Enough is Enough

“What should we do then?” the crowd asked.

John answered, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

Luke 3:10-11

Brad led a dorm bible study that I attended during my first year in college. He shared a house just off campus with a few other Christian guys, and he and his housemates ministered to many of the neighborhood’s homeless men. After several months of doing this, it became known in the homeless community that Brad’s house was a place you could go for help.

One chilly winter night, a homeless man showed up on Brad’s doorstep asking if the guys might have a blanket to spare, since he had nothing to shield him from the night air. Brad and his housemates searched the house, but they had given away all of the spare blankets they usually kept on hand for such occasions. In fact, there was only one spare blanket in the whole house: Brad’s childhood blanket, affectionately known as Brad’s "binkie."

Brad had loved his binkie as long as he could remember. He had grown up with it. His binkie had brought him comfort as a child, and even now as a young adult, it still stirred fond memories in his heart.

But that night, someone needed his binkie more than he did.

Brad carried his binkie to the front door, gave it one last hug, and handed it to the homeless man on the porch.

How much do you need to have before you have enough to share with others? According to John the Baptist, if you own two outfits, you’re ready to start giving!

For most of us, this standard seems unachievable. We are much more likely to hold our possessions with a clutching claw rather than with an open palm. But it doesn’t have to be this way. By the grace and power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us, we can learn to trust God with our possessions, even when that means giving them away.

Even when it means giving away our binkie.

Destination: Uganda!

I'm excited to announce that next summer, Gary, Molly, and I will be co-leading a youth mission trip to Uganda with Adventures in Missions. The trip is part of AIM's Ambassador program, designed for students ages 14-18 who want to serve God on trips that vary in length from one to four weeks. We will be ministering in Busia, Uganda (right across the border from Kenya) from June 30, 2010 to July 30, 2010.


According to AIM's website:

Much of the ministry will be will be in partnership with Helping Hands Ministry. The team will be ministering at a school for orphans. There will be opportunities to provide friendship, bible studies, education and the gospel to the children. In addition to the children, you will have a chance to minister to young adults in the area with outreach events working alongside Ugandans who are trying to reach their peers.

The team will assist and learn how to best minister with and to the people of Uganda. There may also be opportunities for the team to work with local churches "in the bush" once a week. The opportunities to join God in what He is doing in Uganda will be many and full of variety.

When I left Africa in 2006, I felt as if I left a piece of my heart there. I have been asking God since that time if it might be in His will for me to someday return and love on orphans in His name. I am thrilled for this opportunity, and am looking forward to four weeks of discipling teenagers while serving together.

AIM is accepting applications now for students who would like to participate in this trip. If you would like to join us, we would love to have you! Click here for more information about the trip!

Molly Update

So in case you haven't heard, Molly departed for her mission trip this past Wednesday, September 23rd. She left out of San Francisco at 6 am (!) and arrived in McAllen, Texas later that day. AIM staff met participants at the airport and drove them across the border to their home for the next two months.

During the training portion of their trip, the entire Novas group will be living and working out The Gateway, AIM's mission base in Matamoros, Mexico. Molly is bunking with 26 girls in a giant room. She reports that it is beautiful and raining right now. The day after arriving, the participants began a two day period of solitude to focus on prayer and connecting with God. They were given reading and journaling assignments. Molly has found this time challenging, but valuable.

On December 1, Molly will be flying to Swaziland with her teammates Jessica, Lila, Katie, Bryan, and John. They will be working with orphans at the Nsoko care point through next May.

Here are a couple of team pics from their training camp last month:



You can follow along with Molly's journey at her blog by here: http://mollymcrae.myadventures.org/.

Also, here is an address where you can send letters while the team is in Mexico:

Molly McRae
C/O: Tag Thompson
Adventures in Missions
6000 Wellspring Trail
Gainesville, GA 30506

They will keep the letters there and as staff goes down to Mexico they will take any mail which comes in. Make sure to send a message of encouragement!

A Living Eucharist

In Chapter Six of JWTSC (see immediately previous post), Rob Bell and Don Golden talk about the concept of Eucharist.

