A New Normal
The Lord never commanded us to make converts. He commanded us to make disciples. Those are not the same assignment, and the difference matters more right now than ever!
It is time to reset what we think “normal” is.
For too long, we have been tempted to reduce a Normal Orthodox Life to merely going through the motions. Attending services when convenient. Observing the major feasts. Knowing the right vocabulary. Feeling warmly toward the Faith without allowing the Faith to actually form us from the inside out.
The current surge of converts into Orthodoxy in America and the English-speaking world is exposing this weakness with urgency. New people are arriving in our parishes hungry and searching. And what they find will either form them into faithful, stamina-equipped disciples or will simply fail them when the spiritual honeymoon ends.
“Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out...provided for him out of her means.”
The Lord never commanded us to make converts. He commanded us to make disciples. Those are not the same assignment. A convert admires the Faith. A disciple is formed by it. And the forming takes time, relationship, community, and the patient witness of people who have been living this life long enough to show others how it is actually done.
This is a powerful and urgent moment for the Orthodox Church. May we be up to the challenge.
Today’s Lesson: Luke 8:1-3
At that time Jesus went on through cities and villages, preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for him out of their means.
Three verses. Just three. And yet they contain one of the most important pictures in the entire Gospel of what genuine discipleship looks like in practice.
These women had been healed.
Every one of them carried a story of deliverance, of something that had held them captive being broken by the power of Jesus. And now they traveled with the Lord and His disciples, providing for the entire company out of their own means.
They gave from gratitude, not to need.
They gave because they had been healed. They gave because the One who healed them was still doing His work, and they wanted to be formed by it.
This is the model. Not admiration from a distance. Transformation that produces action.
What Can We Take From This?
First, information alone does not form disciples. Only a deep relationship with Christ and His community can do that.
The trap we fall into, especially with the surge in converts, is treating formation primarily as an information problem. If we can get people to read the right books, attend the right classes, and listen to the right podcasts, they will become solid Orthodox Christians.
But information without formation produces people who know a great deal about the Faith and are not being changed by it. We have plenty of those already. And they don’t stick around!
What forms a disciple is what formed St. Mary Magdalene. An actual encounter with Christ that heals something broken inside them. An experience of genuine community that holds them through the difficult seasons. The patient witness of people who have walked this path long enough to show them not just what to believe but how to actually live it day after day.
This is why our lifelong Orthodox are absolutely irreplaceable in this moment.
They are not valuable because they know the theology better, though many do. They are valuable because they know how to keep the Faith when it is hard. They know how to pray when they do not feel like praying. They know how to fast when the motivation has ebbed. They know how to come back after a season of drifting. This is the knowledge that can only be transmitted person to person, yia yia to grandchild, parishioner to newcomer, spiritual father to Catechumen.
We need our yia yias and papous to show new people how to keep the Faith, not just admire it.
Next, generosity flows from gratitude, and both are signs that genuine formation is happening.
“They provided for him out of their means.”
These women did not give out of obligation. They gave because they had been healed and they knew it. Their generosity was the direct fruit of their encounter with Christ.
This is the pattern the Orthodox Faith has always understood about giving. The Eucharist itself teaches it. The word Eucharist comes from the Greek word for thanksgiving. At the very center of our worship, our theology, and our life together is the charism of gratitude expressed in generosity. God is so generous with us, giving His Only Son, giving us life, giving us Himself in the Eucharist, that the only appropriate human response is to become generous in return.
It is good to feel compassion. But that is the entrance hall, not the nave.
The fully formed disciple moves from feeling to action, from sympathy to generosity, because they have been so thoroughly formed by God’s generosity toward them that giving has become natural.
This is one of the clearest diagnostic signs of genuine formation. A disciple whose faith is actually forming them becomes more generous over time, not less. Their giving increases as their gratitude deepens. When we see the opposite, a faith life that has become increasingly self-protective and tight-fisted, it is a sign that the formation has stalled somewhere.
