There are many, many definitions of what it means to be a Christian! The first disciples were called “followers of the Way” (Acts 9.2 - possibly because Jesus said he was The Way - John 14.6) before they were called “Christians” (Acts 11.26).

The earliest Christians simply defined themselves by saying “Jesus is Lord”. One of the first Christians symbols, after the cross, was the sign of the fish - used as directions for the (then illegal) gatherings of Christians. The word for fish in Greek is Icthus, and the letters stood for “Jesus the Christ, Son of God”.

So a “Christ-ian”, as the name suggests, is one who tries to follow Christ.

"Forget the god you don’t believe in and discover the God who believes in you"

There is a phrase from a more modern prayer, by the Iona Community, which talks about those who need to “forget the god they don’t believe in and discover the God who believes in them”... and that makes a different, handy definition: Christians are people who have discovered God, who believes in them; we’ve heard Jesus Christ calling our name and we’ve responded.

Being a Christian” is about getting to know God. It’s not so much knowing about God as knowing God.

Christians tend to use a lot of odd-sounding words to describe the new relationship which has been made possible by Jesus. Words like salvation, redemption, atonement, justification etc... And although the cross might for some become the focus for that new relationship, it’s actually the whole life, death and resurrection of Jesus which effected our salvation.

A phrase we use in the liturgy in giving thanks to God for sending his Son says that:

"Jesus was sent by you in your great goodness to be our Saviour. By the power of the Holy Spirit he took flesh; as your Son, born of the blessed Virgin, he lived on earth and went about among us; he opened wide his arms for us on the cross; he put an end to death by dying for us and revealed the resurrection by rising to new life; so he fulfilled your will and won for you a holy people...”

The Church has never been dogmatic about how Christ’s life, death and resurrection realised our salvation, and over the centuries many models have been developed and put forward, some more helpful than others, some using words and concepts belonging to such a different culture that their meaning is unclear to us today.

What Christians do agree about is that there was an event in time and space (the “Jesus event”) which changed the course of world history (in fact time was split in half by the birth of Christ: into BC & AD). It was an event in one place, for all places; and an event at one time, for all time.

That event can be made real today by us. The Jesus event offers us forgiveness, repair and restoration of our shattered lives, our broken promises, our failed relationships.

We can know what it means to live a new life; to be free from guilt, to be free from oppression - free to live life as God The Maker intended.

Whilst that might sound straightforward it’s not all plain sailing! A disciple is one who learns, and as we walk through life with our hand in the hand of Jesus, the journey is longer than lifelong, and the learning never ends!

God becomes more than an interesting academic conundrum to us as we turn towards God and invite the Holy Spirit to make Jesus real in our hearts and lives by declaring - with the very early Christians - that Jesus is Lord!

It’s as simple as that! If you haven’t been baptised, this is something you’ll want to think about - Jesus talked about being “born of water and the Spirit” (John 3.5). “The Spirit” has been understood as our relationship with God; “the water” has been understood as the waters of baptism - two parts of the equation of beginning Christian discipleship.

If you’ve been baptised - promises were made on your behalf, and maybe now is a good time to think about “confirming” those promises and “realising” your baptism.

In either case please do make contact with Fr. Andrew or one of the ministry team and we’ll be happy to discuss things in greater detail.

We can’t live as disciples in isolation, so the fellowship of the Church is vitally important. We are baptised into a family - when people say “You can be a Christian without going to church” - that’s nonsense! You wouldn’t call yourself a golfer if you never got on a course, or if you occasionally played crazy golf...

It's all about relationship...

The Christian life is about relationship - with God and with others. That relationship is fed and nurtured by worship, prayer, bible study, and interacting with other Christians.

The Church isn’t a human society - it’s a divine organisation with Christ in charge. The scriptures talk about the Church as the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12.27); a royal priesthood, (1 Peter 2.9); the Bride of Christ (Revelation 21.2); living stones (1 Peter 2.5); built into a temple where God dwells... so God obviously thinks the Church is important!

At the heart of Christianity is Christ: the Church may have been God’s idea, but the Church is also made up of fallible human beings, and we do sometimes get in the way of meeting Jesus - please forgive us when that happens! Sometimes people are keen to explore God, but are put off by some of his friends...

Finding out more

If you'd rather find out more about Jesus online before contacting anyone, or physically visiting us at St John’s, please do explore this website, or why not visit www.rejesus.co.uk, and www.christianity.org.uk?

There are other sections on St John’s website which talk about how we view the scriptures, what our worship is like, service times, help with bible study, previous sermons and talks, what we believe and even a stab at explaining what it means to be an Anglican...