When I first came back to the Church after a long period of atheism/agnosticism, I attended a newcomer class which sought to dive into important questions about the Church. It was informative, but I wouldn’t say it was formative.

Instead, it was the kindness of the ushers, the warmth of the clergy, the beauty of the liturgy, the sense of living tradition, and the real wrestling with questions of justice and dignity that gradually opened my heart.

We live in an age that prizes information. There is always another book to read or another podcast in the queue. But it is possible to know more about Christianity without becoming more like Christ. Information can remain comfortably in our minds. But discipleship has never been chiefly about information. It is about formation – the forming of the self toward the full stature and measure of Christ – which reaches into our habits, our loves, and our wills.

The Book of Common Prayer understands this deeply. Week after week, season after season, the prayer book forms us through Scripture, sacrament, thanksgiving, silence, and praise. The Sacraments stand at the heart of this formation.

In Baptism, we are not simply told who we are. We are united to Christ and marked as Christ’s own forever. In the Eucharist we do not merely remember Jesus. We are fed with the Body and Blood of Christ so that our lives might become a living offering to God.  

The Baptismal Covenant never asks whether we know enough. It asks whether we will live faithfully. Will we persevere in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, proclaiming the Good News, seeking and serving Christ in all persons, and striving for justice and peace?  

To every promise, the Church teaches us to answer with the same words: “I will, with God’s help.”  

In the end, that is the heart of discipleship. We are not simply becoming better informed, but allowing ourselves, with God’s help, to be formed.

We like to say you don’t have to check your brain at the door of our churches. The much harder thing is to not check our hearts, our loves, our longings, our hopes, and our dreams.  

Those are the things Christ longs to change. Those are at the heart of formation. Those are at the center of discipleship. Do we dare to hand them over to Christ?  

We can, with God’s help.

-Robert Hendrickson, Chief of Discipleship Initiatives

[Photo by Random Institute on Unsplash]