my Blue trike Life

walkabout, on a journey to a greater destination

Monday, February 06, 2006

to make authentic disciples of Jesus

so now i am reading a new book, Promoting The Gospel, by John Dickson, a good Sydney Anglican guy who i have a lot of respect for as a follower of Jesus. so i read his mini-chapter introduction and pretty much agreed with what he had to say on most stuff. but as i lay along the two seater coach with my head on one end and my feet dangling off the end of the other, the one thing i could think was yeah but if i proclaim the gospel with someone and they respond to it wanting to follow Jesus, then i have this worry, and it is about the church community and that they would instead of ending up following Jesus, they will end up following the ways of that church community. if you don't get the distinction that i am trying to make here, it is that i think a lot of church communities are not doing what Jesus was or wanted. that when someone joins a church that they are told that they should come to the service on Sunday, the home group on Wednesday, the church social group on Friday night and hang out with your new christian friends on Saturday, oh and because your new to this stuff we will have "how to be a good christian classes" on Thursday afternoons, so you can forget anything you used to know, your now a christian, we don't do anything else that doesn't involve other christians, sport, hobbies, friends, you don't need them anymore you have us. no i am not joking i have seen it happen time and again, till i have either seen the person lose touch with the rest of the wordly and grown a christian bubble (oh i forgot to mention only listening to music that is about God and even on radio, and ditto if you can get "christian" TV too), or they get so bored with how not like the Jesus they first heard about and how much christians say and little that happens that they totally walk away from the faith that they began this journey with, after all it didn't seem any better than what the rest of religions reckon, it never lived up to what they said it was. now while this may sound like i am making an excuse for not sharing the gospel and that includes all what Jesus did from birth to ascention, i am making a good reason. but it will never stop me, and there never is an excuse. it has to be apart of me. and what i really want to say is, how can we get around all the imperfections of churches'? to make authentic disciples of Jesus.

1 Comments:

  • At 09 February, 2006 17:42, Blogger kelgell said…

    Well, you could always make it clear they are choosing Jesus not "church". And that "church" isn't perfect and exactly how things should be. Hopefully they find or are directed to a church that encourages the personal journey and discovery. But i suppose the most part is up to God and the individual. And I guess the fact that we are to keep growing in our following of Jesus and encourage others to do the same.

     

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