Importance: 10%
Quote
āCan a blind man lead a blind man?Ā Will they not both fall into a pit?Ā A disciple is not above his teacher,Ā but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.ā
- Luke 6:39-40
Thesis
Discipleship and Christian formation is a holistic process that involves more than knowing the right things.Ā
Towards an Integrated Life
What is the goal of discipleship? So often we get lost in the weeds of event planning, or the pressures of day to day ministry that taking time to reflect on the end goal of discipleship slips into the background. In our rush to do, we forget what we are meant to be.
The following discussion embodies my written thoughts on this question. Through prayer, study and continued reflection, I have become increasingly convinced that being a Christian is so much more than just knowing the right things. For after all, āEven the demons believeāand shudder!ā (James 2:19).
So much of modernity has shrunk humanity down to brains on sticks.Ā If you just think the right things or think hard enough you can be, do, or achieve anything -Ā or so the sayings go. Yet we are so much more than that. Humans are unique embodied creatures.Ā Dependent beings living every moment from breath to breath.Ā Therefore, in order to understand discipleship, we must first start by grasping the Biblical description of human existence and purpose.Ā
This topic in and of itself could take up many pages.Ā It seeks the core of our existence and the purpose for living.Ā Things no one can quite get away from, no matter the life one may choose.Ā Because of this, we will use three defining moments from salvation history to anchor our description of humanity.Ā Ā
The Two Commissions
The God given purpose of human living.The Two Commissions
š±Seed šAgreeš¢Conviction
Importance: 10%The Big Idea
God has told humans what we were created to be up to and commissioned us or sent us out to do it in two major moments in Scripture.
Note
Used as LCOS Nov 2024šEpistle
The First Commission
As the world settled into its newly created order, God spoke to humanity. The first blessing, or benediction, uttered over humanity paints a picture of life as it has always been meant to be:
Genesis 1.:28
āAnd God blessed them. And God said to them, āBe fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.āā
This first commission places humans over creation as God ordained care takers. Not only this, but it installs humanity within creation as a legitimate and integral part of the ecosystem. Humans are meant to flourish within the tapestry of creation. We were created in the wonderful and precious image of God as His workman in a beautifully balanced world. Therefore, the very first and foundational purpose of human existence is as watchful, productive, co-creators.
The Greatest Commandments
Since the fall, humans have wandered far afield of our original purpose as co-creators. Instead, humans have so often become destroyers inventing new ways to bring destruction upon the world. Out of that darkness, God called a people to bear His name among the smoldering remains of creation. As He called them, He oriented them around a particular image of the good life. An image boiled down to the legendary Shema:
Deuteronomy 6:4-5
āHear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.ā
This image of a good life does not start with knowledge or power, riches or fame. A good life according to God starts with listening. Hearing the realities of who He is and responding with love. The salient action, or mode of being, is loving. A loving that captures the entirety of our being - heart, soul, and might.
If we take time to parse out the implications of this deep abiding love, we can see that humans are meant for a unique and vibrant relationship with God. Western thinking so often splits the human being into mind and heart, thought and emotions. This description of humanity is not so divided.
The Hebrew word for heart (Lavav) speaks of not just the organ, or the locus of emotions, but the seat of memory, will, thought and conscience. Oneās heart remembers, longs, meditates, and acts. It is out of the heart that you exist. Partnering with the heart is oneās soul or nephesh. This nephesh animates the actions of the heart. The first descriptions of a human nephesh comes as God breathed the breath of life into Adam. As the wind of Godās life-giving Spirit enters the man, he becomes a nephesh. So to love God with heart and soul leaves nothing out. There is no corner of the unconscious mind or physical frame that should not be turned toward this life of love. To seal the image, God even clarifies to what extent His people should take this full bodied and integrated life: ALL your might, everything you got, nothing held back.
