Author Archives: Tammie Grimm

The Character Of Discipleship by Tammie Grimm

The Character Of Discipleship by Tammie Grimm

When you hear the term “discipleship” what comes to mind? An educational program for adults in your church? The reflective/debriefing group sessions during a mission trip? A moment to promote a given ministry or event during the worship service? A particular pastor who serves at a multi-staffed church?

Each one of us can probably come up with three or four examples of discipleship that all look different from each other – and hopefully each example contributes to the same idea – that discipleship is how we live our Christian lives in love and service to God so that we are an example of God’s love in the world.

 

Wesley’s Take on Discipleship

The truth is, as much as contemporary Wesleyans talk about making disciples and doing discipleship, John Wesley rarely used the term “disciple.” For him, the term was synonymous with being a Christian or being an eighteenth-century Methodist. In his tract, “The Character of a Methodist,” John Wesley discussed what made those pioneer Methodists identifiable to the rest of the world. Wesley said it was not the things that early Methodists did or said, but rather that a person loved God with their heart, mind, soul and strength (Mark 12:30).

Through loving God so completely, a Methodist found contentment in God, trusted God for every need, prayed and sought after God so that the lives they lived in attitude and action were consistent with God’s love for the world. In the next to last paragraph of the tract, Wesley remarks that being a Methodist is really nothing new to the world and was simply the “common principles of Christianity – the plain, old Christianity that I teach, renouncing and detesting all other marks of distinction.” In other words, being an eighteenth-century Methodist means to be a Christian – to be a follower of Jesus Christ in any age or era.

According to Wesley, being a Christian disciple is an all encompassing endeavor. Using the customary gender-specific language of his day, Wesley describes a Christian disciple as follows:

[H]e is a Christian, not in name only, but in heart and in life. He is inwardly and outwardly conformed to the will of God, as revealed in the written word. He thinks, speaks, and lives, according to the method laid down in the revelation of Jesus Christ. His soul is renewed after the image of God, in righteousness and in all true holiness. And having the mind that was in Christ, he so walks as Christ also walked.

Methodists, or Christians, are characterized by patterning their lives after Christ and being renewed, transformed into Christlikeness as they continually follow Christ’s example.

 

Contemporary Implications

Two remarkable things stand out when reading Wesley’s tract. First, Wesley does not discuss what activities, actions or ministries early Methodists – or Christian disciples – do. Actually, the only activity he explicitly mentions in the whole tract is prayer; which is as much action as it is an attitude for performing acts of mercy and piety in this world, i.e. by acting prayerfully.

The other remarkable thing is closely related and has to do with the title itself: “The Character of a Methodist.” Notice Wesley did not title it “Programs of a Methodist” or “Ministries of A Methodist” or even “Moments of a Methodist.” The fact that he talks about the distinguishing marks or characteristic qualities of Methodists makes me wonder why contemporary Wesleyans are prone to discuss discipleship as a program, or a ministry area, or a focus moment in our worship services when Wesley saw things quite differently. To be either an eighteenth century Methodist or a contemporary Christian disciple is actually characterized by a way of living in this world which qualifies the way (or manner in which persons do things in this world) for the sake of God’s Kingdom.

 

Christian Character Demonstrates Our Discipleship

Make no mistake, in order to demonstrate our love for God and offer it to others, Christian disciples will be engaged in activities and actions in this world. But those activities and actions are not in and of themselves our “discipleship.” After all, many activities and actions Christians do in this world – feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, offering aid in times of crisis – look just like what other well-intentioned, caring persons do in this world. Christian discipleship is characterizing how we engage in activities in this world that demonstrates the love of God to this world. Christian discipleship is about living in such a way that we distinguish ourselves as followers of Jesus from those that do similar things out civic duty, moral obligation, or humanitarian aid. Christian discipleship is not so much about doing something – or anything – at all.

Christian discipleship is being a follower of Jesus and living in a manner consistent with Christ’s example even when we are hanging out with friends, stuck in traffic, or surfing the internet. We do not “do discipleship’ as much as we “demonstrate discipleship” by letting Christ’s character infuse our daily actions and lives so that others might know Christ by the way we live.

