Discipleship

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TheEditor
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Re: Discipleship

Post by TheEditor » Sun Jul 06, 2014 11:48 am

Hi JR,

I think we agree here. :o

I won't deprecate or take away the benefit that can come from a larger group setting. But when it comes to true fellowship, I see it as more akin to a "family". I can intimately know my immediate family. I can nearly intimately know a handful of others. But that concept becomes stretched beyond reason when we try to see that in a large group. You just can't have that kind of intimacy in that setting. It's no problem to have several family groups join together for mutual encouragement. There can be good times and benefits from the "large family gathering". But some confuse the larger setting for the intimate one. And all churches are like this, it's just the degrees that are different.

My feeling on the institutional church generally is this; It is like an innoculate--it gives you just enough of the real thing, to keep you from having it.

Regards, Brenden.
[color=#0000FF][b]"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."[/b][/color]

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mattrose
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Re: Discipleship

Post by mattrose » Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:40 pm

Paidion wrote:Hi Matt,

Just wondering whether these words of Jesus have any relevance to your discipleship program:

"...whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14:33)
Yes, of course. I consider this first to be a key one for both the GROW and SERVE categories.

Also of course, I think it is clear that the passage is about both a willingness to give up anything AND a recognition that everything one has truly belongs to God... but not necessarily physically giving up one's possessions (in most cases, it seems, that is not what is being commanded).

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mattrose
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Re: Discipleship

Post by mattrose » Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:43 pm

jriccitelli wrote:Amen Matt!
I would add 3 marks to your list also:
The disciples ate (communed, and walked) together.
The disciples knew one another.
The disciples loved one another.
I think you make a good point about the potential risk of missing true fellowship in my list. This is the result of the fact that I am just 1 of the pastors in the church and others are in charge of fellowship. But I see my list as ABLE to cover it all, in which case I would expand the contents of WORSHIP, GROW and SERVE to include the elements of fellowship that you mentioned.

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mattrose
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Re: Discipleship

Post by mattrose » Sun Jul 06, 2014 4:45 pm

nancyer wrote:
Thank you Matt. Your list and definitions are a big help in my own study and struggles on what it is to be a disciple for Christ. #7 is the hardest for me in that I am not great at speaking out to others (unless they approach me). It's the area I want most to work on.
I think that some are gifted to be evangelists, but all are called to be witnesses.

I differentiate these terms in the following way. Evangelists are outspoken. They verbally spread the Gospel to others. Witnesses are not necessarily outspoken. They model Christ to the surrounding community. A church, as a whole, is to be a witness to its community. A church sends out certain individuals who are evangelists.

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