One of the major positive emphases of the Transforming Churches Network materials is the fundamental questions that are asked of participating pastors and lay leaders: (1) what are you responsible for? (2) what are you accountable for? (3) what kind of authority have you been given to accomplish your mission and ministry?
Now, if we look at these questions as a congregational member, our answers will probably be quite different than if we look at these same questions from the multi-faceted ways that the Scriptures understand our life to be as His people.
For example, if I am an average congregational member within the LC-MS, I am responsible to attend worship plus contribute to the physical/financial operation of the church; how often I attend, and how much I wish to contribute in terms of time and wealth, is largely left up to me. But, if I seek to understand my life from a Biblical perspective, there are a whole range of words that are used to describe my life as His child: disciple, servant, light, salt, steward, witness, ambassador, priest, living stone, a member of the body of Christ; to name just a few.
So, what are you responsible for?
The best way for us to determine what we are responsible for IN THIS LIFE is to understand our lives from His perspective. Because we are disciples of Jesus, we are responsible to live as a disciple; so what is a disciple of Jesus Christ? A disciple is an active student of God’s Word and builds one’s life on the person and Word of Jesus Christ. Jesus, in John’s Gospel, identified two marks of a disciple:
(1) “If you hold to My teaching, you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free…he who belongs to God hears what God says” (John 8:31-32, 47); and
(2) “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35)
As a disciple of Jesus, a disciple does more than just master the Word, a disciple is stamped and fashioned in the mold of Jesus Christ and is a living witness to Him (and of His love for all people). When Jesus said, “follow Me,” He was confiscating the hearer for Himself. Jesus was laying claim to people in Messianic authority and with Messianic grace.
When Jesus opened His mouth and TAUGHT, He was more than a master teacher enunciating a higher system of ethics; He was the Messianic Master molding the wills of those whom He had claimed by His call. Those who receive His mercy, He makes them to be merciful; those who know and experience His peace, He makes them to be peacemakers. They are salt and light and, as salt and light, they are to have a salutary effect upon their surroundings: salt seasons and preserves and light dispels darkness.
So, what are we responsible for as God’s people? The Great Commission lays the double obligation upon us: (1) the strengthening and maturation of present disciples in their already existing discipleship AND (2) reaching out to those who are not yet disciples with the hope that they will become His DISCIPLES (and SERVANTS and STEWARDS and PRIESTS and WITNESSES and AMBASSADORS – so what does this mean in terms of what I am responsible for in the presence of God and in the presence of other human beings?)