Is there more to Christianity than a prayer?

My family started to go to a Baptist church when I was three years old. I’ve been part of the church for over 40 years now. I’ve seen changes throughout the years as far as how the services have changed in styles. However, it has pretty much been a few songs that are sung for Praise and Worship and the sermon. In some churches, they’ve an altar call, where people are invited to come up front and say a prayer to receive Jesus Christ in their heart. Other churches will have people bow their heads while others raise their hands to receive Christ in their hearts. Then the people that receive Christ in their heart are encouraged to be baptized. Is this what God had in mind for the church? Is the purpose of the church to invite family, friends, and strangers to come to a building to participate in singing and listening to a “feel good” sermon? Are we called to invite them to say a prayer in order to be saved? There must be more to Christianity than a simple prayer that we call the sinner’s prayer. There must be more to just going to a building on Sunday mornings and maybe going to a house during the week what we call small groups.

In Matthew 28:19, Jesus commands the disciples, “Go and therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.” Jesus is telling the disciples to Go and make disciples.  What does this mean? What is a disciple? So many churches focus on having people repeat a prayer and then tell them that they are part of the family of God. Now, there is nothing wrong with saying the sinner’s prayer. God can and does use this method to call his people to repentance and salvation. However, it doesn’t stop there or shouldn’t stop there. There has to be life transformation. We cannot say a prayer and expect us to be part of the family of God.  We have to truly believe in what Jesus did for us on the cross. We have to allow the Word to transform our lives. In order to do that we have to study and meditate on the Word daily. Mulholland (2000) shares,

If we desire to read scripture in such a way that we become, through the shaping of the Word, the word God speaks us forth to be, the first thing Wesley tells us to do is, "to set a part a little time, if you can, every morning and evening for that purpose" (p.124). Furthermore, the premise of John Wesley's Entire Sanctification is to love God with all our heart, mind, and soul so that our desires will become His desires. The only way to do that is to engage the Word on a daily basis as Mulholland suggests, "Our use of scripture in spiritual formation must be a regular, consistent, daily feeding upon the Word" (p.124).  We have to be a disciple of Jesus. God has called us to go and make disciples. So, in order to go and make disciples we have to be disciples ourselves. What is a disciple?

While reading in the Gospels, we see that whenever Jesus first encountered His original disciples, his first words were “follow me”. Immediately they left everyone they knew, including family, and possessions to follow Him. Jesus states to a group of believers, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples” (John 8:31, ESV). A true disciple of Jesus is one that Follows Jesus and stays in His Word.  A true disciple imitates Jesus in his or her daily life. Paul states, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20, ESV). When an individual surrenders their life to Jesus, then it is no longer them that live but Christ lives in them. At that point, the individual should start to live like Christ. Paul also states, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:2-3, ESV). Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person” (ESV). So as Christians, we must be a follower of Jesus and stay in His Word. We must allow the Holy Spirit to let the Word transform our lives. We just cannot stop at a prayer. We must become fully devoted followers of Jesus!

References

Mulholland, M. (2000). Shaped By The Word; The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation.       Nashville, TN; Upper Room Books.