EMQ » January–March 2018 » Vol. 54 Issue 1
by Gerald L. Sittser and Carlos Calderon
“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain.” John 15:16
“By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” John 15:8
After close to 74 years of cross-cultural experience, primarily among Muslims but also among animists, Hindus and Buddhists, we rejoice in what we have seen of late: A move to the understanding that glorifying God is not only about sharing the Gospel, but intentionally discipling and fostering spiritual growth among those who make the decision to follow Christ. The goal is disciples, not just converts. The result of such an aim is that in striving for disciples, we ourselves prove to be disciples! Missions efforts around the world are increasingly bringing to the forefront the fact that the Great Commission has not changed its emphasis from “teaching them to obey everything.”
At Partners International, we are heavily involved in Disciple Making Movements (DMM), and we are strong advocates of Training for Trainers (T4T), “Big 1,”and many indigenous adaptations of such methodologies. We concentrate on the 10/40 Window, or the area of the world with the greatest number of unreached people groups in Africa and Asia between 10 and 40 degrees latitude north of the Equator.
But it is not by might, nor by power, or methodologies, but by “my Spirit” says the Lord. While the results reported from the field indicate a crescendo in the number of people coming to faith in Christ, we are even more delighted to say that “converts” are not the objective. Rather the indigenous or local church planters we work with (in some 37 countries in the 10/40 Window) are resolutely aiming at “fruit that will last.” They are going for disciples, by God’s grace, in the power of the Spirit.
During a recent exchange with Matt, the Partners International Area Directors in Asia, we posed the question of shallow conversions and of fruit that would NOT last. The answer was reaffirming:
“We share this concern. We find that those who pray with us to receive Christ but do not take the step of baptism, we are treating as an open person and not a believer. Open people are led through a six-lesson Bible study of sacrifice stories from the prophets in the Old Testament. We are working to re-teach the Gospel to them rather than just go off and leave them in limbo.
“Secondly, we are seeing a much higher rate of people joining groups, fellowships, and house churches where the open people are reached through the new believers. So, our emphasis and goal is to make disciples and make the local believer the disciple maker. We are now seeing our fifth generation of church planters/disciple makers.”
Historical overview of discipleship through the ages
As we increasingly move to implement more intentional disciple making strategies, it is good to make a quick review of history, with applications to our own current American reality.
The West’s experience and memory of Christendom has shaped how Christians have viewed and practiced missions for centuries. It has carried and in some cases imposed several bad habits on non-western cultures, even and especially in its mission efforts. Since about the year 1000, the entire West, except for pockets of Jews and Muslims, has identified itself as Christian. Christianity has functioned as the “default” faith for the vast majority of people. If we could travel back in time to the year 1200 or the year 1600, we would be hard pressed to find a person living in the West who did not claim to be Christian, and we would observe the visible and concrete presence of Christianity everywhere.
The dominance of Christendom has forced the church to adapt, especially in recognizing the gap between nominal Christians and functional disciples, which reflects the difference between the Christianity of Christendom and the Christianity of the kingdom. Much of the religious fervor and creativity of Christian renewal movements in the West have embodied attempts to make the Christian West truly Christian, to turn converts into disciples and church-goers into true believers.
Meanwhile, the church in other parts of the world is growing, and it has not had to fuss nearly as much with the problems that have preoccupied the West for so many centuries. It has no interest—and no need, in fact—to Christianize Christendom. If anything, it has had to resist or purge the bad habits it inherited from the West. Chief among them is the assumption that Christians can actually choose their level of commitment to Christ, as if there were a kind of A level, B level, and C level of Christian faith and practice. For example, one can become a church member but remain relatively inactive. One can experience a conversion but not progress much beyond it. One can get involved in church programs and activities but not translate that to secular spheres of influence (like work and neighborhood). Only a few will take discipleship seriously. Christendom allows for gradations of commitment, from low to high, and makes choice concerning level of commitment a genuine option. Jesus did not give us that option. He called his followers to deny self, take up cross and follow him. In Jesus’ mind, that was—and is—true Christianity.
It might be wise at this point to return to a period of history before Christendom ever existed. For its first 250 years, the Christian movement grew and flourished with no state favoritism and cultural support. It was an outsider religion, both new and different. It faced suspicion and opposition, and it challenged most everything that pagan Rome held dear. One reason for the church’s success is that it cultivated a culture of discipleship among its members, as if to give the impression that there was only one kind of Christianity and one level of commitment. We would suggest that there is much we can learn from this movement.
