The Human Problem pt. 3: Growing Up

Growing up isn't fun, it's hard work.  Which is why in America it's become optional to grow up. Don't want to be a dad?  Leave your family.  Don't want to commit? Sleep around.  Don't want to work hard and earn your living? Lie, cheat, and steal.  It seems I may have already shown my hand here, but all you have to do is watch TV for a few minutes and you begin to understand what is really important to this culture: immature views and practices of sex, money, and power. And so as Christians we're faced with a problem because growing up is essentially what discipleship is about: helping somebody who is immature in the ways of God and leading them towards maturity. It should come as no surprise then that the work of discipleship is of great importance right now. People are being lied to on a constant basis by the prevailing culture and it is our duty as Christians to steer them in the right direction.  This has been and will always be the work of the Church.

There are those who would argue that in order to be successful at discipleship in today's culture we have to come up with a new, cutting edge way of doing it because that's what people respond to.  And to a point they may be right, people do tend to respond to the newest thing out there.  But then people also often ditch what was new last year for what is new today, just look at the whole smart phone business.

I believe that discipleship is best done in loving relationships built over time.  This is not a new concept, in fact it's about as old as it gets.  But it works and has worked for centuries.  It's not culturally based, it's about connecting one human to another and then to God.  It's about uncovering what makes us unique as humans, the fact that we were made in God's image.

So forgive me for not blowing your mind with something new and magnificent. But in this case I'm sticking with tradition.

I always figure if this is how Jesus did it then it's probably a good way to go.

Who are you discipling? Who is discipling you?

[This is part 3 in a series on ''The Human Problem']