The word itself comes from the Greek word eucharizomai, meaning thankful or thanksgiving. Literally the word means “to give what is good.” Thus, we can say that what we celebrate in the Eucharist (or the Lord’s Supper, or Communion, or whatever your tradition calls it) is God’s “good gift” to mankind, the gift of Jesus Christ. Through His sacrifice on the cross, God reconciles all of creation to Himself. Jesus’ body was broken and His blood was poured that you and I might reap the benefits of forgiveness and eternal life.

And this is the authors’ intent in talking about Eucharist. As they put it, “For someone to receive, someone has to give...If someone somewhere benefits, then someone somewhere has paid something.” (pg. 149)

Eucharist is about sacrifice. About a good gift that is given, but not without a price.

The Eucharist we celebrate is all about the body of Christ being broken, and the blood of Christ being poured out, for the sake of others. Thus, if we who would call ourselves Christians are truly the body of Christ, then a Christian ought to be “a living Eucharist, allowing her body to be broken and her blood poured out for the healing of the world.” (pg. 150)

That is our calling. That is life in the way of Jesus. Seeking to be broken and poured out for the sake of others. It’s why we still marvel at the lives of Mother Teresa, and Hudson Taylor, and Jim Elliot, and Brother Andrew. They were broken and poured out for God’s glory, and it cost them something. We marvel at these lives because there’s something in us that knows they are what life in Christ is supposed to be.

The problem is, we look at these heroes of the faith and subconsciously we say, “I’m no Mother Teresa. I'm glad she did what she did, but I could never do that, so I’m going to abandon this brokenness thing altogether.”

And that is where we miss the mark. The way of brokenness, the path of descent, is a journey. It is a counter-cultural lifestyle that must be learned and nurtured and mastered over time. It is a day-by-day yielding to the Holy Spirit by which we surrender more and more control over our lives to God, until we have eventually given Him everything. It is then that we will be living the Christian life as it was meant to be lived.

So where to begin this journey of brokenness? The authors raise a couple of questions that are of help here:

The Eucharist is what happens when the question is asked, What does it look like for us to be a Eucharist for these people, here and now?

What does it look like for us to break ourselves open and pour ourselves out for the healing of these people in this time in this place? (pg. 158)

Think about your neighborhood. Your city. Your workplace. Your family. What would it look like to break yourself open and pour yourself out for the healing of others in these places?

Maybe it’s buying some groceries for a neighbor who’s unemployed. Maybe it’s buying those groceries every week until he gets a job.

Maybe it’s having lunch with a coworker you never talk to. Maybe it’s having lunch with them every week until you can call yourself friends.

Maybe it’s giving away everything in your house that you don’t need. Which is probably most everything you own.

Maybe it’s donating your best clothes to Goodwill, instead of giving them your worn out and ill-fitting clothes like we usually do.

Maybe it’s realizing that you have an extra bedroom and offering it to someone who is struggling financially, or maybe just to someone you want to share life with.

Whatever it is, whatever you do, it should cost you something and benefit someone else. If you can do it and not feel the sacrifice of it, it’s not Eucharist. At least, not Eucharist in the way of Christ.

Believe me, living as a Eucharist is as big a challenge to me as it is to anybody. But isn’t it a challenge worth taking? These ideas inspire me, and spur me on to want deeper sacrifices and more selflessness in my own life. Surely, living broken and poured out for the sake of others is not an easy way to live. But it is surely the best way.

Lord Jesus, grant me the strength today to break myself open and pour myself out for someone else. Take my selfishness from me and give me the courage to lay down my life, that others might be healed. I desire to be a Eucharist, just as You are a Eucharist. In Your Name, and for the sake of Your Glory, I pray. Amen.

A Return to Blogging: Small Churches

As most of the readers of this blog probably already know, I (Gary) have been battling depression these many months. My depression has made it very difficult to concentrate on anything for an extended period of time, so reading, writing, and similar tasks have become much more difficult for me. In an effort to take back some of this ground, I am forcing myself to write for this blog more regularly. It's therapeutic for me to share what I'm thinking, and I really do enjoy writing, so it makes sense for this to be an outlet for me.

