discipleship = modeling

if we desire to make disciples in the footsteps of Jesus, we must begin by
allowing people to see our lives. We must first model the desired behavior. Let
me say it again. The proper answer to almost all our disciple-making needs is to
say “come follow me”. That is the call to discipleship. “Come and learn from
me”. This phrase means learn from my example. Certainly there is a place for
communication and the use of the abstract but the priority is Observe, Imitate
and then Discussion.

Temptation of Christ and Relationship with God

From http://tabletalk.typepad.com/tabletalk/2005/01/mystery.html (the whole post is more or less about the Temptation of Christ in Mat. 4 and post-modernity)

Temptation is often in the guise of something good not bad, and what is good is often in the form of what might appear dull, boring or even bad itself.

Then on the next post (http://tabletalk.typepad.com/tabletalk/2005/01/making_room_for.html) he said something interesting:

Relationships are not governed by rules but by presence. Each time we offer a new device for being close to God, we deceive the people we offer the device to. This is part of the challenge, the mystery and the joy. I cannot plumb the depths of God. I'll never figure God out.

But the whole post is about how modern church get lazy and try to use programs to evangelize instead of be the instrument as God intended...

Take off your shoes. daddy!

Got this story from Lisa' Xanga:

...Garrett led in a short time of worship. As he was leading, he began to
share about how tough it had been coming home from work, and heading right back
out the door to go and study for school. For months on end he would walk in for
dinner and then leave without even taking off his shoes. Two months ago Judah,
Garrett's 2 year old son, saw his daddy come home for dinner. Judah
wrapped his arms around his dad and asked him to take off his shoes. He knew
that if his dad took off his shoes that would mean he was going to stay. Garrett
hugged Judah told him, "soon buddy school is almost over." As Garrett was
sharing the story, Judah walked up on stage repeating over and over, "take off
your shoes dad, take off your shoes." He wrapped his arms around his dad's leg,
and Garrett began to tear up as he said, "schoo! l's over little guy, I'm
taking off my shoes. Daddy is taking off his shoes." My prayer for this week is
that you and I will take time to take off our shoes. Whether we need to spend
some quality time with our families, our friends, or with the Lord. Please pray
that I will take the time to take off my shoes every day this week...

Parable of the Doughnuts

Imagine someone whose weakness is eating doughnuts. His doctor says, "No
more doughnuts." He vows to God, "No more doughnuts." He promises his family "No more doughnuts." He calls the church and gets on the prayer chain. He even goes to a doughnut deliverance ministry to have the demon of doughnut desire cast out of him.

Here's a guy who means business, right?

But then what does he do? Well, if he's like a lot of us, he goes right on reading about doughnuts, listening to doughnut music, and watching television programs about making doughnuts. He spends his time with other doughnut lovers talking about doughnuts, joking about doughnuts at the office, where he often glances at the doughnut calendars on the wall. He looks through the newspaper for doughnut coupons and subscribes to Doughnut Desires, with its glossy, color photos.

It's not long before he's driving to work the long way that "just happens" to go by a doughnut shop. He rolls down the window and inhales. Pretty soon he's buying the morning paper from the rack right outside the doughnut shop. He's lingering just long enough to check out doughnuts through the window.

Then he remembers he has to make a phone call, and hey, what do you know, the doughnut shop has a pay phone. And since he's there anyway, why not have a cup of coffee?

Now, remember, this man has no intention of breaking his vow and eating doughnuts. But the totally predictable and inevitable result is—what? That he will give in and eat doughnuts!

And can't you just hear his sad lament? "What went wrong? I prayed! I asked others to pray. I asked God for deliverance. Why try? I give up. You do your best and look what happens!"

Job says, "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at girls." (Job 31:1) Job made a commitment to guard his heart by guarding his eyes. If we learn nothing else from the parable of the Doughnuts, we should learn that sincere intentions, and even prayers, are not enough. To have victory over temptation we must have clear goals and sound strategies, and we must diligently carry them out.

Randy Alcorn

Fun Fun Fun from Sunday School

A Sunday school teacher was telling her class the story of the Good Samaritan, in which a man was beaten, robbed and left for dead. She described the
situation in vivid detail so her students would catch the drama.
Then, she asked the class, "If you saw a person lying on the roadside, all wounded and bleeding, what would you do?" A thoughtful little girl broke the hushed silence, "I think I'd throw up."



STORY OF ELIJAH The Sunday school teacher was carefully explaining the
story of Elijah the Prophet and the false prophets of Baal. She explained
how Elijah built the altar, put wood upon it, cut the steer in pieces, and
laid it upon the altar. And then, Elijah commanded the people of God to fill
four barrels of water and pour it over the altar. He had them do this four
times. "Now," said the teacher, "can anyone in the class tell me why the
Lord would have Elijah pour water over the steer on the altar?" A little
girl in the back of the room started waving her hand, "I know, I know," she
said, "to make the gravy!"



LOT'S WIFE The Sunday School teacher was describing how Lot's wife looked
back and turned into a pillar of salt, when little Johnny interrupted, "My
Mummy looked back once, while she was DRIVING," he announced triumphantly,
"and she turned into a telephone pole!"



DID NOAH FISH? A Sunday school teacher asked, "Johnny, do you think Noah
did a lot of fishing when he was on the Ark?" "No," replied Johnny. "How
could he, with just two worms."



POOR LION A Sunday school teacher was telling the youngsters about Daniel
and the Lions Den. She had a picture of Daniel standing, brave and
confident, with a group of lions around him. One little girl started to cry.
The teacher said, "Don't cry. The lions are not going to eat Daniel."
The girl said, "That's not what I'm crying about. That little lion, over in
the corner, isn't going to get any food."



