Importance Of Missionary Discipleship

Spirituality The mystery of the call and intercultural living are really a test. Several years ago in the class of communal spirituality, my novice master said to all novitiates, “You choose God, but God chooses brothers for you.” This is a test of community life, especially living in a multicultural community. Missionary disciples need to pass this formative environment for a future of intercultural living. They may give up their vocation if they do not have a strong spiritual foundation to help them overcome difficulties of missional commitments. Having discussed from the beginning important elements of missionary discipleship (such as the mystery of the call, mission today, intercultural living, inculturation, conversion, etc.), they are

However, the authentic missionary disciples are no longer strangers in Christ; this is the goal of intercultural living. Perhaps, St. Paul well captures this concept of community of God in his epistle to the Ephesians:

You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (Eph 2:19-22, NAB) [italic

We need more leadership of interreligious dialogue, leadership of guidance to intercultural communities, leadership of understanding cultural and religious differences, leadership of responsibility and balance judgments, formative leadership of transforming others into a greater good, leadership of trust building and reconciliation, leadership of inclusion. Pope Francis also calls for an urgent exercise of leadership in and for young people (EG, no.106). We know that human community is not perfect as the Trinitarian community; therefore, Gittins pays more attention to discuss about leadership in the intercultural communities. His last words in Living Mission Interculturally concern about leadership as a key to develop the intercultural communities of God on earth. He writes, “People of different cultures have different understandings of authority and leadership, obedience and initiative, personal responsibility, and mutual accountability.” Missionary disciples in church’s congregations may reconsider the practices of power and authority. In the intercultural communities, disciples are called to make the world their church, but not to make the church their