In Mark 12 Jesus pulls this description of humanity to sum up the movements of the Old Testament and affirms their centrality. He also adds that this life of love is to extend out from our relationship with God to the people around us. The rest of Scripture speaks boldly about this love. Paul even goes so far in 1 Corinthians 13:2 to say that without this love āI am nothing.ā As the picture unfolds, it is clear that humans are meant for more than productivity, success or any of the other idols that so quickly creep into our lives.
The Great Commission
As Jesus ended His ministry on earth He completed the picture of human purpose:
Matthew 28: 19-20
āGo therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.ā
The rich fabric of Scriptureās commandments and promises are brought to fruition through Jesus. Bearing the name of God in creation is no longer tied to a nation state, but the act of being a disciple. Discipleship is therefore the culmination of centuries worth of reflection, preparation, and now sending. Jesus sending us into lives lived to their fullest. To be a disciple is nothing short of becoming fully human.
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The Full Picture
As we pull these pieces together, the call to become a disciple of Jesus takes on flesh and bone.Ā To be a disciple means to be a co-creator and a lover.Ā A follower that answers the ancient call of the creator to live life in the Gospel. This call speaks of a compelling, even enrapturing experience and dependence on God.Ā
Yet this description does not always ring true in experience. Ever since the enlightenment movement of the 1800s, Lutheran education and practice has targeted the minds of its pupils.Ā This approach has been carried out effectively, producing generations of well informed and educated people. However, in the reduction of discipleship to the life of the mind, we have lost the bigger picture.Ā
This discussion has aimed to illuminate the deep seated, earthy, gut wrenching nature of the call to follow Christ. Humans are not primarily shaped by thoughts.Ā Some of our most foundational years of development are years we do not even remember.Ā Humans are rather primarily co-creators and lovers.Ā It is through these lenses that we seek to plan and enact future Christian discipleship.Ā
Discipleship as Christian FormationĀ
The Hebrew word to know (Yada) continues the line of anthropology we have started down. To know is to experience.Ā Without experience there is no true knowledge.Ā If this is true, and humans are primarily co-creators and lovers, then the orientation and direction of Christian instruction and practice should take on a much different shape than a data dump. But what shape is that?Ā
As co-creators we are physical beings connected to a physical earth.Ā Earthen vessels tilling and caring for the ground from which we were formed. We are connected to the rhythms of nature (just ask a teacher if they can tell when the moon is full).Ā We reorient and reconfigure the materials of this earth to create and build.Ā Our Lutheran theology prepares us nicely to understand the implications of this reality.Ā
We experience the means of grace bodily. The elements joined with Godās eternal words of power bring mysteries into our hands.Ā We taste and touch.Ā Not only this, but the flow of daily vocations brings us into each and every day as stewards.Ā Taking the relationships, jobs and duties we are given to create places of love.
As lovers we do not coldly calculate the path of greatest return. Rather we seek to usher in a world full of wonder and beauty.Ā In his book Desiring the Kingdom, James Smith embarks on a journey to describe what this shift in our understanding should look like as we contemplate a path for Christian formation.Ā Ā
At its core, love is a desire.Ā As such, it is by nature aimed at a recipient. Love does not exist in a vacuum, without a subject to love, love does not exist. All humans have this base drive to love and adore something.Ā Sinful humanity has aimed this love toward so many abrogate entities from money and sex, to the face looking back in the mirror.Ā The work of Christian formation is to reorient this basic desire.Ā To place God back in his rightful place as the one we love with our whole being.Ā
Facilitating such a seismic shift within the very core of those we shepherd is no simple or small task. It is far easier to expect the regurgitation of material rather than seek experiential knowledge of the one true God. How do we help shape such primordial and precognitive portions of ourselves - much less those we shepherd?Ā The Process of FormationĀ In order to understand the tools at our disposal, we must first describe the process of formation (or malformation) we have already experienced in our lives up until this very moment. Daily living constantly puts us through a crucible of formation. We clearly see this when major events happen in life (milestones, tragedies, etc).Ā Yet the same forces that shape us during these major events are at work each and every day.