Christians knew how to both blend in AND stand out. On the surface of things, they appeared to live like everyone else. They spoke the local language, wore local styles of clothing, ate local food, shopped in local markets, and followed local customs. “For Christians cannot be distinguished from the rest of the human race by country or language or custom. They constituted a new race of people and followed a new way of life. Rome could not so easily monitor and control this group.[1]
This movement grew steadily, though unevenly, for some 250 years under Rome’s watchful and sometimes hostile eye. It is impossible to calculate exact figures. But it is safe to say that Christians numbered roughly 5,000 in the year 50 and 5,000,000 by the year 300, worshipping in some 65,000 house churches of varying sizes.[2] Yet Christians enjoyed few of the benefits that Christians take for granted today, at least in the West. They faced sporadic persecution for over 200 years. Rodney Stark argues that this sustained growth over such a long period of time and under such circumstances is unprecedented in the history of new religious movements.[3]
The movement was different enough from its rivals to require the Church to develop a process, lasting from one to three years, that helped transition converts from paganism to Christianity. This process was called the catechumenate. It allowed Christianity to grow slowly and steadily over a long period of time, largely because the process itself turned a critical mass of converts into functional disciples. They adapted to the culture without excessive compromise. They also kept their distance from the culture without excessive withdrawal and isolation. Rome had good reason to be nervous![4]
Early Christian leaders borrowed and adapted the language of Roman athletic competition to reinforce the importance of readiness, training, and rigor. There could be no spectators in the church, only athletes, for spectators were sure to fail and fold under the pressure of living in pagan culture and facing possible persecution. The references to athletic training and competition appear often in early Christian literature, and the intent is nearly always the same—to encourage and charge Christians to submit themselves to a regimen of discipline and to live as real disciples.
The use of athletic metaphors points to a view of discipleship which was embodied in a commitment to genuine faith in Christ, discipline of the appetites, cultivation of virtue, service to the needy, and faithfulness under persecution. Spiritual training in the Church was intended to include everyone, not simply men but women, not simply the young but the old and infirmed, not simply elites but ordinary people. The only qualification was a willingness to follow Jesus as Lord.[5]
The use of the catechumenate
By the early third century it appears that some kind of formal training program was in place, which the documents refer to as the catechumenate. The most comprehensive description we have comes from the Apostolic Tradition.[6] Corroborating evidence from Church Fathers like Tertullian and Origen tells us that the catechumenate was in wide use by the early third century.[7]
The Apostolic Tradition outlines the basic structure of the ancient catechumenate, highlighting three features in particular: enrollment, instruction, and rites of initiation. What becomes immediately obvious is the importance of relationships (or what sociologists call social networks), the value of training that addressed behavior as well as belief, and the necessity of a concrete process of initiation that would mark the point of entrance into the community of faith.
First, the document explains the process of enrollment. The Christian movement grew at the grassroots level, at least in the second and third centuries. Christians reached their relatives, friends, and neighbors through daily interaction in public places. Such a web of relationships demonstrated the kind of love that existed within the Christian community, which meant that the church itself became a primary means of evangelization, a relational womb of rebirth.[8] Thus evangelism occurred in the setting of natural social relationships.[9] Once contact was made and interest awakened, believers invited their friends to meet with a church leader, who would examine them to see if they were ready to be enrolled in the catechumenate and thus enroll and become “catechumens” and begin the process of training. In most cases the believers who brought their friends served as the “sponsor,” also known as the godparent, moving through the entire process with them as a companion and mentor. Relationships, therefore, functioned as a necessary part of the training program.
Second, the document requires church leaders to provide instruction to catechumens, and it adds that sponsors should sit through the instruction with them. Sponsors were thus exposed to basic instruction in the faith more than once. Moreover, they served as a kind of relational link between the catechumens and the church, which put them in a position to clarify the instruction and help apply it to the daily life of catechumens, as if participating in a kind of spiritual apprenticeship program.
The Apostolic Tradition states the intended outcome of the instruction, which was not simply greater knowledge but also change in conduct. Moreover, it requires that instructors do more than teach doctrine; it urges them to pray for the catechumens. Finally, it makes clear that catechumens were welcomed into the fellowship but could not become full and final members until after they were baptized. Thus after instruction and prayer, the catechumens were dismissed before baptized members gave the kiss of peace and received the Eucharist. Such exclusion from certain rites only buttressed their sacred quality.
