I know. 15 weeks on the same book. But when more than fifteen of your scholar and pastor friends are invited and choose to write an essay as a tribute to you, you don’t brush it aside with an email “thanks” and be done with it. I have chosen to relish each essay by reading one per week and dropping observations in this newsletter. The book: Nijay Gupta, Tara Beth Leach, Matt Bates, and Drew Strait, Living the King Jesus Gospel: Discipleship and Ministry Then and Now.
Photo by Quinton Coetzee on Unsplash
This week I turn to Dave Ferguson and Tammy Melchien, two friends of mine at Christian Community Church, what many call “Yellow Box,” and to their essay about how they grew into a mature concept of spiritual formation.
Tammy and Dave open their chapter by telling stories of their youngster-hood. Tammy was into Sword Drills – so was I, loved them – and Dave into Bible Bowl. Both perceived knowing the Bible as the mark of formation. I resonate with that. Bible knowledge, the ability to quote some scripture with a claim, and a little knowledge of the Bible’s original languages and you score high marks. They affirm the importance of soaking in Scripture but this one is a real kick in the head: “I’d venture to say that most of us in Western church already know more than enough about the Scriptures to make the path to spiritual maturity possible.” Dave says he could get up on the stage each week and say all that needs to be said with:
Love God, love people. He refers to The Jesus Creed.
Would this be enough for most?
I have often said this is simple but it’s the most challenging summons of Jesus. Because it’s so simple many just plain ignore it as grade school, flannel graph teaching. It’s the ultimate teaching of Jesus.
Jesus’ invitation
He called people with this: “Follow me” (Mark 1:17). He wanted apprentices. It means to be with Jesus to learn how to live like him. They quote Willard and Hauerwas. Emulation is more than information; emulation is about formation.
The Problem
We want life to the fullest but we don’t want to walk with Jesus enough to learn his path to that full life. There are so many teachings of Jesus in the Gospels but they believe the core of it all is to love God and to love others. Relationships matter: with the Father, with people, with those who follow him, and with those still “far from him.”
So:
Love God
You like chocolate? Or do you like eating chocolate? (The latter.) The way to love God is to enjoy being with God. A wonderful little section on how people think of God – angry, nice, out of touch, avoid God, cosmic killjoy. So very important to deal with these bad narratives in our hearts. God is like Jesus so look at him to know what God is like. John was closest to Jesus; what did he say? God is love (1 John 4:16). This is deeper than deep theology. The God of love enjoys you and is not angry with you, disappointed in you, or distant from you. God enjoys you. And God wants us to enjoy him. How so? Like Jesus: in solitude, in seeking God’s guidance, in obedience, in doing God’s will. They bring in the wonderful movie Chocolat, and it was in the tasting of chocolate that a grumpy man was transformed. Taste and see that the Lord is good, and good here has been translated “delicious” at times (Ps 34:8).
Love God’s Church
To love God is to love others, and some of the others are fellow followers of Jesus. To love God is to love what God loves and God loves the church! Humans can only flourish with others. Desmond Tutu recently died and as this newsletter goes public stories are being told about him. What many of us learned from him was the idea of ubuntu, that we are who we are through others. Humans are “engineered for loving relationships.” The church is the Body of Christ and it is a mutually interdependent network of Jesus-followers in relationship. Great story about Fred Craddock, a must-read.
Love God’s world
Dave and Jon and Tammy are known for their accessible teachings at Yellow Box, and next they turn to one of their major ones, what they call BLESS, and the call each of us has to be a blessing to someone:
Begin with prayer
Listen
Eat
Serve
Story
That’s how we learn to love one another. They quote Madeleine L’Engle. Priceless.
Loving God, loving others transcends Sword Drills and Bible Bowls as it takes us into the heart of God: God is love.
Wonderful essay Dave and Tammy, I’m honored by this.
Thanks, Scot, for this Back to Basics reminder. I resonated with virtually every word, from being the quickest on my feet at age 8 in sword drills to reading the Bible two hours a day in college, absorbing content but not really engaging Jesus' invitation to "follow him." It has taken a lifetime to strip away all that "good stuff" and get down to the fundamental basic fact that God's story is a story of constant, often-unrequited love. Often as a good parent, God has found it necessary to discipline those who deliberately ignored that relationship of love. But in the end it is LOVE that endures - and should control my often-unloving life. Big Sigh. My current writing project is an effort to capture even a little bit God's love story from Gen 1 to Rev 22.
I bought the book and am really loving it. Thank you for taking the "15 weeks" highlighting this excellent work.