Returning to our description of humans as primarily co-creators and lovers, the foundational mover of a human is desire. Humans are spectacularly adept at doing what we want. We can reason, and work the environment around us so that we do what we want (often to our own detriment).Ā Therefore, to shape the most inner being of a believer is to change what we desire.Ā
A particularly convicting verse in this regard comes from Psalm 1:2 as it describes an ideal righteous life: Ā āhis delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.āĀ We often speak about being Sola Scriptura, but has that belief honestly sunk into the recesses of our being? Can any of us honestly say that we delight in Godās word so much that we think about it all the time? What would happen if our desires were shaped to be in line with this ideal?
It does not take much imagination to see that such a change would bring spectacular results not only in our lives, but the lives of our people.Ā The great question then becomes: How do we shape desire? It is a slippery question and one that is a constant battle within ourselves.Ā However, it is not a question without an answer. Continuing to pull on the work of James Smith, we can illuminate the basic mechanics of formation.Ā Ā
Desires are a created part of our being. We are wired to desire good things or things we need. That definition of what we need and what is good, however, has been shaped by our experience of the world since our youngest days.Ā Sinful desires grow out of malformation while good and right desires grow out of healthy formation.Ā This process starts with communal practices (or cultural liturgies).Ā These are the places we go regularly, the things we do at these places, the results and commitment to these practices we see and experience as we grow up.Ā All of this contributes to how we see the world and what we desire.Ā
For example, social media has formed people.Ā It is a communal practice to create an account, post content, interact with others, etc. Along the way we learn to desire many things, like receiving attention from the things we post feels good.Ā Being ignored does not. As days go by, the communal practice of social media begins to form habits within us.Ā How many people scroll mindlessly on social media because itās a habit? If you ask them why they do it, they canāt give a logical reason because it has become a part of their formation (or malformation).Ā
All of the habits that have been formed within us through this fulcrum of experience orient us in a direction.Ā They aim us toward a particular image of what a good life looks like.Ā For many, social media has oriented them toward a life of popularity.Ā The image of āwhat I want to be when I grow upā is a person who has millions of followers and makes tons of money off of ad campaigns. This image of life is what they desire, which reinforces habits that shape their desires, and the cycle continues.Ā Ā
This chain:Ā
communal practice - to habit - to aim of desire - to image of a good lifeĀ
is what we seek to engage through Christian formation. We need to be in the business of constantly painting the biblical picture of human flourishing as the proper end goal, or aim, of human desire.Ā Ā Ā
We cannot, however, skip the chain and jump straight to grabbing the imagination of our people.Ā No matter how beautifully presented or compellingly argued the image of a good Christian life may be, without embodied practices, the chain of formation has not been properly started.Ā Ritual, Practice, LiturgyĀ If we are seeking to shape the desires of our people through embodied practices. The next question becomes: What practices are we after? Are we trying to tell people how to brush their teeth or make toast?Ā
While those practices do shape us to a certain extent, they are not quite the practices we are after. James K. A. Smith introduces a helpful hierarchy to understand different kinds of practices.Ā
ā¢ Rituals - Everyone has rituals. Habits that happen regularly like: putting gas in the car, reading the news, etc. Anything we do regularly counts as a ritual.Ā Ā
ā¢ Practices - Out of our rituals there are a number of regular activities that rise to the level of being a practice. Athletes and musicians practice to become better at their craft. So too, our practices are aimed toward a particular goal. For example we go to work for the goal of making money.Ā
ā¢ Liturgies - The most specific kind of regular activity is liturgy. Like practices, liturgies are aimed toward an end goal. They are more specific however and are aimed at the end goal of fulfilling our identity and vision of the good life.Ā
Liturgies are the most potent of practices. They define who we are and where we are headed. Therefore we seek to shape the liturgies of our people. Thick and Thin HabitsĀ Another way to conceptualize the practices we are after is the idea of thick and thin habits.Ā