Finally, lifelong Orthodox and new converts need each other for the community to be fully alive.
The convert surge is not a problem to be managed. It is a gift the Holy Spirit is giving the Church in this season.
But gifts require wise stewardship.
Our lifelong Orthodox can show new people how to keep the Faith through decades of ordinary life, raising children, burying parents, enduring illness, facing financial hardship, and navigating loss.
This is irreplaceable wisdom.
No book teaches it. Only a life lived alongside someone who has done it.
And the new converts bring something equally irreplaceable. Fresh eyes. Renewed curiosity. The wonder of encountering these prayers and this Liturgy and these disciplines for the first time. The questions they ask are often the questions our lifelong Orthodox stopped asking long ago, the questions that, when taken seriously, reawaken a love for Orthodoxy that has become too familiar and too comfortable.
Both groups need each other.
The yia yias need the new families to remind them why this all matters. The new families need the yia yias to show them that it actually works across a whole lifetime.
This is the community that forms disciples rather than just converts. This is the Church.
St. Mary Magdalene, Myrrh-bearer and Equal-to-the-Apostles
Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, Myrrh-bearer and Equal-to-the-Apostles, whose story is a living illustration of everything this devotional describes.
She came to the Lord bound by whatever had gripped her life before the encounter with Christ. She was healed completely. And from that moment, her entire life was reoriented around Him. She traveled with the Lord. She stood at the foot of the Cross when the male disciples had fled. She came to the tomb before dawn on the morning of the Resurrection, carrying spices to anoint the body of the One she loved. She was the first person to whom the Risen Lord appeared. She was the first to proclaim the Resurrection to the Apostles.
This is a woman formed by an encounter with Christ so complete that it permanently and publicly changed the entire direction of her life. She did not simply admire the Faith. She was transformed by it. And the transformation was visible in every subsequent choice she made, how she spent her time, her resources, her presence, her courage.
Your Response Today
Today, ask yourself honestly whether you are a convert or a disciple.
Not whether you have been received into the Church. Whether the Faith is actually forming you. Whether your generosity is growing as your gratitude deepens. Whether you are showing someone newer how to keep the Faith, or whether you are waiting for someone to come inspire you first.
Choose one concrete step today. Call a newer parishioner and invite them to coffee. Show up to serve in some capacity you have been putting off. Give something you have been holding back. Let the generosity flow from the gratitude.
Then pray simply:
“Lord Jesus Christ, do not let me be a convert who merely admires the Faith. Form me into a disciple who is changed by it, generous because of it, and faithful to it across my whole life. Let my encounter with You produce the same visible transformation it produced in St. Mary Magdalene.”
Being Orthodox on Purpose means moving beyond admiring the Faith to being formed by it, becoming so thoroughly changed by the encounter with Christ that generosity, faithfulness, and witness flow naturally from a grateful and transformed heart!
P.S. When God, the Mighty, the Transcendent in essence, came in the flesh into the world, He received you, O Mary, as His true disciple, as was proper. For you had your whole desire and your love set upon Him; wherefore, you brought to pass many cures for the ailing; and now translated to the Heavens’ heights, you ever fervently pray for all the world.
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Thanks
Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV
Good morning, Fr. Barnabas! Thank you for this wonderful meditation. I converted to Orthodoxy in 2020and am now 74 years old. What helps me is constantly dragging my vision back to the goal, which is union with God. I reminded myself last night that reality is reality, no matter how I feel. The Kingdom of God goes on, whether I feel excited about it or not. There is something very comforting about this.
Thanks, Fr. B.! This central fact needs to be emphasized over and over, almost every Liturgy. In Acts 11:26 we read - "The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch." So the question is: what were they before they were called Christians? Simple: they were disciples. The two words mean the same thing. A Christian must be a disciple. You can't first decide to believe in Christ, join the Church, and be "just a Christian because I don't want people to think I'm a weirdo, a religious fanatic," and maybe later (or never) decide to "go whole hog" and become a disciple. No, it's either all-in, or you're out.