With that preface out of the way, here's my initial effort:

I like small churches. Always have, always will. This is true for a number of reasons, but the core of it is simply this: I think discipleship happens in smaller groups rather than in bigger ones.

When I look at the life of Christ, I notice a bit of a pattern. When Jesus chose to reveal a little bit of Himself, it was almost always before a small group of people if not a single individual. The servants at the Cana Wedding, Nicodemus, the woman at Jacob’s Well, the blind, the demon-possessed, and most notably the Twelve, all received private and semi-private glimpses of who this Jesus of Nazareth really was.

Now crowds, on the other hand, did not seem to be something Jesus enjoyed. It was a crowd in Luke 4 that wanted to throw Him off a cliff -- not the most effective way to start a public ministry. And though the crowd at the Triumphal Entry shouted “Hosanna,” that same crowd just days later would be shouting “Crucify Him!”

Throughout the Gospels, crowds are filled with people demanding more of Jesus - more food, more healings, more miraculous signs. In fact, it seems like every time a pretty good sized crowd started following Jesus, He made every effort to thin them out.

In Luke 14, we find the following verses:

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple... In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”

And again, in John 6, when Jesus teaches that He is the Bread of Life, and that His disciples must eat of His flesh and drink of His blood, we find that his was too much for the crowd: “On hearing it, many of his disciples said,

“This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’... From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.”

It seems to me that if any modern evangelical pastor had been standing near Jesus when He said things like these, he would have been tempted to correct the Lord. “Jesus, you are making it unnecessarily difficult for people to come to you. You should lighten up and be a little more ‘seeker sensitive.’ How do you ever expect to get a church up off the ground?”

And maybe that’s just it. Jesus wasn’t concerned with building a following, building a crowd, building an organization or institution. Jesus was building disciples. Individuals. Persons who knew Him, and loved Him, and desired to follow in His Way. And that’s what church should be about today as well.

Discipleship happens when we get into each others’ lives in an intimate way, when we are honest with one another, when we give each other permission to speak into each others’ lives the very utterances of God (1 Peter 4:11). It doesn’t happen where I can show up, talk to no one, go unnoticed, and anonymously blend into the crowd; where I am nothing more than a consumer -- a customer to be sold to, pleased, and encouraged to come back.

And so, my heart soars when I walk into a congregation of 100, or 75, or 50, where the pastor can mention people by name in his sermon and the whole body knows who he is talking about. I love worshiping in a place where people are missed when they’re gone, where there’s a sense of unity and wholeness that comes by not just sitting in the same building together an hour a week, but by doing life together.

Put more simply, crowds are not intimate; churches ought to be.

Discipleship according to Mark Batterson

I'm a regular reader of author-pastor Mark Batterson's blog E-votional.com. He just put up an excellent post on discipleship here. Here's a snippet:


We cannot reduce the gospel to the forgiveness of sins. It's about glorifying God by maximizing our God-given potential and serving our God-ordained purpose. It can't just be about creeds. It's got to be about deeds. It can't just be about us. It's got to be about others.

Molly's New Blog!

A couple of months ago, we were thrilled to find out that Molly, the young woman that my husband and I are mentoring through shared life, was accepted to Adventures in Missions' "First Year Missionary" program in South Africa/Swaziland. She will spend nine months with a team in southern Africa experiencing intentional discipleship in ministry and missions.

As part of the preparation process, AIM sets up each participant with their own blog site and gives them specific assignments to complete before the trip begins. Once on the field, the participants use their blogs to keep friends and supporters updated with prayer requests, stories and pictures.

You can visit Molly's site here. She has already blogged about her expectations of the trip, her calling to missions, and the reality of life for orphans in Swaziland.

Here's a snippet from her bio:

I have felt for the past couple years that God might be calling me to Africa, and more specifically He has begun to break my heart for Swaziland. When I found the First Year Missionary Program, I learned that I could serve in Swaziland and be mentored into my future in missions. This program was exactly what I had been looking for. So now, I have begun the journey and look forward to what God has for me next.