ā¢ Thin Habits - These are habits that are not done for themselves but for some other end. For example, we pay bills to avoid being sent to a debt collector. The regular habit of paying bills doesnāt, in and of itself, affect the way we think about ourselves or our purpose in life.Ā
ā¢ Thick Habits - These habits are what we are after. They bring meaning into our life and push us toward our image of an ideal life.Ā
Forming Thick Habits and LiturgiesĀ
As we continue to think through how we access the chain of formation and promote deep change of desire. We can turn to the liturgy we practice every Sunday. Church liturgy is a pattern for living. It carries us along on the journey of the church year. In it we receive all the good gifts of God. Sunday liturgy composes and compiles so many elements from the story of Scripture and helps us begin to practice the thick habits of faith.Ā Ā
The movement of discipleship should therefore be animated and flow out from our Sunday liturgy. The thick habits of our daily life should be informed and corrected by the words and practices of Scripture. To this end, what follows is a short list of thick habits to think through bringing into our discipleship efforts: Ā ā¢ The Biblical rhythm of time and rest ā¢ Worship ā¢ Hospitality, community, and graced dependenceĀ ā¢ Song and music ā¢ Pattern of law, living in the groove, freedom for good ā¢ Confession and Grace ā¢ Baptism ā¢ Creed ā¢ Prayer ā¢ Communion ā¢ Offering ā¢ Witness and Confession ā¢ Scripture, Sermon, Storytelling ā¢ Doing good and Service ā¢ Lament and Grieving ā¢ Creativity, Imagination, and Future Making ā¢ Vocation in daily life to creation, neighbor, and family ā¢ BlessingĀ ā¢ Reading and study Move Away from Scholarship to DiscipleshipĀ To summarize, the end goal of discipleship is about forming and shaping the deepest levels of our heart in ways only the Holy Spirit can.
āIf Scholarship is the goal of discipleship, then we end up with scholars who make more scholars who know right answers. If joining Jesus is the goal of discipleship, then we end up with disciples who make more disciples who participate in the redemption and restoration of all things.āĀ
How should we think?
Core Mindsets for a Healthy Community
šæSapling šAgree š¢Conviction
Importance: 50%The Big Idea
This is a collection of important mindsets for a healthy Christian community.
The categories we use to understand our world matter: A Categorical Mind
Scriptural MindsetĀ - Scripture remains our sure and final foundation of life and practice. All other sources of wisdom must be subservient to Godās pure word.Ā
Sacramental MindsetĀ - The Sacraments are the foundation through which we receive Godās grace. They are the sure, tangible, communal way God has given us to encounter His grace and forgiveness.Ā
Trinitarian MindsetĀ - We worship and serve God who is triune in nature. We recognize the mystery of their communion and the lavish loving nature of their economy of salvation.Ā Salvation comes From the Father Through the Son By the Holy Spirit. We have been baptized into this triune name and serve no other.Ā
Mission MindsetĀ - As Godās people we have been sent to out to the four corners of the world to proclaim the Gospel and welcome Christās children home.Ā Ā
Discipleship Mindset - We have been sent out to make disciples. People who follow Jesus into the fields of this world to do the work of the Kingdom.Ā Ā
Abundance MindsetĀ - All good things come from God and His gracious hand. We therefore steward the resources we have with gratitude and thankfulness rather than coveting those we lack.Ā
Other MindedĀ - We are called as members of Christās body to look outside ourselves to the needs of others. āIf one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.ā - 1 Cor. 12:26.
Humble Future FocusĀ - Though we cannot see into the future, we expectantly plan and pray for the will of God to become manifest within our community. We can adopt the saying of James 4:15Ā āIf the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.
Todo: add mindsets outlined in the starfish and the spirit book
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Starting Small and Growing from There
The Edge of the Wedge
Importance: 10%The Big Idea
āIt can be anything, but first it has to be something specific.ā Basically the idea that in order for product or project to succeed it needs to start by solving a specific problem with an eye toward expansion. This balances going too deep or being too broad but lands with the edge of the wedge and pushes outward from there.
Article that describes this idea: The Zombcom problem
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