I’m writing from The Navigators’ 2:7 Jubilee Conference in Frisco, Texas, near Dallas.

Here’s a quick thought from Thursday night’s talk from Mutua Mahiaini, International President of The Navigators. Mutua said something like:

Many people think that being a disciple of Jesus is a matter of being nice. It’s nice to be nice, but being a disciple is more than that. Discipleship includes mission. That’s why you don’t find the Great Commission after it was given in Matthew 28. The apostles just assumed it was part of discipleship – part of following Jesus.

Mutua went on to quote from Howard Snyder’s Liberating the Church:

Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put church work above concerns of justice, mercy, and truth. Church people think about how to get people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church change the world.

Mutua went on to remind us that the church at Philippi did very well, and Paul hadn’t even been there very long. But, as Mutua put it, “He left behind local believers carrying the gospel into the normal pathways of life.”

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. (Philippians 1.27, ESV)

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. (Philippians 2.14 – 16, ESV)