Please feel free to visit Molly's blog and leave a comment of encouragement!

Portrait of a Disciple

Discipleship is a huge passion of mine - I believe it's what our role in the Christian life is all about. About a year ago (to the day!), I posted this while imagining what modern discipleship could look like. I think y'all are due for an update.

I'll start with an excerpt from my post: "Late-night ramblings of a would-be disciple-maker"

Imagine…

if we chose to share a home with a disciple, intentionally sharing all aspects of our life with them? It would be costly… maybe we couldn't spend so much time at work, pouring into a career. Less time to spend on self-fulfilling hobbies. We’d have to develop our own faith, make it worthy of sharing. Maybe get a little flexible with the definitions of “mine” and “yours”.

What if...

over dinner, we dreamed together of what could happen in our church, our community? What if we shared our God-given passions and encouraged one another to follow them shamelessly? What if, over breakfast, we prayed and devoted ourselves to living out His call?

...The question is, are there people out there that would be interested in being the disciplee in such an intense relationship? If I (or anybody) actually offered this up, would there be any takers? I do believe there would be. Not everyone, sure, but a few. And those are the ones I want to pour into.

One year later, I'm proud to say that I took my own challenge. And every day I marvel at how God has blessed our family because of our openness.

Molly graduated from high school last June, and moved into our home immediately following our Guatemala mission trip in July (she was one of the partcipants). So, how's it been going?

Molly and I meet regularly to read God's word and pray together. No, we're not perfect at this, but we've seen great blessings come out of these times. And that's not it!

We sing praise songs together. We laugh (a lot). We challenge one another. We help her with her math homework (ok, that one's all Gary!). We discuss ministry, church, what Christian community could be. We make up silly songs. We dream about Africa, about caring for orphans in Swaziland. In essence, we're living shared life. "Doing life together", as I've heard some say.

Would this work for everyone? I think it depends. What makes it so successful here, I think, is Molly's desire to grow and to contribute. She is pursuing her relationship with God wholeheartedly, which is a beautiful thing to see in anyone.

God has placed in her a heart for missions, and has given her the incredible opportunity to serve as a First Year Missionary in Swaziland. She'll be leaving next September to serve a nine-month internship.

She will be a light in a dark place, ministering to the poor, caring for AIDS orphans, truly caring for the least of these. I am honored to be her prayer/accountability partner, supporting her from back home while she's on the field. I know that God will work through her in a mighty way, and I am humbled to be a part of it.


"The Fam-Bam"

The Great Discipleship Experiment

Every Christian has their own passions and callings, and for me, discipleship is one of my 'things'.

I could point to Jesus' instruction to 'make disciples' as my text, but my passion really comes from two places - firstly, my own long-burning desire for someone to 'take me under their wing' and demonstrate an interest in my own journey of faith, and secondly, an amazement at how, when I've done this for younger girls, I've learned and grown immensely and have been filled with joy.

I try to read and think quite a bit about the discipleship process - what it means, what it looks like, what it could be in our current day American context. I have been encouraged and challenged quite a bit along the way by bloggers Seth Barnes and Mark Batterson as well as the book "Transforming Discipleship" by Greg Ogden.

During one of my late-night conversations with myself, I considered how Jesus did discipleship - living life with his disciples. Walking together, eating together, doing ministry together. In our culture it's so difficult to see people more than a couple of hours a week. Which is better than nothing, but a difficult context in which to really transform lives.

My mind turned to the empty bedroom in the back of the house and wondered if there might be someone looking for a mentor, willing to seek God together through the ups and downs of life. Though I prayed about it for months, the answer was pretty clear.

So, two weeks ago, one of our graduated high school students has taken up residence in that bedroom. We do devotions together in the morning, sing worship songs at night, and talk about anything and everything in between. We discuss books, life, ministry, the past and the future.