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Daily Discipleship: To Keep The Feast And The Fast by Tammie Grimm

It is Easter. Alleluia! Or, more properly, it is Easter-tide. Palm fronds saved from Sunday’s service two weeks ago are woven homemade crosses drying on the kitchen windowsill or (in my case, on the pile of mail stacked on my desk). The signs and symbols of Lent and Holy Week – along with the bins of empty plastic eggs – are packed up as we savor the last morsels of Easter chocolate many of us denied ourselves for lo those forty days. Refreshed by caffeine enjoyed anew with gusto, we put decorations into storage till next year’s Lenten fast returns and we begin the ritual again by asking ourselves “What to give up for Lent this year?”

To be honest, I did not give up chocolate or caffeine for Lent this year. Or last year for that matter. And as long as I have plans to travel to England during Lent I will not give up chocolate or caffeine as my Lenten discipline. I will not purposefully cut myself off from the widely available British treat of chocolate covered digestives with a cuppa Yorkshire tea during my travels. But traveling hasn’t stopped me from being more creative and circumspect about my choice of fast. This year I fasted (with varying degrees of struggle and success) from dependency on social media so that I might grow more mindful of my dependence upon God.

For the last several weeks, I have contemplated the rhythms of fasting and feasting as a part of Christian discipleship. How does the experience of fasting help shape us when we finally break it and enjoy the feast? In what ways are our daily lives punctuated by choices we make to abstain from certain pleasures so we might be more conscious of our need for God? And, conversely, how do we share the joy we receive in the presence of God with one another so we seek to extend it further into our communities? How and why should fasting and feasting be a part of our discipleship, our way of living that is meant to help us grow in Christlikeness?

Last month, while in England, I had the opportunity to read the manuscripts of early Methodist pioneer Mary Bosanquet Fletcher housed in the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester. Having taken requisite Methodist history classes in seminary, I knew Mary Fletcher was the first woman John Wesley permitted to preach in the 1770s. Later, she became the wife of John Fletcher, who is often considered the theologian of the Methodist movement. They were married for four years before his death and her continuation of their ministry in the same parish for the next thirty years before her death. Her journals, diaries, private thoughts, and letters embody the largest collection of Methodist papers in existence with the sole exception of John Wesley’s papers. Though I had expressed research purposes relating to my doctoral thesis, the experience of reading her handwriting ministered to my heart and soul in ways I never could have imagined.

It wasn’t the words that Mary Fletcher used that illustrated something fresh to me about discipleship. It was the ebb and flow of her journal entries among the occasions she regularly recorded over the decades. There were times in which her entries were considerably more sparse contrasted by other times in which her entries were especially numerous.

But without fail, on holy days, significant birthdays and anniversaries, she journaled about her experiences in private prayer, public worship and the holy conversation she had with persons she knew through her ministry. Journaling was an indelible feature of Mary Fletcher’s life. Other writing projects she authored and published for the Methodist movement may have diverted her from her personal journaling at times, but I am convinced that journaling was as much as her discipleship as was Bible study, regular Eucharist, tithing and participating in regular class and band meetings.

The spiritual disciplines help us establish a way of living our lives for Christ. Mary Fletcher, like John Wesley, called spiritual disciplines “means of grace” which are the regular things we do as Christians that open us up to God’s grace and the activity of the Holy Spirit in this world. Discipleship is living in those daily moments, submitting ourselves regularly to God so divine grace can make us more Christlike.

Holy fasts and holy feasts are special events which offer perspective to the ordinary everyday. Fasts and feasts ebb and flow throughout the year to help transform the everyday experience. These holidays (or holy-days) highlight our regular disciplines, transcending them from the daily fabric of our existence, which in turn, gives back to the ordinary-ness of our lives as we grow in Christlikeness.

There are times I wondered if a Lenten fast is nullified by Easter feasting. In reading Mary Fletcher’s journals, noting the ebb and flow with which she made journal entries, I understood her seasons of profuse writing were not negated by the seasons of terseness. Nor did periods she lapsed in writing void those periods of profusion. She was consistently journaling, reflecting on God’s goodness and allowing divine grace to transform her to become a worthy example to many as she became more and more like Christ. Like a tide that ebbs and flows upon a shore, the disciplines are like waves, ever-present with the rising and falling of the water. Discipleship is a life-long endeavor, regularly punctuated by the fasts and feasts we keep, consistently renewing and transforming us so we might be worthy vessels to offer the life giving water of Christ to a parched and weary world.

Doing Discipleship By Being A Disciple by Tammie Grimm

“The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” 

The Mission Statement of the United Methodist Church.

