Reflection

 

It's been a bit since the creation of this blog and there hasn't been a traditional post in a while. My wife had her women's prayer breakfast this morning (Ladies in Columbus, check it out here), so I play with our little girl and let my mind wander. Due to a few current events in our lives, I've spent the last few months meditating on the question, "What does the Christian life look like." I wouldn't have phrased it that way in the beginning, but I now realize it's the question I've been asking, or at least should have been asking, all along. I'll get to this in a minute, but to give context, I'd like to explain how the Columbus Bible Study got started in the first place, and how it has caused me to consider these things.

A Quick History Lesson . . .

Just before COVID hit, we had a bible study with a handful of guys studying the life of Peter: who he was and what attributes about him seemed to be the cause (or at least the attraction) for Jesus to name him to be the leader of the 12. In doing so, a few of the guys seemed to take personal stock in growing in their faith and trying to help others, so after the study ended, we decided to think of ways we could create an environment to help train these guys a bit more effectively.

This is when "The Columbus Bible Study" was born. We started an open-invitation Bible study where people would come and hang out, hear Chris or I teach, and then talk after. It was the same set-up we had in college, and all we really knew how to do. After meeting for six months or so, we also decided to invite some of the more faithful people in the group to be more intentional about planning/committing to minister and plan.

Even as I type this now, I don't really know what we were inviting these people to do. I feel bad, in hind sight, as we didn't have much direction. What we had was the desire to help a few individuals be more effective ministers/laborers for Christ. Our mistake was we actually saw them as the ministry. . . to the exclusion of everyone else.

I realize now, what we were doing was trying to make disciples in a vacuum. We weren't doing the work of the ministry. We were so focused on the individuals we we invited to lead the bible study, that they ended up being the only people we were around. Our desire was applied with a mission that was way too narrow, and it proved us to be unqualified for the task itself.

I wouldn't call ourselves hypocrites, as the things we instructed were things we still strive to practice; however, what we practiced painted an incomplete picture of what it means to be a man or women of God! For example, we called our theme verse Matthew 22:37-39, yet if you followed us step for step, you'd only love God and people one-dimensionally.

A one dimensional ministry was doomed for a short life, and a short life it had. Even still, I thank God for this experience. The relationships we formed are very much intact, and the lessons I have learned from this are proving to be invaluable. It's taken me a long time to be able come to a conclusion on what truly happened, and even longer to articulate my thoughts on what I've learned. This whole post is an attempt to do just that.

Asking the Right Question

We were doing things wrong. That much I felt was clear, I just didn't fully know what to do with that. What was wrong? Our methods? The atmosphere? How we communicated? A lack of strong leadership? The answer was most likely a mixture of of some of these things, but not others. I considered the situation from every angle and mentally ran down every rabbit hole; but as time went along, it became clear to me that the best use of my time was to consider my part. What did I do wrong and how was I going to do things differently in the future? In the final analysis, that was really the only question that had a applicable answer. It was this thought process that lead to me to consider a bigger question -- the right question -- what is the Christian life?

I knew the textbook answer: The Christian life is the life of Christ. But that poses a problem - Roman occupied Israel looks a lot different than Columbus, OH in 2022. How are the same principles applied today in the environment He's placed us? I've made it a habit to obsess over the four gospels because I want to be even more obsessed with Jesus; I want his life and words to drench my mind like maple syrup on the waffle of a zealous toddler. In doing so, and considering the questions I pose here, I realize that Jesus's ministry was in not one, but two specific categories:

1. Ministering to the people people.
2. Training the twelve.

When we started TCBS, we wanted to train people. . . but we somehow missed that ministering to people was not just how we were to train, but why we were training them and what they were supposed to be trained for! I realize now that the work itself is ministering to everyone we are around, while devoting the majority of our attention to the individuals who desire to be trained by us.

If we only minister to people, then our ministry dies with us. If we only train individuals, we only show people how to be useful to another individual. Training requires an example of what it means to minister to others. It demands that our ministry would exist even without the individuals we train, for there's no guarantee God gives us individuals to train in the first place!

I think I was operating with the belief that Jesus only healed the sick, opened the eyes of the blind, made the lame walk, loosed the tongue of the mute, cast out the demons of the oppressed, fed the 5,000, cured the lepers, and raised the dead only as a training exercise for the twelve. When I say it out loud, it sounds silly . . . but Jesus came to do these things. He came so that we all may see signs and wonders, less we wouldn't believe. He came to preach the good news to the poor, proclaim release to the prisoners, and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. This literally was the prophesied work of the Messiah.

I somehow was so focused on the what that I missed the why. John 17 gives us a pretty clear understanding of Jesus's focus: the training of the twelve. Training other people, making disciples, is undisputedly the what. At the end of the chapter he tells us the why - so that we might be with Him and be one as He and the Father are one.

It's impossible to "be one" when all we do is spend time with a small subset of people God gives us to train. We are to do the work of the ministry, and bring people along. That's what it means to train people in Christ. And together: The work of the ministry, and the training of men/women, makes up what I believe to be the Christian life.

My next study is to understand more fully what "the work of the ministry" is - but without a proper Bible Study, my current impression is that it's to spend time helping everyone who is willing to listen to us about Jesus. To serve people by meeting the needs we are able to see, and to treat others with love, compassion, and empathy. To invite people into our lives to see what it means to follow Jesus, and to do this all the more as we see the day drawing near.