Dictionary.com offers these definitions. Customers Disciples Evangelists Members

Sorry, God. It happened again. The priest started his sermon off this Sunday with this (paraphrased) introduction and question.


At the beginning of the Church, Jesus picked the 12 apostles as his disciples.
Those 12 were instructed to go where the Church wasn’t and make more disciples and the Church grew.
At some point, a different class developed. That of being a member rather than a disciple.
Now the Church struggles. What is it about members?

So, this is what happened in my mind. If the Church didn’t have members, if it had only disciples, would it be struggling, today? Similarly, if a business turns every customer (member) into an evangelist (disciple), wouldn’t that be a good thing? Then I started wondering what happened to the Church? How did it happen? What were the signs? Could it have been prevented? How to fix it now? Then, I made the leap to how does any organization, company, or firm ask and answer these same questions about itself?

Would that be a good thing?