Okay, gang, I did it. I just now demonstrated followership of CGGC E. D. Lance Finley.
In his eNews six days ago, he attempted to lead a blog conversation through an article entitled, "What is Discipleship?"
I have done what I can do as a member of the CGGC community and honored his request by providing an answer to the question. In recent days, I gave careful thought to the question and answered it in a way that I think is appropriate to the blog format.
My comment is copied at the end of this post.
A few comments about the eNews conversation that has developed in response to Lance's request for conversation:
First, as of now, there is none. No comments have been published on the blog. There may be some awaiting moderation. However, if the request for conversation was sincere, I would have hoped that any comments would be published as soon as possible for the sake of achieving the goal of having a conversation. We know how the blog works. A new article will be entered tomorrow and finding this article will be difficult.
Second, when I entered my comment, I noticed that there'd been 41 Facebook shares of Lance's article. This fascinates me. Apparently, many people thought Lance's article was worth spreading but not responding to on the blog. I hope that the shares of the article produced a lot of response on the various Facebook pages. But, even if they did, so far at least, there's no conversation on the official CGGC blog. I rail against the provider/consumer culture in the CGGC. What I'm afraid we're seeing is that culture doing its thing again and that CGGC people are content merely to consume Lance's latest religious product. If that's the case, we are really and truly broken and we, very seriously, must repent.
Anyway, here's my comment:
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Lance,
This is a relevant and crucial question. I hope that you will follow it up and, in time, provoke a lively conversation which will produce fruit.
In the interim, I have three thoughts.
1. Jesus Himself provides some startling warnings about who CANNOT be His disciple. These warnings provide a baseline. Jesus says that a person who doesn't hate their father and mother, wife and children, and brothers and sisters, even their own life cannot be His disciple. Jesus adds that anyone who does carry his own cross and follow Him cannot be His disciple. And, that anyone who does not give up everything he has can't be His disciple. (Lk. 14:26f)
2. In a more big picture way, I believe that, using the language of the Kingdom, a disciple is someone who makes Jesus their Lord. That is, a disciple is someone who literally and intentionally sets aside their own rights to give Jesus absolute authority over all they DO, so that the teachings and commands of Jesus become the law of their life, above everyone and everything else. To speak of Kingdom means to live with under the stark Lordship of Jesus.
3. For us in the CGGC, I think that its helpful to understand that, in our early days, there was a common understanding of what it meant to follow Jesus for the people who were members of the Church of God. John Winebrenner created a 27 point list of the faith and teachings of the Church of God. In our community, in those first years, this was our standard. It defined both doctrine and the living out of our beliefs. Certainly, times have changed. Much of what is contained in those 27 points no longer applies. However, in those days, people inside and outside the Church of God could agree that those points were not "aspirational." They described the real-world, day to day truth about who we were and what we did. Biblical people often faced the challenges of the present, and the future, by taking stock of the faith and the lives of the men and women of God in the past. I believe that we could...SHOULD...do the same.
Thank you, Lance, for asking the very important question. I truly hope that our body will follow and enter into the conversation you propose.
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