The goal of all this is to provide a context for discipling, or mentoring, in a way that just can't be done in that 'once a week' meeting. My prayer is that this student will see firsthand what it looks like for two imperfect people to chase after the Lord wholeheartedly, and be inspired to do so herself for a lifetime.

We Are Moving: Be the Church

Recently, I attended Youth Specialties' The CORE training event, which this year was focused on Transformational Youth Ministry. Part of the presentation, much to my pleasure and amusement, consisted of a rather concise expression of my vision for our youth ministry. One section was titled, “Transforming Youth Ministries are Moving…,” and it presented a series of comparisons explaining what we should be moving from, and what we should be moving to. So here, I’d like to present a series of short commentaries on these comparisons. I call the series, “We Are Moving…”

We Are Moving...
From getting kids to come to church
To getting kids to be the church

This is one of my personal soapboxes. The church is not a building, it is a people. The church is not where we go, it is who we are. All of us, as followers of Jesus, are called to live out His teachings, to obey His Word. In short, to be the church. So, of course, it makes sense that we should have the same goal for our students.

But much of youth ministry over the last 50 years has been focused on attractional ministry; that is, creating “fun” programs that students want to come to, then including a short, non-offensive message at the end. This approach works in terms of getting kids to come to church, but it does very little to transform lives. Spiritual growth is a non-issue, because energies are focused on encouraging students to show up. Bigger numbers equal success, regardless of whether students begin to live more like Jesus or not.

I propose that we instead focus ourselves on coming alongside students to encourage their discipleship, their holiness, and their spiritual transformation. Our activities and programs should provide opportunities for our kids to put feet to their faith, to live it out, to be the church. At my church, we are already doing this to a degree, and doing it well. We have Small Group Leaders who are willing to get heir hands dirty in the relational world of teenagers, and service projects that are about more than simply feeling good about ourselves. These are signs of a youth ministry moving in the right direction.

This is why I’m such a huge fan of things like mission trips, youth-led worship services, and 30 Hour Famine. These are events that not only challenge students to live out what the Bible teaches, but provide an opportunity for them to do so. And our kids respond and rise to these challenges. I believe that God has put something special in the kids of Fair Oaks that resonates with service, with prayer, with being the church. We who serve in this ministry ought to thank God for it, and to ask Him to work through us to maximize the wondrous spiritual gifts He has given our students.

So, as we dream together of new ministries and new ideas, let’s commit ourselves to not simply encouraging kids to come to church. Let’s encourage them to be the church.

Milestones on my Journey

We have all had certain experiences or encounters that, though seemingly inconsequential at the time, have had a profound effect on the rest of our lives. A few of those major experiences for me have been spiritual in nature, and have shaped the core of my identity.

My mission trip to Ireland when I was 13, for example. I simply knew I was supposed to go on that trip (my first encounter with that still small voice, I think). I wasn't conscious at the time that my concept of the missionary - evangelist - "superchristian" was to be eroded away. After all, if God can work through a self-conscious 13 year old girl, He can surely use anyone!

Another profound experience for me was leading our junior high youth group through the 30 Hour Famine for the first time. Newly married, I had all kind of concepts about what I "needed" to furnish our apartment home. After going through the studies and videos provided by World Vision for the youth event, I was completely floored by how badly I'd confused my wants with my needs. God was starting to break my heart for the poor, though I didn't know yet what that meant for me.

The next 'breakthrough' moment for me came during a general seminar at the National Youth Workers Convention in 2004. These seminars are always encouraging and thought provoking, but one in particular cut right through to my heart. The speaker was Princess Kasune Zulu, a Zambian woman who spoke about the effects of AIDS in her country, and her dramatic story of how she has been affected personally.

After the seminar concluded, our group headed to lunch at the nearest Del Taco, but I was so overwhelmed I wasn't able to get out of the car. I just sat back and sobbed. God was piercing my heart, taking me to a new level of brokenness: so painful, but so undescribably right.

What I most remember Princess specifically saying was how other governments had begun to provide assistance to those in need in Africa, money for food and HIV tests and treatments. And that was all good. But, despite all of that, the church should have already been there.


