Church membership was not an important category for Jesus. Among the instructions that he gave to his followers, he told them to "go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit." Baptizing and making disciples is therefore the primary task of the Christian community.

When we think of the Christian life, we think in terms of the baptismal life, a life which is initiated by the power of God working in and through the Sacrament, and inspired (or breathed into) by the Holy Spirit. It is also a life of making (and also be made into) disciples. We are recipients of God's grace, to be sure; and we are agents of it, as well. We are a community disciples.

What's a disciple, anyway?

It's helpful to remember that the very first disciples were a rather ordinary lot. Fisherman, mostly. A tax collector. Regular people, called within the context of rather ordinary lives. The call of Jesus did not come to them outside their ordinary life, but right there in the midst of it. Jesus saw them by the sea, mending their nets, for they were fishermen. And he said, "follow me."

Will we hear that same call?

We think about discipleship evidenced in the following dimensions: