On apprenticeship to Jesus.
We have a simple vision statement: Following Jesus together for the flourishing of the city. This statement consists of three distinct yet overlapping ideas. Let’s unpack them one at a time.
“Following Jesus…”
In Mark’s Gospel he writes this: “As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him.”
The language of following Jesus comes directly from Jesus. What was previously the most exclusive invitation from a Rabbi at that time, becomes Jesus’ most common invitation. To the curious, the rich young ruler, tax collectors, Pharisees, and everyone in between he offers the same invitation: “Come, follow me”. Or rather, “Come be my disciple.”
When you hear the word disciple, what comes to mind? For some, the word implies learning about God and studying the Bible. The emphasis is belief. For others, it implies living rightly and following all of Jesus’ commands. The emphasis is behaviour. For others, the word disciple is all about sharing the Gospel and evangelism. The emphasis is on mission.
These are all helpful, but incomplete. John Mark Comer suggests a better word might be the word apprentice. He writes this: Apprenticeship to Jesus—that is, following Jesus—is a whole-life process of being with Jesus for the purpose of becoming like him and carrying on his work in the world.”
Notice it’s a whole-life thing. Not a Sunday thing or a spiritual thing. And notice it’s a process. Not an event, a program or a one-time commitment. His simple definition of what it means to follow Jesus is this: Be with Jesus, become like him, and do as he did. These three ideas help clarify the big concept we call discipleship and are key for how we orient our lives.
“…together…”
The second piece of our vision is this word together. When Jesus invites his disciples to follow him, he also invites them into a community. You cannot separate the two. We learn to be with Jesus, become like him, and do as he did within the context of community.
There’s a deep longing for authentic community today as more people than ever describe having nobody to confide in. Community is an easy and attractive ideal for a new church to major on. However, the dream and vision and ideal of community is often much different than the reality of living in community. Community is often the place where we get wounded. It’s messy, awkward, and sometimes painful. The temptation is to keep our distance, preferring small talk on a Sunday over vulnerability and honesty, leaving us with many acquaintances but few who know us deeply.
But the promise of Jesus is that as we learn to do life together, as we love one another deeply, Jesus is revealed. He says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
This doesn’t mean we all know everything about everyone. More likely, it means going deeper with a smaller group. Gathering around a table as much as we gather around a stage, learning to live and love like family.
“…for the flourishing of the city.”
There’s two ways the church often engages with culture. The first is to withdraw. The idea here is that society is broken and corrupt, and that in order to be faithful to Jesus we must hunker down with our Bibles and withdraw.
The other idea is to wage war with the culture. Rather than withdraw, this strategy seeks to dominate or combat the culture through politics, power, or control.
And even another way is to accommodate the culture. We slowly adopt cultural practices, values and ideals in an effort to be relevant or accepted.
But there’s another way. The prophet Jeremiah wrote this to a people living in exile, wondering how to be faithful to God in a foreign land: “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.”
The word “prosper” could also be translated “flourish”, so it could read as “Seek the peace and flourishing of the city…”
This is the posture we’re adopting. Yes, there are all sorts of concerning cultural ideologies today. But there are also beautiful parts of our culture. We don’t endorse it all, adopt it all, but nor do we think we should be known primarily for what we’re against.
We want to be known for being courageously faithful to Jesus and his teaching, while seeking the peace and the flourishing of our city. It’s what David Fitch gets at in his book “Faithful Presence” or what Jon Tyson calls a “creative minority”. A people of blessing. Salt and light.
How do we do that? It’s not primarily through political, social or economic means. Rather, we do this by—you guessed it—following Jesus together. And we’ve come full circle.
Heath Hardesty put it this way: “Apprenticeship to Jesus is the way of flourishing in a fragmented world.”
Even more boldly Dallas Willard writes: “There is no problem in human life that apprenticeship to Jesus cannot solve.”
That’s a really big claim, but it’s a true claim. Following Jesus necessarily turn us outward to our neighbours, and coworkers. To the poor, the broken, and those in need both here and abroad. If we are becoming more like Jesus we are necessarily becoming more aware of our neighbour.
Discipleship to Jesus is the way we become people of blessing.