The church - God's chosen means to demonstrate His love, His care, to pray for the sick, to provide for orphans and widows, the church - had missed it's call. It had fallen down. And in that moment, I cried, not just for the sick babies and widows forced into prostitution and all the horror that goes with poverty, but at the realization that when we as a church, we as individuals, do not live out the purpose God has designed us for, the world suffers. There are horrible consequences to our resistance to 'get involved'. And I was just as much a part of that as anyone.


It's funny to me, that at the time I had no overwhelming call to go to Africa, or sponsor an AIDS baby, or anything that specific. Some people are called to do those things. Others are made for a different purpose. But at that moment, a veil was lifted from my eyes, and I received a glimpse of what could be possible - what God might accomplish through His people if we were only willing. What suffering might be alleviated. What lonely people could experience love for the first time. What freedom might ring if we chose to stand up for the oppressed. What joy might resound if we loved the Lord with ALL of our might.

All that to say, I made a decision that day: I don't want to miss an opportunity; I want to fulfill my purpose. Have there been other milestones in my life, in my journey of faith? Sure. And I pray that there will be many more.

I suppose I share all this with you now, because I just learned that Princess Kasune Zulu will be sharing in a local church this Friday, and I am elated to go and see her again. God has brought me oh so far since that afternoon in the Del Taco parking lot, and I know He ain't done with me yet.

Praise God.

One father's take on disciple-making

Several days ago I proposed a radical model of discipleship. As much as we may recognize the need for spiritual coaching, most of us don't have a sense of what true discipleship looks like. (Perhaps it's related our culture - we like "once a week programs" way more than "ways of life")

Anyways, I stumbled upon a related post by Mark Batterson at Evotional.com, in which he describes a year-long discipleship program he has initiated with his son. Can you imagine if all dads were willing to spend one year doing something like this with their children?

Just thought I'd share the three challenges that are part of my year-long discipleship of my son, Parker. I'd love to help some other dads while I'm trying to figure out fatherhood myself! Parker and I signed a covenant and Parker committed to complete a physical challenge, intellectual challenge, and spiritual challenge. If he completes the challenges, I'll take him on a pilgrimage at the end of the year as a celebration of his accomplishment.

For the physical challenge, we are going to train for and run a 10K together. We're eyeing the Capitol Hill Classic next May. I think it will teach discipline and pursuing a common goal creates a unique bond.

For the intellectual challenge, I'm having Parker read a dozen books. I don't have all of them picked out, but I'm going for a cross-section of books that have impacted my life yet are age-appropriate for him.

For the spiritual challenge, we're reading through the New Testament together. I want to teach him spiritual disciplines so we'll also do a forty-day Lent fast. Not sure what we'll fast, but we'll both give up the same thing. And I want to help him come up with a code of conduct and life goals.

Honestly, I don't really know what I'm doing! I just figure that if we sweat together, talk together, and pray together we'll probably grow close together! Sure, I have a plan. But I'm not sure what this will look like six weeks or six months from now. One thing is sure: I'm not going to let our culture raise my son! I'm determined to disciple him myself!

Late-night ramblings of a would-be disciple-maker

Fellow Christians,

why do we think in terms of ‘giving God our time’, when really, He made us, He made time, and He gives us just a bit of it to use for His glory? Who's giving what to who? What’s the point of living a life too busy to make a difference in God’s Kingdom?

What if…

we approached discipleship not as a classroom curriculum but a valuable relationship? Jesus lived, walked, ate, and ministered with his disciples. What would happen if we lived out our faith this way?

Imagine…

if we chose to share a home with a disciple, intentionally sharing all aspects of our life with them? It would be costly… maybe we couldn't spend so much time at work, pouring into a career. Less time to spend on self-fulfilling hobbies. We’d have to develop our own faith, make it worthy of sharing. Maybe get a little flexible with the definitions of “mine” and “yours”.

What if...

over dinner, we dreamed together of what could happen in our church, our community? What if we shared our God-given passions and encouraged one another to follow them shamelessly? What if, over breakfast, we prayed and devoted ourselves to living out His call? What if we cared enough to actually do something uncomfortable?

