Doug Paul
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12 years ago @ - Which Comes First: Str... · 0 replies · +3 points
12 years ago @ - The Cost of Non-Discip... · 0 replies · +2 points
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12 years ago @ - Questions for Self-Exa... · 0 replies · +1 points
12 years ago @ lifeasmission - If the Missional Movem... · 0 replies · +1 points
12 years ago @ lifeasmission - My (Ana)baptism · 0 replies · +1 points
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12 years ago @ - Why We Don't Make Disc... · 0 replies · +1 points
12 years ago @ lifeasmission - The Place of Salvation... · 1 reply · +1 points
I promise. I'm done now.
12 years ago @ lifeasmission - The Place of Salvation... · 1 reply · +1 points
1) Jesus did have very simple and sticky language to proclaim the Gospel: "The Kingdom is here." Four easy words that everyone could understand. The problem is I haven't seen any proclamation that even comes close to expressing the type of Good News this actually is. The proclamation is a statement about reality. Some have expressed the Good News as "you don't have to go to hell anymore." While Good News, it's not the same Good News as Jesus offered. We need to be able to same the EXACT SAME THING about reality that Jesus said in a way that truly connects.
2) The visuals/pictures/stories really are ways of showing HOW to live in the reality of this Good News. I think that's an important distinction. It's all about "the how." Jesus had parables telling us how to live in the Kingdom. They were simple and sticky. The current penal substitutionary stuff has things like the 4 Spiritual Laws and the picture of the gap between you and God with the cross as the bridge. Where are our images/stories/pictures that tell us HOW to live in the Kingdom?
3) Here's why I think the language piece is so crucial and gets us beyond just assenting to beliefs in our mind: The language creates the framework for why discipleship is a non-negotiable. The missing link to this entire discussion is discipleship. Jesus' whole premise was that discipleship was the process of learning to live in the Kingdom. Discipleship was how the Good News would actually mean something to our life and actually be "Good News" to us.
I know there are more and more people talking about the Kingdom and I also know there are a lot of the same people who don't have communities who live in the Kingdom. But I don't think not focusing on language and choosing to live it solves the problem. The problem is what we have people who don't know how to be discipled because they've never been discipled.
I swear I sound like a broken record, but the reason we have a discipleship problem is because the lingual frameworks for the Good News meant that discipleship was optional, creating a whole group of pastors who opted out of personal discipleship and opted into "building church" as the main thing. I'm absolutely convinced of this.
The reason we now have people reading Dallas Willard or any of the other great writers talking about Kingdom-life but not having communities living in it is because they don't know how to live in it. They actually need someone to disciple them. Having the right intellectual framework won't get them there. They need to actually see it in front of them in real life flesh and blood and be invested in by someone whose life looks a lot like Jesus.
So it would seem we need parallel tracks:
1) We need to come up with ways that the people leading current church communities who talk about the Kingdom can actually be discipled.
2) We need language to talk about the Kingdom in meaningful ways (with ways that are simple and sticky like Jesus did it) who are disciples who live it out serving as prophetic leaders and communities for everyone else.
Geez. Longest comment ever...and I've left some stuff out too!