Did Jesus ever encourage another person to be a leader? Obviously he was one himself, and his B-team (at best) of disciples ended up doing a pretty remarkable job of leadership, considering that after only three years of having Jesus around, they founded the most influential movement in world history. Definite overachievers. But did Jesus ever talk to them about leadership? I know he taught that whoever wanted to be great should be a slave of everyone else, which could be applicable, but anything else? I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because I've been on something of a crash course of discovering how ineffective I can be as an organizational leader. Sure, a good deal of it has to be learned, but it also comes more naturally to some people than others.
What has caught my attention, though, is how close we seem to come at times to equating the gospel with leadership, or at least acting as if leadership were a central part of Jesus' message. To illustrate, I searched christianbook.com for books with the keyword "leadership" (which Jesus rarely, if ever, talked about) and compared it to the total number of results for searches of books on the topic Jesus talked about more than anything else: Total books with keyword "leadership"= 4,139 Total books with keyword "kingdom of God" or "kingdom of heaven"= 831
Ouch. In other words, for every 1 Christian book pertaining to the thing Jesus preached, almost 5 are published pertaining to something he never talked about.
Read MoreWhoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
1 John 5:12
The name of this blog is SalvationLife. I wanted to name it “Salvation is a Life,” after one of Dallas Willard’s chapters in The Spirit of the Disciplines, but figured there’s probably some copyright person out there who wouldn’t like me doing so. Nevertheless, one of the things that I hope to be able to experience fully for myself, and also communicate to others, is, salvation is a life.
I understand this in a couple of ways: Salvation is not only something that happens to us at a point in time when we "asked Jesus into our hearts," or whatever kind of language your tradition puts around it. Nor is it only something that happens to us after we die, meaning that we get to go to heaven rather than go to hell. It is indeed something that disciples of Jesus have experienced in the past, and will experience in the future, but also something that we are meant to be experiencing today. It's the Wesleyan belief that "I have been saved. I am being saved. I will be saved."
The second meaning, which gives practical shape to the first, is that salvation is not just something that God does to us, in which we are completely passive subjects. Although we are utterly incapable of obtaining salvation (life) for ourselves, the Scriptures clearly indicate that we have a role. As Paul said, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you" (Philippians 2:12-13).
Or, in Dallas’ words, salvation is a life. It is meant to be lived, and it makes us alive.
Read MoreThen Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely theLordis in this place—and I did not know it!” (Genesis 28:16)
One of our family’s favorite things to do in the evenings is to go on walks around our neighborhood. Our son is almost two, and we started the walks when he was younger because it was amazing how if we put him in this stroller and went for a walk, all was well in his little world regardless of how fussy he may have been in the house.
I remember a period of time before his first birthday, while he was still taking multiple naps during the day and staying up a later at night, when we would walk for a couple of miles almost every evening. Sometimes if my wife had been home with him all day, it was a good way for her to have a break and for me to have some time with the little guy, so most nights we could easily be out walking for 45 minutes.
Read MoreSeveral years ago as a youth pastor, I was working with a group of middle school boys. During our lesson one Sunday, I asked them, “Other than not having to go to hell when you die, what are some reasons why you believe it's a good thing to follow Jesus and be a Christian?”
This was a group of boys who had grown up in the church. Most of their parents were very involved in the church, and had worked hard to bring these children up in Christian homes. To me, the boys’ answer to my question was very informative about what many of us in the church today have come to believe about the life to which Jesus invites us. What was their answer?
They didn’t have one!
This group of boys couldn't state one reason to follow Jesus, other than that they would get to go to heaven rather than going to hell when they die.
How do you and I answer that question? Is "getting in to heaven" really all that matters?
Are we really to believe that the life, message, and mission of Jesus Christ on earth is reduced to that?
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