Could we...

actually equip a generation of Christ-followers to pick up their cross, let their light shine, and show a cynical world true faith not just by what they say, or how they vote, but by what they actually put into practice? Would we change the world by honoring God with more than just our lips?

(Admit it, aren’t you thinking right now: Yes! Someone (else) should definitely do that!)

It's pretty radical, I admit. Maybe even crazy talk. But as Christians, we are all commissioned to go forth and make disciples of all nations. So, if this isn't how you want to make disciples, how are YOU going to do it?

Review: Cost of Discipleship

There is a stack of recently read books on my dining table that I intend to review for you. I've given up on the hope of reviewing them all at once - I don't have the time to write that much - you don't have the time to read it - so, I'll deal with them one at a time. I present to you my first book review.

The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I chose this book as a devotional after noticing how often Christian authors quote Bonhoeffer... why not go to the source? I began reading it in September of last year, when we were in Kibera, Kenya, and finished it about a year later. This is a challenging, deep, thought-provoking book... it should go without saying that I loved it.

Bonhoeffer writes topically - Part One deals with "Grace & Discipleship", Two is a series of commentaries on the Sermon on the Mount, Three is "The Messengers" (the apostles), Four is "The Church of Jesus Christ and the Life of Discipleship".

I especially appreciated the first chapter, "Costly Grace". Here I read:

"Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods... it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it cost God the life of His son... it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us."

These words are indeed challenging, yet inspiring. I can't read this passage without getting chills. This is the relationship I want with Christ. To love Him so much I would go anywhere or pay any cost. To recognize that He paid a dear price in order to save me from my sin; to realize my gratitude every day.

I recommend this book to those who are willing to walk the narrow road. It's not a devotional collection of warm & fuzzy anecdotes, but a challenging call to a life of holiness. The title is apt: true discipleship comes with a cost, a truth for which Bonhoeffer lived and ultimately gave up his life.

Spare the Rod...

The other day, one of my students asked me a very profound question.

He was concerned that a certain thing in his life was becoming more important to him than God, and he knew he needed to adjust his priorities. Not only did he recognize this as the right thing to do, but he also realized that by rebelliously holding on to the idol in his life he ran the risk of God forcibly taking it away from him.

Now days, we don't talk very much about God disciplining His people, despite the very clear teaching of Scripture on the topic. (Heb. 12:5-11, most clearly.) I'm not sure why this is. Maybe because it's not very "seeker-sensitive" to have a God who will hurt you in order to heal you. We live in a culture where even spanking is taboo, so maybe we fear that a God who punishes those He loves for their own good will be unattractive, even to those who believe in Him.

Anyway, the question my young friend came up with was this: "Why is it that God would take this away from me now that I am a Christian, and not take it away from other people around me who don't believe in Him?"

When I heard these words, I smiled ear to ear. This was a deep and important question, inviting the deep truths of Scripture. This is the kind of thing I live for.

I took my young friend back to Exodus. The Hebrew people had just come out of Egypt, crossed through the Red Sea, and seen God smash Pharoah's army something fierce. Now they were encamped at the base of a mountain called Sinai. Moses had gone up the hill to talk with God and figure out what happens next.

God had chosen these people to be His people, and if they were going to be His people, they needed to live a certain way. So, God gave them some guidelines. He started with ten simple rules, and the first of these ten was this: "You shall have no other gods before Me." (Ex. 20:3)

He could have started with any of the hundreds of commands in the law, but He chose to start with this one. Why? Because God does not want to compete for our attention or affection. He wants to be our One and Only. If we are going to be His people, if we are going to belong to Him, then He wants our complete devotion.

It's like me and Katherine. She is my wife. She belongs to me. (Readers with feminist tendencies, please don't be offended by my saying this. Truth is, I belong to her just as much.) So, if Katherine began treating some other man like he was her husband, I would get jealous. And rightly so. She ought not treat another man that way. She's my wife. I have a claim on her.

