have a clearer understanding of missionary discipleship, M3 Ministries has created a very basic overview of the characteristics of a missionary disciple. It is a useful resource to begin conversations about missionary discipleship at all levels of the parish, and we want to offer it to anyone who wants it. If you are interested in downloading a copy of this resource, simply click on the image below.
The Dangers of Functionality
If you would like to use this resource in order to foster conversation in your organization, ministry, parish, or diocese be prepared to navigate a pretty substantial obstacle: Because of our lack of familiarity with missionary discipleship, we tend to reduce this multi-dimensional developmental stage of the spiritual journey only to its functions. In other words, we may have individuals in our parishes and dioceses who do or lead activities that fall under some of the characteristics of a missionary disciple, and therefore we (or they) may assume that they are missionary disciples. Missionary Discipleship, however, is more than simply a list of activities or functions. It is a fundamentally relational response to Christ that encompasses the whole of one’s life. A catechist who teaches his students about Christ within an RE program but never talks about Jesus in any other facet of his life may not have actually be a disciple who has, through the grace of God, taken a missionary approach to life.
Understanding this key reality will help you utilize this resource more effectively. May it truly be a help to the work of parish renewal and transformation!