I am an ordained United Methodist clergy and I have a confession to make. I have a love-hate relationship with the United Methodist mission statement. As a Wesleyan, I love it because it is grounded in the biblical witness of the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20, “Go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you…” My heart is warmed by the succinctness and sincerity it expresses, that as agents of God’s grace in this world Christian disciples can be a part of building the kingdom.

At the same time, however, I am frustrated that so often we turn this statement into a mandate for church programming. In many ways, we reduce discipleship to programs in order to engage people in ministry and mission. Typically, discipleship is another name for educational ministries or spiritual formation courses in which persons participate.

In some congregations, discipleship ministries include mission and outreach that members engage in on behalf of or with the community. And all of that is great – these are good things for people to do and worthy programs for congregations to provide. But discipleship in the Wesleyan spirit cannot and should not be compartmentalized to what a particular ministry of the church does.

Discipleship is a way of living. It is as much about being a disciple of Jesus Christ as it is about doing the things of Jesus Christ.

John Wesley preached that persons who do the good works associated with Christian discipleship without being like Christ, were “Almost Christian.” He maintained that more than doing good things, Christians needed “the same mind that was in Christ Jesus…” (Philippians 2:5). This means that as Christian disciples, we need to seek the perspective of Christ, to have his character and conviction within ourselves that motivates our outward actions. When Paul directs Christians to imitate Christ in Philippians 2:1-5, he urges readers to be like Christ so that they may do as Christ did. He associates having the mind of Christ as having the love, the humility, and the focus that Christ had (v.2). When we imitate Christ’s humility our interior selves are consistent with our exterior actions. Reading the Philippians passage further, we discover that in being humble as Jesus was, in being compassionate and loving, our regard is not for ourselves, but for others (v. 4). Thus, in attitudes and actions, our focus on others demonstrates what it means to love God and neighbors.

As Christian disciples, we do not serve a meal at a homeless shelter or sign up for a Bible study because it will count towards our good works or help a church program succeed. We engage in mission and outreach because it is centered on others, because it is what Christ did and we seek to be imitators of Christ. Through serving others we demonstrate love in tangible ways towards our neighbor because Christ’s humility has taken root in us.

Make no mistake, engaging in outreach and service to persons in the community is a valid way to be a disciple – as long as the interior life is being attended to at the same time! When questioned by teachers of the law, Jesus responded that we show our love for God and neighbor with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30).

I find it particularly relevant that three of the four facets listed; heart, soul, and mind, refer to specific interior aspects of our being. Our discipleship is more than just participating in mission or attending a Bible study that is offered in our local congregation. Our discipleship is lived out when we attend worship, when we take time for a spiritual retreat for renewal, when we pray with one another and for the needs of the world.

True Christian discipleship does typically mean we are doing things but only when we are being disciples and cultivating our interior selves to be like Jesus so that we can do as Jesus did. In order to make disciples, we need to be disciples of Jesus Christ and let our discipleship be a way of life that attracts others to be a part of God’s good work in this world.

Repeat The Sounding Joy: Carols Of Hope by Tammie Grimm

The twelve days of Christmas are upon us at last! Advent, the church’s liturgical season of waiting and anticipation is over and the liturgical police can no longer write citations for early Christmas carols singing. For the past three and a half weeks, Christians following the liturgical calendar, have been singing hymns about waiting, expecting, anticipating the coming of Christ. We have been looking forward to when our hopes will be fulfilled by his arrival. Advent is so much more than a countdown to Christmas. It is an important season at the beginning of the church year that reminds us we still wait in expectation and longing for the coming of Christ into this world in final victory.

In Advent, we sing hymns filled with expectation about what God will do to restore the imbalance in this world and to inaugurate our Lord’s good and gracious justice and mercy. Advent hymns refer to Jesus’ long ago birth, even as they look forward to Christ’s second coming. Some of my favorites include, “Come thou long expected Jesus” and “O come, o come, Emmanuel.” These lyrics, when read, put the action on God while we wait for God. Our words ask God to appear. “Come, disperse the gloomy clouds of night and death’s dark shadows put to flight.” We wait on God because, “God set the stars to give light to the world. The star of our life is Jesus. In him there is no darkness at all, the night and day are both alike.” We ask, we cry out, we pray, “Shine in my heart, Lord Jesus.” We are the audience, sitting on the edge of our seats, waiting for God to appear.

