Baptist Times: Whole-life Discipleship (Article 2)

LICC has been asked to contribute a series of articles to the Baptist Times exploring themes in whole-life discipleship. In the second of the series Mark Greene explores a vision for human flourishing...

Flourishing from Eden to Exeter
Here’s a question:



Why does God create Adam on Day 6? Why doesn’t he create him on Day 1?


And what has that to do with whole-life discipleship?


Well, if God had created Adam on Day 1 it would have been dark and there would have been nowhere for him to stand.


In fact, by the time God creates Adam everything is ready for him. There’s air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, productive work to pursue and it’s beautiful. What has God done? He has created a context for human flourishing. That’s the big project.


That’s what a parent or a single person is trying to do in their home – trying to create a context for the flourishing of those who live and visit. That’s what a good manager does in a company, tries to create a context in which people can flourish. As one senior manager put it; “My job is to roll the rocks off the runway so other people can soar.” That’s what a pastor is trying to do in a church, trying to create a context in which people can flourish in Christ.


Certainly the Fall has made that more difficult but God’s primary purpose has not changed. Christ, after all, is not only described as co-creator of all things: “For by him all things were created” (Colossians 1:16)


He is described as the one through whom “all things” are reconciled:


“and through him to reconcile all things to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:20)


All things, not just some things.


This is the wonder and glory of God’s plan in Christ – not a partial salvation, not an interim solution, but a definitive, once and for all, all sufficient, redemptive sacrifice that promises the utter renewal of all things.


Tony Campolo, the American Christian social activist, put it this way,


“Evangelism is an invitation to join a movement to change the world.”


Of course, evangelism is more than that, but it is never less.


This is the big project we are all involved in – working with God to create a context for human flourishing in Him, with him, for Him, to His glory… wherever we are, day by day.


That may sound all very academic but it works out in very concrete ways, in ordinary situations.


So, a while back, a scientist called Anita pondered the lack of positive relationships in her workplace. Every day, the “team” would come in, suit up in white and scurry like moles into the single-person labs that the purity of their research required. Occasionally one of them would scuttle out to replenish a coffee cup and then scamper back. No one talked to each other, no one shared ideas about the research, no one really had much fun. So Anita decided to do an experiment and announced that on Friday, she would make coffee for everyone at 10:30 and she would bring chocolate biscuits.


And so it was that, on Friday at 10:30, the scientists, lured by chocolate, scampered out of their single-unit labs, into Anita’s benevolent conversational trap. And talked about life, about the news, and, of course, about their research. And so Friday by Friday, calorie by calorie, the “team” became more of a team.


What might you do in your context to combat something that inhibits people flourishing? Is your context full of gossip? Then practice affirmation. Is it full of selfishness? Then suggest something that helps people think of others – getting together to give to a particular charity, for example. In sum, prayerfully, look for an antidote that might, over time, lead to people experiencing Jesus’ ways. As God puts it to the exiles in Babylon (Jeremiah 29:7): “Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.”