We are working toward becoming one church community united by common learning goals, even as we are scattered commuting people.
This week we’re studying a passage from Ephesians that includes this line: “until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.”
We want to highlight the process involved. The aim is to become more and more like Jesus, not just in outward appearance, but completely, the “full stature”. This is clearly not instant, but a maturing process, since no one on this earth has ever been completely like Jesus.
I have shared a few stories from when I studied engineering, and the importance of learning problem solving and analysis. That principle can be applied to any scenario, even the unprecedented and complex ones.
Discipleship is about theological problem solving in similarly complex and unexpected situations. Paul was involved in discipleship to help his church members avoid being thrown around by every idea, doctrine like a small boat in wind and waves.
Contrast a road and ocean. Some want faith to be a roadway, with clear boundaries, signs, maps and directions to follow. But the problem is that real life is much more like an ocean, where you can’t give a plan for every scenario , but follow a compass heading with a specific end in mind, but the actual journey will be less strictly defined. This is the pursuit of discipleship, to set a compass heading of what the bible calls “Christlikeness” – becoming like Jesus Christ. We will get there by navigating all sorts of wind and wave action, and keeping focused on the end goal.
This is a series on church community, becoming like family. Discipleship is a family effort, done in a group. I remember engineering projects that would have been impossible for me to do it alone – I knew one aspect of the project, while others knew theirs, and together we accomplished something greater than any one of us could do on our own.
In the same way, we aren’t meant to grow as a disciple alone. We need challenge, encouragement, and complementary gifts like the five we saw yesterday.
Question: Are you more comfortable in a spiritual ocean or roadway? What part of life feels like an ocean today?
Coffee Hours this Week:
Have questions about the challenges, do you want to meet others exploring the same content, or connect with Ryan?
Join us for our coffee shop drop-in tonight, Wednesay, October 30th from 7:30pm-9:00pm at the Starbucks in the Ajax Chapters. Look for Ryan Sim in the drink line, or a Redeem the Commute postcard on a table.
If you know in advance that you’re coming, please RSVP here
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I recently read Chris Hadfield’s book – An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth. Most of us know Hadfield the astronaut – and assume that being an astronaut involves a lot of adrenaline, courage, all focused on the time from takeoff to landing.
But in his book, he tries to broaden our view of astronauts, so we don’t just focus on those few days in space. HE talks about a number of the practices that he’s used in his lifetime…all in preparation for going to space, and debriefing afterwards.
For example, he says he sweats the small stuff, always thinking about the details of how he’d react to an emergency before it happens. He touts the power of negative thinking – he would always spend hours going over his failures with others, to ensure they didn’t happen again.
He studied like crazy - his kids made fun of him for having more homework, and taking it more seriously than they did! All this, in addition to the need for physical fitness and wellbeing with constant trips to the doctor, trying to avoid illness and injury.
It wasn’t glamorous or easy, his life sounds like it’s been so single-mindedly focused on making it to space that it was very boring in many other ways, thanks in part to these practices.
Those kids of practices are what prepared him for his mission going to the space station, so when things went wrong, he was prepared.
This kind of thinking is valuable not just for space travel. Any big challenge needs preparation, and if the challenge is big enough, we need to learn new routines, rituals and practices well in advance, to change who we are in sustainable ways, focusing ourselves on being ready for the task ahead.
That’s why we’re exploring the book of Acts right now to understand the first followers of Jesus as pioneers, and figure out how they organized themselves as a church community. That was a big mission, and they needed some practices as well, to help prepare them for the challenges ahead.
Question: What kind of practices do you think would be essential to being a follower of Jesus?
