Discipleship Rediscovered?

Baptist minister and poet, Mike Sherburn has written and performed this poem in response to the articles in the Autumn 2024 edition of Baptists Together magazine - Come, follow me

Disciples are made and grown and woven
There are old threads and new threads, roots and shoots
There is feeding and watering, foundations and pillars
 
And so much is needed, not just new life seeded:
We need tillers and weedkillers, millers and distillers.
This journey is long and we’re never arriving
(or at least we don’t if we want to keep thriving).
 
So when you look at a disciple, what will you see?
A protect-and-serve police officer for Jesus?
Shielding the church and defending her culture?
A Christendom guerilla, lobbing grenades at the enemy?
A rubbernecking roadtripper, on the journey to see the sights?
A spiritual vulture, surviving on the pickings of a dead religion?
 
Surely none of these would please or appease a determined Master,
The postmaster of grace, the ringmaster of miracles, the bandmaster of human harmony.
 
So what do we see when we spot a disciple?
And what do we do to be a disciple?
Does our spiritual day-to-day entitle us or recycle us?
Can we choose a church shape for infusions of maturing beyond bible touring?
Are we tidal in our commitment, tribal in our community, idle in our habits?
 
Or are we expectant of discipline, rooted in weakness,
Willing to suffer and embedded with meekness,
Resistant to narrow and cynical bleakness,
Mouldable for streamlined missional sleekness?
 
So we’re tattered and scattered but not small, with a call on our whole being
We’re on the road – called to ‘Give Way’ and never ‘Stop’
We’re uniting, not in-fighting, and inviting others with us
No one left on the sidelines, no one’s credit card of grace declined,
No one abandoned on the poverty line, dividing line or firing line,
but walking together.
 
Stepping away from the spiritual circus and, on purpose, stepping forward
Striding onward – carrying our cross, not hiding from daily devotion and holy habits,
allowing the tendrils of faith to grow into every corner or who we are.
But will we see this? Around us and in the mirror?
 
Let’s eject our expectations in favour of the favour of the Father,
And wear the scars of who we are as sewn-in signs of God-being-with-us
Dance daily with the Spirit on the soles of our souls
And let’s see where we might go – fellow disciples.
 
Mike Sherburn - minister of Watchet Baptist Church