Thursday 17 February 2011

Baptist Times: Whole-life Discipleship (Feb 2011)

A Vision for Discipleship
Albert drives buses. He’s passionate about serving people, extending those courtesies that make life easier – waiting for the person who’s still running to the stop; exercising patience with those who’ve lost theirs. He’s also bothered about the other drivers in the depot. When I met him he was about to return to work following a short strike during which only five drivers had crossed the picket line. ‘My job tomorrow,’ he said, ‘is to be a peacemaker. That’s why I’m here.’ Albert has a vision to make a difference in his place of work. Quietly spoken, with a sense of humour, a diplomat and a good listener, Albert deploys that gifting by actively engaging with the relational tensions of his workplace. Along the way he hopes to drive lots of people safely from A to B, enable as many as possible to experience grace through his attention to their needs, and to speak about Jesus as the one who inspires his vision for a life worth living.

What about you? What’s shaping your vision for your own life?
One of the ways we might approach this question is to take seriously the places where we spend most of our time. That’s what Jesus did. John 1:14 tells us that Jesus “came and lived among them…”  In other words he came to live in a fixed time and place. It mattered where he was. This was the context in which he could fulfil his unique and specific life calling in obedience to his Father.
Jesus was sent to a tiny geographic area on our planet for a limited amount of time, but with a purpose. He came to seek and to save the lost. He came to model an alternative way of life and relationships. He came to declare by word and deed that the kingdom of God had come. He ate
and drank, he taught and healed, he talked and cried, he worked and slept, he prayed and celebrated. He lived fully and purposefully in that moment and in that place and he invited his disciples to do likewise.
Where we are matters. Where we spend the majority of our time in an ordinary week matters to God. So where is that for you - work, home, college, in your community, or somewhere else? Can you make a difference there? On the ‘frontline’ in daily life, in your ‘crossing places’ with non believers?
The Message translation of Galatians 6:4 puts the challenge succinctly,
‘Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that.’
God weaves the threads of our life, our self and our context into a tapestry that displays the wonder of his mission as we ask questions and listen, bring him our dilemmas, search the Scriptures, and exercise boldness in words and deeds on the frontline.
It’s easy to be overly swayed by other people’s expectations or intimidated by the brilliance of other people’s gifting. Allowing such forces to mould us can lead to bitterness or resentment or a growing sense of inadequacy. The truth is: you are one in whom Christ dwells and in whom he delights, his masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10), a reflection of the heart and the mind and the creative genius of the Maker. We’re not all called to be diplomats or drivers. But through our gifting and our growth in Christ-likeness on the frontline we will make a difference wherever we are day by day. So what’s your vision for your discipleship these days?
Tracy Cotterell

Wednesday 2 February 2011

Hirsch & Ford: Right Here, Right Now

The ever prolific South African missiologist Alan Hirsch has published his latest book Right Here, Right Now: Everyday Mission for Everyday People co-authored with Lance Ford and we are looking forward to reading it. The book seeks to be an exploration of whole-life discipleship, a corrective to the often overlooked element of the missional church conversation: that missional communities need to be made up of missional people.

As the authors put it:
This book is written to equip all believers and to serve as a guide in the journey of living as salt and light in the name of Jesus Christ, regardless of situation, vocation or location. It is to take the academic concept of missional and make it accessible to the whole body of Christ. We believe it belongs to the whole church and must somehow be factored into the equation of discipleship, spirituality, and church at every level of our experience if we are going to be the people God has made us to be.
The book is accompanied by an excellent range of online resources at righthererightnowbook.com