But Christmas is the day where the action changes. Instead of asking God to come, instead of us waiting, we are bid to come. We get ready for action; we sing carols like, “O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, o come you good people, come to Bethlehem.” It is our turn to move. We participate, we leave our seats and come forward. “Come, let us behold him!” We are the ones spurred into action. There is no more waiting, that season is over. He is born! “Come let us adore him” because  “He is true God of true God, light from the light eternal. Christ the Lord.” Theologically speaking, we are the ones pressed into action now!

“Joy to the world the Lord has come!”  “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” Really? The most wonderful? Joyful? Yes, it is Christmas, the time of “peace on earth and good will for all!” But really – peace on earth? In a day and age of nonstop worldwide news coverage, it isn’t difficult to question the validity of those lyrics when we hear and see news from war torn Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, humanitarian aid needed in typhoon ravaged Philippines; when we are reminded that it is the first anniversary of a horrific shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, never-mind the suffering and despair that occur in our own towns and cities.

For some reason, it is easy to get sentimental as Christmas approaches. Despite the slushy mess, there is a often secret thrill to realize that the chances for a white Christmas this year might be above normal if all the right weather conditions converge. We might actually have a white Christmas! There is a collective urge to romanticize things and we Christians have been doing it for ages. Our Christmas lyrics about the nativity are set to the tune of lullabies. Admittedly, there is a baby at center stage.

But many of the lyrics in our Christmas carols do not have the meat and teeth to them that our Advent hymns do. In an article widely circulated among my clergy friends and colleagues, the author criticizes Christmas hymns for not adhering better to biblical themes of redemption and restoration. The author writes,

Christmas hymns focus a great deal of attention on the details of the Christmas story, as is fitting. There are shepherds and angels, Mary and Joseph and the baby in a manger, magi from the east. Sometimes the details are inaccurate (we don’t know there were three kings), Jesus did cry when He was a baby. And Christmas seems to elicit some of the worst and most sentimental poetry ever written. [1]

There are places where I totally agree with the author. I wonder what disservice we do when we treat Christmas as the magical, mythical, monolithic moment that is the be all and end all of a romantic idealized notion instead of a holy event grounded in ordinary everyday human reality. Was everything really all calm, was it so silent? We really like to picture it this way. But, it is the nursery that is kept quiet. The delivery room, on the other hand, is bustling with activity and noise from those who attend the mother, and the laboring mother herself.

I am fan of a program named “Call the Midwife” a hit show in Britain recently released here in the States. It describes the experience of women, nuns and young nurses in training, who served the local population of working class families in 1950s West End, London. It makes today’s mothers cringe at the conditions women gave birth in only a half century ago. If we are uncomfortable at what it was like for mothers and babies not delivered in a hospital within living memory, can you imagine what conditions were like in first century Palestine for a woman who spent the day on a donkey? Who ended up giving birth in a stable? There is no argument from me, we really do tend to sentimentalize Christmas – even in our hymns!

But there is a place where I want to push back at the author. The themes in our Christmas hymns are classic and timeless for Christians centering on love, joy, and peace. These are divine characteristics and evidences of the fruit of the Holy Spirit when produced in us. “Love came down at Christmas.” Maybe it is out of obedience, habit, tradition, or pleasing someone we love that we came to church to hear the story retold on Christmas Eve. Last night, part of what we did was remind ourselves that “he came to save us all from Satan’s power because we had gone astray.” John, the Evangelist, writes, “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.”

We know that something is amiss with the world. Christmas Eve, oddly enough, confirms it. There is no pretending that life is some scene from Currier and Ives or a television special neatly presented in a two hour cable channel format. Life is not perfect. And we cannot seem to fix it despite best intentions, efforts, and desires. A part of the story of Christmas is that God is not happy with the way things are either. Thankfully, God is not interested in leaving us to our own devices. God has another way, a divine way, that challenges the human heart and mind to wake up to what God is trying to do in our midst.

How God announces this event gives us a hint that God’s idea of redemption is much bigger than what our ideas of salvation are all about. Angels, not just one, or two, but multitudes of the heavenly host appear (and I hate to break it to you, but those angels are not sweet little cherubs). “Angels from the realms of glory” are incredibly ferocious beings – so startling, so upsetting that whenever they show up, the first intelligible words out of their mouths are “Fear not!”

