Thoughts from CALLED

Mark Waltz has one of the better blogs that I spend time with, at least in my journeys across the web anyway. Mark recently posted some thoughts from Kary Oberbruner and his new book. For those of you who call TSCC home, this should really resonate with what our Lead Pastor, Greg McBride, has been teaching us concerning the Kingdom. And for my homies in our Small Group, I hope you can hear Ray Vander Laan saying almost these exact things! Very cool stuff!

Hopefully, Mark won't be offended that I am cutting/pasting his post below:

In his book CALLED: Becoming Who You Were Born to Be, Kary Oberbruner lays out a fundamental paradigm shift in discipleship. He observes that a common understanding of discipleship includes things like:

* Accept Jesus and ask him into your heart.
* Don't do bad things now.
* Withdraw from culture.
* Hang out with Christians.
* Go to church.
* Read your Bible and pray.
* Be happy that you are saved and not going to hell.
* Tell other people about how happy they can be if they follow those seven steps.

He challenges that depiction of a passionless life, suggesting that Jesus actually calls us in this way:

* I want your whole life - everything - including your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
* I want to form myself in you.
* I want to transform you and then have you transform culture.
* I want you to be in the world as I was.
* I want you to be the church, the incarnation of me.
* I want you to embody the Word to others.
* I am giving you abundant life now and will do so throughout eternity.
* Be my hands and feet in this world and see people as people, not projects to convert.

I'm enjoying Kary's careful approach in both his books (see his first - The Journey Towards Relevance - here as well). Kary has a third book due in October: The Fine-line: How to Live in the World and not of It.