Third, at the end of the formal training period catechumens participated in a highly choreographed “rites of initiation,” which usually occurred during Holy Week and culminated on Easter when the bishop administered baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist. The process began with another examination, with the sponsor bearing witness to the catechumen’s readiness. What one believed mattered, of course; but how one lived mattered, too. “And when they have chosen who are set apart to receive baptism let their life be examined, whether they lived piously while catechumens, whether ‘they honored the widows,’ whether they visited the sick, whether they have fulfilled every good work. If those who bring them witness to them that they have done thus, then let them hear the Gospel.”[10]
Rites of initiation
The rites of initiation included exorcisms, anointing, fasting, vigils, scrutiny, renunciation of the devil, affirmation of faith, Trinitarian baptism, symbolic use of clothing, congregational welcome, kiss of peace, recitation of the Creed, administration of the Eucharist, exhortation, and final instructions during Easter week.[11]
Thus by the early third century the catechumenate involved three discrete stages.[12] It began with informal contact with non-believers, which led to formal enrollment, initial examination, and involvement of a sponsor. It then provided instruction in the biblical story, the creed, and the Christian way of life, assuming that such knowledge would lead to genuine change of life. Finally, it culminated in Holy Week, when church leaders scrutinized candidates one more time and led them through a highly choreographed process of initiation that involved fasting, prayer, vigils, exorcisms, anointing, baptism, confirmation, and Eucharist. Thus belief, belonging, and behavior were woven together into a seamless whole, no one element predominating over the others.
The long reign of Christendom in the West is coming to an end, which is forcing the Church to consider once again what it means to function as an outsider institution.[13] Such a change of status is also challenging the Church to reconsider the role of the ancient catechumenate. What might rediscovery and recovery of this ancient institution imply?
Application to the West today
At this point, the West has a great deal to learn from the global Church, for most churches around the world do not function in a Christendom setting. They cannot afford to make discipleship an option for the few. The various DMM movements flourishing around the world are starting to make their way to the western world. The emergence of Christendom created bad habits in the West. We are being forced now to unlearn them and purge them. There is only one option in the Christian faith, and that is discipleship—an apprenticeship with Jesus, a life imbued with grace and devoted to radical obedience. That is the kind of culture that the western Church needs. The early Christian period provides us with one model, the global Church is providing many more models.
The goal is the same: Making Disciples.
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Gerald L. Sittser is Professor of Theology and Senior Fellow in the Office of Church Engagement at Whitworth University.
Carlos Calderon serves as Vice President of International Ministries, Partners International.
Visit: https://www.partnersintl.org/
[1] The So-Called Letter to Diognetus, in Early Christian Fathers, ed. Cyril C. Richardson (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 215-16.
[2] The best we can do is estimate. Adolf Harnack was the first to calculate numbers. He identified the specific cities and towns to which Christianity spread by the year 300 and even tried to count actual numbers of churches. See Adolf Harnack, The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries, Vol II, trans. James Moffatt (San Bernardino, 2017) and Rodney Stark, The Cities of God (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).
[3] Rodney Stark, Cities of God: The Real Story of How Christianity Became an Urban Movement and Conquered Rome (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006).
[4] See Gerald L. Sittser, “The Catechumenate and the Rise of Christianity,” Journal of Spiritual Formation & Soul Care, Vol. 6, Issue 2 (Fall 2013), 179-203; Edward Yarnold, S.J., The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation: The Origins of the R.C.I.A., Second Edition (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1994); Michel Dujarier, The History of the Catechumenate: The First Six Centuries, trans. Edward J. Haasl (New York: Sadier, 1979); Alan Kreider, The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom (Eugen: Wipf & Stock, 1999).
[5] Donald G. Kyle, Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2007); Victor C. Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1967).
[6] Hippolytus, On the Apostolic Tradition, trans. Alistair Stewart-Sykes (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001).
[7] It is natural to ask to what extent a document such as this merely described what was already widely practiced or prescribed what the author hoped would happen. This problem presents itself when reading any descriptive document from the early Christian period. That it reads as a manual indicates that it probably describes what in fact was practiced, however inadequately and incompletely.
[8] Thomas Finn, “Ritual Process and the Survival of Early Christianity: A Study of the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus,” Journal of Ritual Studies Vol. 3, No. 1, 69-89; Robert E. Webber, Journey to Jesus: The Worship, Evangelism, and Nurture Mission of the Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 2001), 65-72; Tory K. Baucum, Evangelical Hospitality: Catechetical Evangelism in the Early Church and Its Recovery for Today (Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2008).
[9] Both Jan Bremmer and Robin Lane Fox argue that we know of few if any evangelists during this period, implying that the work of evangelism was done by ordinary believers.
[10] Apostolic Tradition, 105-06.
[11] Apostolic Tradition, 106.
[12] By the fourth century, and perhaps earlier, the church added a fourth stage, largely because catechumens waited so long before submitting to baptism. In this case catechumens enrolled in a short training program that occurred during Lent, which culminated in their participation of the rites of initiation during Holy Week. The western church called this special group competentes.
[13] See two recent books on the end of Christendom in the west: Stuart Murray, Post-Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World (Carlisle: Paternoster, 2004) and Douglas John Hall, ed., The End of Christendom and the Future of Christianity (Harrisburg: Trinity, 1997).