Who do they speak to? “The first Noel the angels did say was to certain poor shepherds in fields were they lay.” Shepherds. Who receives the divine birth announcement? A bunch of farm laborers with absolutely no status, no importance, and no influence on society. They are the invisible people. The basic equivalent of the undocumented workers we know today who gather outside of the local coffee joint in the early morning to find a day’s worth of labor from a contractor looking for extra help on the job site. “Shepherds, who watched their flock by night,” they get the first peak at the baby born to grow up and become the savior of the world. “Let every heart prepare him room,” “Christ our Savior was born this Christmas Day to save us all,” Who gets to hear this message given to the shepherds? All of humanity!

We need to be careful we do not narrow the focus too much on humanity and misunderstand what all else gets included in God’s salvific plan. Listen to the words: “Joy to the world!” “Heaven and nature sing!” “Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia”  “Hark!” (there they are again) “angels bending near the earth” heralding God’s gracious birth. In nearly half of the Christmas hymns there are angels. No wonder we have tamed them over the years. They are so present we barely remember that “shepherds quake at their sight” Listen to their words. They are sharing their own good news as much as giving directions to these farm hands in the field. Listen to what they are saying about this baby, “Glory to our newborn King!” Not just your king, humanity, he is our king too! “He is born and the king of even the angels.” By the highest in heaven, he is adored! Yes, it is “peace on earth and good will to men, it is from Heaven’s gracious King.” “Join the triumphs of the skies” – all nations get up, rise and sing – “he is King of King and lord of Lords and he shall reign for ever!” If we really listen closely, even the rocks and flowers cry out. They know who their creator is! Nature is singing, too! “Fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains repeat the sounding joy.”

For as much as angels and the earth rejoice, it is in human form that Christ comes. “Infant holy, infant lowly” Good news! “God and sinners are reconciled!” Christ is born this day and we can “rejoice with heart and soul and voice.” “No more let sin and sorrows grow nor thorns infest the ground, he comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.” Christ is human because God desires to be in relationship with his human creation, even though we strayed and are marked by sin and sorrow.

As far as the curse of our human sin goes, that is where Christ’s blessings flow. It is “in the dark streets shining the ever lasting light” but it is not just for the little town of Bethlehem on one sacred holy night two millennia ago, it is for all of us.

In the darkest nights of our hurts, fears, rejections, that is where Christ longs to be. That is where Christ’s light goes.

For all eternity, “the hopes and fears of all the year are met” in the presence of Christ’s coming to earth. We do not have to do it alone. Nor does Christ do it alone. This is participatory – remember? These are the “tidings of comfort and joy” Comfort is not about making things easier. God’s comfort is about making us stronger, helping us endure the challenges we face – whatever the challenge may be. We participate with God to share the light he has brought into the world. We have received the light of God that shines in this world and we can go to those who keenly feel the darkness, who carry hurts and know anguish, but yet we sing,

“Let nothing you dismay!” The hard truth of this world is that life is not fair, we encounter difficult times, injustices occur all around us. The dark chapters of life’s journey can seem bleak and dismal, long and unending. And that is exactly why the light came into the world – to peer into the  desperate darkness – so we can see beyond our own circumstances that seem lonely and suffocating.

As Christians, we bear the light and allow it to shine through us so it may be offered to a world hungry for reconciliation and peace. We offer it to one another when times get rough and the waiting gets long. Sometimes, it gets so very long and can feel very desperate. Our response as Christians is not to brush the wait and darkness aside with simplistic answers and sound bite advice. We are not supposed to solve the problems others face, but step into the darkness with others, offering the light we possess that Christ offered us. That is the participation we are called to at Christmas. O come, all you faithful ones. We are charged with going forward with the Christ light we are given. We will stand in the deep and the dark for others to see and know Christ’s light. We will stand together and share the light with one another. That is good and joyous news!

Christmas is where things change. We no longer wait. We are bid to come forth. We hear the news and it is news we cannot contain within our selves. We tell others, “Good Christian friends – Rejoice! With heart and soul and voice! Give heed to what we say,” “He rules the world with truth and grace. With the angels let us sing – Hallelujah to our king!”

Now it is our turn to sing even as the Christmas angels fall silent. “Repeat the sounding joy to the world – the Lord is come!” So, go friends, “go tell it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born!”

 

[1] Peter Leithart, “How NT Wright Stole Christmas” accessed at http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2012/12/22/how-nt-wright-stole-christmas/