The earliest Christians were few in number and a persecuted minority. They could not claim or cling to 2000 years of Christian history. There was no State Church for them to hold onto, and no sense of them campaigning for a return to ‘family values’ or 'how things used to be in the good old days'. There were no good old days – it was all about the present and the future. Instead, they were more like aliens in a foreign land. Yet this group made the world of difference. And they were originally young people following Jesus.
In the Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus, the writer describes how the earliest Christians lived, and the influence and impact they had on the society around them. ‘They display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners… They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven… they are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their very dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless…’
No doubt from time to time, you find yourself at events where hundreds or thousands of Christians are gathered together. It can be so much fun and also really good to be at big gatherings like that. I know that my life is marked by a couple of life changing moments in just such gatherings and I am so grateful for that. But let me be honest. I sometimes struggle with them too - and I might even be the speaker! It seems that those 'events' are in danger of becoming what we understand discipleship to be - as if singing the next song, or attending the next gig is 'it'. Please believe me when I say I'm not being a killjoy. I'm really not. My sadness and frustration as I look round at all the hundreds or thousands of people is this: 'All of these people are here, and yet why is our impact and influence in society so small?' I know, and am so glad, that many people are doing incredible and amazing things to transform the world and to see God’s kingdom come – many of whom are serving deeply and wonderfully and not being noticed or acknowledged. But surely though, just based on numbers alone, if there were even just 10,000 Christians in the UK, then we should be having a MASSIVE impact on the world.
If there were even just 10,000 Christians in the UK, then we should be having a MASSIVE impact on the world
If you compare us to those earliest Christians described by Mathetes, we have to admit that our discipleship doesn’t appear as distinctive or dynamic as theirs. They were fewer in number than us. So what did they have going on that we don’t, and what does this mean for us in the next 10 years?
Early Christians shared their possessions, they met in each others’ houses, they discussed their faith over meal tables; they taught one another not from flashy stages with lights and headlines but with time and attention. Discipleship was about life lived alongside each other and particular people (catechists) had the role of intentionally helping people grow and develop in their faith. It wasn’t about how big the numbers were, it was about how deep the faith was grown. There was an integrated understanding of theology and a rejection of dualism that claimed some things are sacred and others secular. As far as they were concerned, the whole of life was and is spiritual.
I believe that we will need to make a return to this kind of discipleship. It is the kind of discipleship which is not about programmes but about apprenticed lives. I believe the landscape in which we live out our lives will continue to change. Faith will have to stop being just an experience and ticket to a nice life and become a fully integrated lifestyle. Those who are people of faith will be given incredible opportunity to live out those kind of lives, impacting the world for good, seeing God’s kingdom coming. The next ten years will be a time for us to work in partnership with the statutory sector to deliver youth work in local communities. We will have to break out of seeing ourselves as church youth workers and seeing ourselves as pastors of young people in our localities. With this change of perspective, our horizons will expand.
Our churches will have to look different. The faith that we long to see grow in the young people we work with will need to be robust, deeply felt and passionately lived. To become like that they will need to experience what it means to be loved unconditionally; they will need to see and do what following Christ is – serving the poor and marginalised on an ongoing basis and beyond a two-week summer trip; they will need to learn how to notice God in the midst of the ordinary, being captured by the tradition of spiritual disciplines that will help them do this; they will need to learn how to ask questions and live with doubt; they will need to grapple with the Bible which hasn’t been stuffed down their throats but has been studied with care; they will need to watch the lives of people like you and me and be free to challenge us on how we follow Christ; they will need to experience being part of a Christ-centred community.
Jesus called us to ‘Go and make disciples’. My hunch is that this was never about putting people through an eight-week course. It was about a commitment to others that was deep and long. And our youth work must remodel itself to this approach – learning from the earliest followers of Christ, standing on their shoulders, the shoulders of giants.
In the next ten years my prayer is that we see literally thousands and thousands of young people choosing to become Christ’s apprentices. Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus stated, ‘You can only build what you can imagine!’
The question for us is what can we imagine? When we’ve done that lets build deep and long. After all, some giants did it for us.
Jill is a qualified Youth & Community Worker and Secondary School Teacher having been Head of Religious Studies at an inner-city school in Derby. She joined Oasis in 1997 and is now National Director of Ethos & Formation and part of the national leadership team. Jill works across Oasis in the UK. As part of her role, Jill has led on the introduction of Chaplains to Oasis Hubs. She is also a speaker and writer and is passionate about the transformation of people and communities. Jill is part of Oasis Church Waterloo.
