The term “missionary disciple” has come to be associated with Pope Francis. In his Apostolic Exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel (119, 120) he writes, “In all the baptized from first to last, the sanctifying power of the Spirit is at work, impelling us to evangelization…In virtue of their baptism, all members of the People of God have become missionary disciples (see Mt. 28:19)…Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are ‘disciples; and ‘missionaries’ but that we are always ‘missionary disciples.’”
 
The call to be a missionary disciple comes from Jesus Christ in the Gospels. The Popes and Church challenge all the baptized to respond to this call. The signs of the times invite every Christian to be a missionary disciple.
 
Given the mandate received from Jesus Christ, the teachings of the Popes, Church documents and the signs of the times, one wonders why the resistance and lack of response to the call to be missionary disciples. The experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit is obviously a reminder that the fire of the Holy Spirit has to be stirred up in all the baptized. Millions of people in the charismatic renewal testify to the transforming power of an encounter with the love of God as Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, after the Life in the Spirit seminars. For the New Evangelization to become a reality, we need a New Pentecost.
 
Three marks of a missionary disciple:
A missionary disciple is a mystic.
Karl Rahner wrote in 1971, “The time is fast approaching our world, when to be a Christian, one has to be a mystic or cease to be anything.” The mystic is one who has experienced God through an encounter at a deeper level of life beyond the superficial. What does mystical faith look like? Ronald Rohlheiser says that it is practice-based more than belief based. It is characterized by extended time of personal pray and study of God’s Word. The mystic (Christian) is one who has fallen in love with God, and is not ashamed to give witness. The mystic longs to gather regularly with others in community (koinonia) for Eucharist. The mystic is counter-cultural, proclaims Jesus as Lord, lives a life of radical discipleship, is prophetic and not only speaks the word of the Lord by lives it.
 
A missionary disciple spreads the aroma of Christ. St. Paul exhorts the Church of Corinth to spread the fragrance (aroma) of Christ (2Cor 2:25). Are we willing to risk it all for Jesus, like the woman in the gospel (Jn 12:3) who broke her alabaster jar of costly perfume to anoint the feet of Jesus? All the baptized have received the anointing but sadly many of us are safeguarding it in the “alabaster jar.” We have to be willing to take a risk and be “fearless apostles: who “make a mess” (shake things up). The Spirit makes us “smell right.”
 
A missionary disciple fosters unity in the Body of Christ. in order to give credible witness to the gospel, unity is essential. Jesus prays, “…that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.” (Jn 17:20-21). Dr. John Armstrong describes this is missional ecumenism. This means that Christians consciously choose to love each other (build genuine friendships), respecting differences, but advancing the mission of Christ in the world. It cost Jesus his life to leave each one of us. The call to be a missionary disciple is a call to costly love. To be missional is to get into the “mess” and “good” of humans just like God the Father did by sending (mission) Jesus his Son, in the power of his Holy Spirit. We are so co-missioned to participate in a mission which is essentially God’s.
 
The Church does not have a mission. Rather, mission has the Church! Let us claim our true identity as a missionary disciple and live like it.
 
By Mark Kwaku Nimo.
Mark is a missionary disciple who seeks to serve all of God’s children with the joy of the gospel. He believes that you cannot give what you do not have.
 
Reprinted with permission from Pentecost Today, Winter 2018, volume 43.