“It takes a village to raise a child …”

The point of this well known African proverb is that many more people than the  child’s parents play a part in the proper raising of a child. “It takes a village …”

Perhaps the same is true for a disciple.

It takes a church to raise a disciple, and a church comprises many more people than just the pastor, or a Bible study group mentor.

A church is a village of many different people: bakers and butchers, teachers and students, young, old and middle aged.

And we are all disciples who need to be nurtured, and who must help nurture one another.

It takes a church to raise a disciple.

The apostle Paul uses a different analogy.

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body– whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free — and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” (1 Corinthians 12:12-21 NIV)

It takes a village, and no one can be a village on his own. Like individual parts of a body, we each have a part to play in both nurturing, and being nurtured by, fellow disciples in the church.

“No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.” (Edward Hale, 1895)

It takes a village to raise a church of disciples. Let’s be the one body of Christ, together nurturing and being nurtured, to the glory and joy of God our Father.

 

“This article was first published in the Aug 2019 issue of Methodist Message, the official monthly publication of The Methodist Church in Singapore.
  Used with permission.”