Now if a woman other than Katherine were to treat some man she was not married to as her husband, I would not react the same way. Sure, I could point out that what she was doing is wrong, but I would not be jealous for her in the same way that I would be for Katherine. Why? Because she's not my wife. I don't have a claim.

If we have put our faith in Jesus, we are God's people. Scripture tells us we were bought with a price, and refers to us as the bride of Christ. So, when we begin to treat something (or someone) other than God as though it were God, when we show a greater level of devotion to it than we do to Him, He gets jealous. And rightly so. We are His.

Now God is not vindictive. He does not do things to harm us maliciously. And I believe with all my heart that He will give you every possible chance to turn away from your idols and come back to Him. But there comes a time when there is no other way. When that time comes, God will take them by force. He will strip you down, and He will remind you that you are His, and He will do it because of His incredible, passionate, intense, scandalous love for you.

And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
"My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son."

--Hebrews 12:5-6

Are You a Disciple?

This is the question that we have been studying with our Sunday night HS small group, over the past month or so. But, before one can began to answer that question, we must first ask, what is a disciple?

We came up with a list of attributes that might describe a disciple:

-loving, selfless, others-centered, caring, serving, bold, willing, consistent, focused on Christ.

We recognized that the life of a disciple may be:

-rewarding, costly, an ongoing process, dangerous, uncomfortable, humbling, exciting.

The relationship between a disciple and God could be described as:

-master/servant, trust, dying to self, pursuing God, obedience, rabbi/student, imitation.

But (and this was my favorite part) can a person be a disciple and not have attained these attributes? What is the basic requirement for disciple-dom? After much discussion, this is what we came up with:

"A person who has chosen to pursue Jesus, to submit to His will, and to develop a Christlike character."

That's pretty good. And challenging.

I realized that though I grew up in a Christian home as a "good kid" who believed in God and liked going to church, I don't think I was truly a disciple until about the age of 22 or 23. It took me that long to realize that I held responsibility for my own growth in the faith. I couldn't rely on a pastor to feed me - I had to pursue Jesus myself. I chose to submit to God's will as a standard response - not on a case by case basis (what freedom this choice brings!).

A large reason for this turning point in my life was the fact that I began to disciple others - and I realized that I wasn't living out myself what was expected of the youth being discipled. I could have given up, but I decided to rise to the challenge, and that's when my faith truly became my own, a living, growing, exciting, vibrant faith.

It's kind of sad to me that in our culture, we have these different 'levels'. So many people believe they are Christians simply because they believe in God. The really 'good' people go to church every Sunday, right? But to pursue a relationship with Jesus, a Christlike character, to submit to His authority, that's Jesus Freak territory reserved for those unfortunate souls called into ministry and missions! Yikes!

The thing is, I don't think God ever intended it to be that way. He wants a relationship with us. I don't think He expects us to be perfect. But He does want us to pursue Him... an adventurous pursuit that will lead us to a life we never believed possible!

So I'll ask you again... are you a disciple?

Back to School

So, I’m a student again.

Last night was the first step in my long-anticipated effort to finish my Master of Divinity degree at Western Seminary in San Jose. It’s a three-year program if you go full-time, but I’ve never been able to do that while keeping my job, my ministry, my wife, and my sanity. So I’m on the 10-year plan, and it looks like I’m on track to graduate on time! Woo!

Anyway, last night was my first time back in a classroom in nearly four years. After the requisite back-to-school shopping trip, I marched off to class, brand-new spiral notebook in-hand, ready to conquer the halls of academia. And truly it was a wonderful time, filled with introductions and course requirements and syllabi; the stuff of a new semester.

The class is entitled, “Growing Disciples Intentionally,” and it focuses on taking the disciple-making command of Jesus in Matthew 28:19-20, unpacking its original first-century context (what the Twelve would have understood the command to mean), and applying it to our 21st-Century world.

I’m sure I’ll talk about class here on the blog from time to time, but if you’re really interested in what I’ll be doing for the next 12 weeks, you can check out the course syllabus.

And feel free to pray for God’s grace in my academic pursuits. I’m fairly confident that I’ll need it this semester.