HIGHER POWER A Sunday school teacher said to her children, "We have been
learning how powerful kings and queens were in Bible times. But, there is a
higher power Can anybody tell me what it is?" One child blurted out, "Aces!"



SUNDAY SCHOOL Nine year old Joey, was asked by his mother what he had
learned in Sunday school. "Well, Mom, our teacher told us how God sent Moses
behind enemy lines on a rescue mission to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.
When he got to the Red Sea, he had his engineers build a pontoon bridge and
all the people walked across safely. Then, he used his walkie-talkie to
radio headquarters for reinforcements. They sent bombers to blow up the
bridge and all the Israelites were saved." "Now, Joey, is that really what
your teacher taught you?" his mother asked. "Well, no, Mom. But, if I told
it the way the teacher did, you'd never believe it!"



THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD A Sunday School teacher decided to have her young
class memorize one of the most quoted passages in the Bible; Psalm 23. She
gave the youngsters a month to learn the verse. Little Bobby was excited
about the task. But, he just couldn't remember the Psalm. After much
practice, he could barely get past the first line. On the day that the kids
were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Bobby was so
nervous. When it was his turn, he stepped up to the microphone and said
proudly, "The Lord is my shepherd and that's all I need to know!"

NT Wright on the Tsunami

The ancient Jewish writers saw the sea as evil. It floods and destroys the world. It stands between the Israelites and freedom. It rages horribly; monsters come out of it. There is a hint that God had to overcome the dark primal waters in order to create the world in the first place.

Ancient symbols spring into unwelcome new life. The murderous mountain of water that charged across the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day rivals the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 in its deadly power. Lisbon caused a sea-change in the Enlightenment itself: before it, Bishop Butler could gaze at the natural world and infer Christian theology, but Lisbon drove a wedge between God and the world, giving fresh impetus to the idea of God as an absentee landlord and then, not long after, a mere absentee. Since then, it has been assumed that "God" has a responsibility to stop things like earthquakes and tidal waves; if He doesn't, they constitute a standing disproof. What's the point in saying "The heavens declare the glory of God", if tidal waves declare His incompetence? Western culture hasn't advanced much beyond that sterile stand-off. This week's horror won't change it any more than did the man-made nightmare of 11 September 2001.

People today assume that a "religious" view of life must address "the problem of evil", the toughest part of which is so-called "natural evil". Evil isn't as bad as it seems, say some; or it's all someone's fault (or, with natural evil, Satan's fault); or it offers a chance for greater moral virtue (courage, and so on). One major tsunami does to theories like that what it does to buildings and people: it crushes them to matchwood.

In a culture heavily influenced by Judaism and Christianity, one might have hoped that the Bible would play a part in the discussion. People seem to assume that it's irrelevant. The general view is that the Bible offers an escape from the world into a personal religion. But that view is itself the result of the Enlightenment's reductionism.

The Bible itself resists such treatment. It constantly acknowledges evil - "human" and "natural" alike - as a terrible reality. It doesn't try to minimize it, to explain that good will come of it, or to blame someone (reactions which correspond uncomfortably closely to the excuses offered by immoral or warmongering politicians). It tells a story about the Creator's plan to put the world to rights, a plan which involves a people who are themselves part of the problem as well as the bearers of the solution.

That people, the family of Israel, are brought through the sea to the promised land, despite grumbling on the way. Through long years of Babylonian exile, they cry out for a new Exodus, for their God again to overrule the mighty waters from which came the monsters of pagan empire. This is the people whose prophets tell of God's intention to deal with evil itself, so that the wolf and the lamb would lie down together, and the earth be awash with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. The healing of creation will result from the Servant of the Lord going down to the depths, taking evil's weight on to himself, exhausting its power.

When the early Christians wrote about Jesus, this was the story they believed themselves to be telling. They didn't see him as simply a teacher, a moral example, or even as one who saved people from a doomed world. They told his story as the point where the dark forces of chaos converged, in the cynical politics of Herod and Pilate, the bitter fanaticism of the Pharisees, the wild shrieks of diseased souls, the sudden storms on the lake. They invite us to see his death on the analogy of Jonah's being thrown into the sea, there to be swallowed by the monster called Death. They insist that in this death God has taken upon Himself the full force of the world's evil. As a sign of that, the final book of the Bible declares that in the new world, now already begun with his resurrection, there will be no more sea.

Saying this precisely does not give Christian theology an easy explanation ("Oh, that's all right then") for the continuing presence of evil in the world. On the contrary, it tells a story about Jesus's own sense of abandonment, and thereby encourages us to embrace the same sense of helpless involvement in the sorrow of the world, as the means by which the world is to be healed. Those who work for justice, reconciliation and peace will know that sense, and perhaps, occasionally, that healing.

This isn't the kind of answer that the Enlightenment wanted. But maybe, as we launch into the deep waters of another new year, it is the kind of vocation we ought to embrace in place of shallow analysis and shrill reaction.

Add to the Light

I got this story from Tod's blog...

There is an old story, maybe even apocryphal is told of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, who read in the gospel of Luke, Jesus’ command to give to the poor and care for the needy and asked the same question.

He was so deeply moved that he emptied his bank account, took the money to the poorest section of town and gave it all away in one lavish act. That night he went home and slept soundly, content that he had done well.

The next day he went back to that poor section of town and realized that nothing had changed. His money had been spent but there were still poor people, and many had used his handouts for nothing more than a big night of drinking and debauchery.

So Tolstoy then declared that it was impossible to truly solve the world problems with one big gesture but that from then on he would seek “to add his light to the sum of light in the world.”