What would it mean if we were to become disciple-making churches?

A tourist collected a few of the signs in English that monolingual Americans traveling abroad must contend with. In an airline ticket office in Copenhagen, there is this promise: "We take your bags and send them in all directions." A Swiss restaurant announces to its customers that "Our wines leave you with nothing to hope for." A rather severe Acapulco hotel posts a sign assuring its customers that "The manager has personally passed all the water served here."

But my favorite is a sign spotted in Paris. One of the city's finer hotels invites its visitors to "Please leave your values at the front desk" (Taken from unpublished remarks by Jeanne M. Fox, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, Region II).

It is not that we have lost all our values more likely, they have become so small and so compact that we can easily tuck them away in a convenient overnight bag and check them at the door. When it seems "appropriate" or "comfortable," we can quickly re-claim our stowable values. But for many it seems that there never is a suitably convenient place to unpack them all.

Being a Christian in this kind of a "packed-value" (not "value-packed"!) postmodern culture challenges the church to be intentional about nurturing fully commissioned disciples in its midst. Our money-crazed world is still full of "sheep" people wandering aimlessly, following anything or anyone that seems to be moving no matter what the direction or destination. Without a sturdy, guiding set of values to shepherd them safely through "wilderness" experiences, these poor sheep are doomed.

Is your church committed to sending out disciples into the world men and women who dedicate their lives to "shepherding"? There is an old Bible song, one you might have last sung in a lisping voice in a small Sunday school room, about "There were 12 disciples Jesus called to help him, Simon Peter, Andrew, James his brother John...." For many children (I was one), it was the one sure way you could accurately memorize all 12 of the disciples' names. After running through the names of them all, the chorus of this old song insists to all listening ... "Jesus calls you too!"

That is the power behind this commissioning text in Matthew not that Jesus called disciples to help spread the Good News of the kingdom nearly 2,000 years ago but Jesus is still calling new disciples each and every day to set out on that same mission.

Where do all these disciples come from? The list Matthew provides in today's gospel text gives names but not a lot of details about the Twelve that Jesus originally called. We know that four of them were perfectly prepared for a life of active ministry as fishermen. We know that one of them led a morally exemplary lifestyle before his calling the tax collector Matthew. We know that one of them had a temperament that Jesus felt perfectly comfortable confiding in Judas the betrayer.

Oops. Perhaps not such a practically "perfect" group after all. But despite their background, profession or character, Jesus "called them too." He found ways to use the strengths, the weaknesses, the foibles and the frustrations of each of his first disciples and made them into his own authorized representatives on Earth.

Jesus is still the only one who can call disciples and commission them into service in the gospel ministry. But every Christian is called. It is the church's job to prepare men and women for discipleship. Each and every congregation must be a disciple-making church. Creating disciples means opening Christians up to the possibility that the power of Christ can work through them with transforming power. It is the church's biggest failure that when it tries to "train up" likely candidates for discipleship, for ministry, we give them puny, paltry responsibilities.

How often does someone once on fire for the gospel end up with a list of achievements that reads:

• organized bake sale
• chaired finance committee
• coordinated Sunday school course
• sang in choir
• assisted in worship
• ushered a worship service?

As important as these works are, they do not make up the essence of what a disciple for Christ is, what a disciple of Christ is empowered to do.

Jesus didn't give his disciples simple, safe tasks when he commissioned them into his ministry. His raw recruits, still smelling of fish and suspicion, were called to:

• cure the sick
• raise the dead
• cleanse the lepers
• cast out demons.

How would any of you like to be handed that as a list of "things to do" by your pastor? How many of you would volunteer for discipleship if you realized those were the expectations?

(Be sure in presenting this material to your congregation not to speak in a diminishing way about the items on the first list. Many people do legitimately offer their spiritual gifts to God's service through such things as bake sales and singing in the choir, and the church is graced by their freely given service. The point of the second list, however, is to raise the question, "What else is God calling us to do?" Its purpose is to instill a holy restlessness that says, "Yes, I do this and greater for my God.")

What this list of unbelievable tasks suggests to all of us is that we cannot be disciples on our own. We do not empower ourselves through education, or good works, or high moral standards or even through prayer to become disciples of the gospel. The only one who can provide the power necessary to carry out these daunting disciple-tasks is Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord. Only the one who perfectly embodied the kingdom can breathe the life of his Spirit into a new generation of disciples.