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BY ERIK ALSGAARD
UMCONNECTION STAFF

The Rev. Rod Miller, new director of connectional ministry for the Baltimore-Washington Conference, was raised in the Episcopal Church. But when he began to think about the ministry, every sign pointed to The United Methodist Church, he said.

Following those signs has placed Miller in a new ministry as the leader of a staff at the Conference Center that is entirely focused on one thing: making disciples for Jesus Christ. For Miller, that is where his most profound satisfaction is located.

'The Discipleship Adventure is more than merely a program,' he said in an interview. 'This is a movement. We?re moving to a different lifestyle. We?ll know we?ve ?arrived? when people start making decisions differently.'

The Discipleship Adventure is an inward and outward spiritual journey of growing in faith. The Adventure is a continuous circle that includes celebrating the faith, connecting with other people in the faith, developing your faith through Bible study and small group discussions, serving others because of your faith, and sharing your faith.

For Miller, the Discipleship Adventure means doing church a new way.

'When the leaders in our churches get to the place where they can let go of having the focus be on themselves, when they?re letting go, when it?s not about them, then we will be moving to become more Christ-like.'

Miller knows what he is talking about. He served as pastor of Bethany UMC in Ellicott City from 1994 to 2005. That congregation, under his leadership, embarked on the Discipleship Adventure.

'We called it the ?Path of Purposeful Living,?' he said, noting that this was well before Rick Warren?s best-selling book, 'The Purpose Driven Church,' was published. 'It was a framework which included looking at your own spiritual life and looking at the church?s spiritual life. The question was, what can we do to be intentionally walking the path of discipleship?'

The congregation at Bethany soon learned that the answer to that question lay in moving the idea and practice of ministry away from being presentational to becoming formational.

When ministry is presentational, Miller said, people tend to stand up in meetings and give reports, or they go through the motions of fellowship, service and/or sharing because that?s the way they?ve always done it.

When ministry becomes formational, 'Somehow, in this event or action, we are becoming more intentional about celebrating, connecting, developing, serving or sharing.'

As those with success in pastoring a local church, Miller understands that clergy need to allow God to act in and through the church, and not just in ways that they think it should.

'In many ways, clergy need to ?get it? (the Discipleship Adventure) so that laity can get it,' he said. 'We need to be putting out the vision and at the same time opening up the potential which is in every congregation to become disciple-building.'

That means in the future, clergy will play a different role.

'We need to allow the church to go where God wills it to go,' he said. 'Pastors, by our nature, feel that we need to make it happen. For the Discipleship Adventure to take root, pastors will need to give some direction, some gbwc_superuserance, some vision, some hope and some encouragement. Yet, it will be the laity who really make it happen.'

Miller?s eyes light up and he smiles when he talks about the results of people growing in their faith in Jesus. It is what motivates him.

'When you see people living differently, because of their experience, it?s sort of addictive,' he said. 'You want more of it. When people have said, ?It?s all different now,? that just feeds me; that just speaks to me, it?s fulfilling, and I have an inner joy about that.'