Practicing the Way | Practicing the Way Vision Series E1 (Re-release)

Hello and welcome to the John Marcomer Teachings podcast. My name is Ynka Dawson and I'm your host. Each week we feature teachings by John Marcom or other teachers in the formation space. For many of us the summertime often brings a slower pace, making it a great time for reflection and recentering. So each summer we like to take time to review core ideas from the best previous teachings. This year we wanted to revisit the practice in the way vision series. John Marque gave this series at the beginning of Bridgestown Church's journey with practice in the way, sharing the ideas that would go on to form the basis of this ministry. In this first teaching John Marque lays the foundation of apprenticeship to Jesus, arguing that we must organize our lives around three goals of being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus and then doing what Jesus did. Here's the episode. Hey I've been looking forward to this weekend for actually a very long time. So if you're new to the Bridgestown story every single fall we do a vision series where we kind of circle the wagons and re-center on what we're all about as a church. And we've really been looking forward to this fall because we're actually going to lay out a I'm not sure if new is the right word but I guess so, a new vision for the next season and the life of our church. And I feel like it's a vision series kind of I don't know a decade plus in the making at least in my own life years of learning and unlearning and trial and error and working things out as a church. And I feel like we have some really some stuff to lay on you in particular a few weeks from now that has the potential to reshape our church and really has the potential to transform your life from the inside out. So I just can't wait to get after it. To start off let's talk about Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was a lot of things. We know him best as the Son of God but he was also the Messiah or another name for that is the Christ, a word meaning the long awaited king of Israel and the world. But if you were a first century Jew and you were at synagogue one Sabbath morning and Jesus were to show up and to teach that day the odds are that the category you would have put Jesus in is that of a rabbi. Rabbi is a Hebrew word meaning teacher. A rabbi was a teacher who would travel from town to town with his yoke that was a first century euphemism for his set of teachings or his way of reading the Torah or the Bible of the day. And that's what Jesus was. A young, brilliant kind of anti-status quote rabbi from the north part of Israel early in the first century. And of the 90 or so times that people talk to Jesus in the four gospels right there at the beginning of the New Testament upwards of 60 of those times he is called rabbi or teacher. And this actually has all sorts of implications for what it means to follow Jesus. We say that a lot in particular around Bridgetown church I'm a follower of Jesus are you are you not a follower of Jesus wherever you're at in the answer to that question you're welcome here. But I think it's become a cliche and I'm not sure we know exactly what all it means. So let's read a story or two about Jesus the rabbi and then start to unpack what it means for how you and I follow Jesus to start. Mark chapter 1 looked down at verse 16. Here's a story. As Jesus walked beside the sea of Galilee he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen. Come follow me Jesus said and I will send you out to fish for people. At once they left their nets and what followed him. Would he had gone a little farther. He saw James on his ebony and his brother John in a boat preparing their nets without delay. He called them and they left their father's ebony in the boat with the hired men and what followed him. Turn the page to chapter 2 looked down at verse 13. Once again Jesus went out beside the lake a large crowd came to him and he began to teach them. He was a rabbi teacher. As he walked along he saw Levi son of al-Faith sitting at the tax collector's booth. Follow me Jesus told him and Levi got up and followed him. Turn the page again to chapter 3 looked down at verse 13. Jesus went up on a mountain side and he called to him those he wanted and they came to him. He appointed 12 that they might be with him and then he might send them out to preach and to have authority to drive out demons. These are the 12 you pointed Simon to whom he gave the name Peter James son of Zebedee and his brother John to them he gave the name something or other which means sons of thunder. Andrew Philip Bartholomew Matthew Thomas James son of al-Faiths Thaddeus Simon the Zele and Judas Ascariot who betrayed him. One more turn over to chapter 8 was a well-known teaching of Jesus chapter 8 looked down at verse 34 then Jesus called the crowd to him along with his disciples and he said this whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow mean for whoever wants to save their life will lose it but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. Well good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their soul or what can anyone give an exchange for their soul. Did you see a pattern in there and story after story the call of Jesus was not hey everybody believe in me and go to heaven when you die or something like that. The call of Jesus was straightforward hey come and follow me another way to translate that is come and be my disciple the word disciple in Hebrew is Talmadim can you say that yeah and it can also be translated follower or student but don't think follower like I follow you on Instagram Jesus and I like every photo or don't think student like you know I'm a freshman at PSU or a senior read or whatever I go to class and take notes I think it's way more than that the English word that does the best of capturing all that's in that package of Talmadim is this word apprentice to follow a rabbi was to apprentice under a rabbi now a little bit of backstory here discipleship wasn't invented by Jesus he was not the first rabbi to have disciples or the last rabbi hello it was a famous rabbi a few years before Jesus had 70 disciples rabbi Akiva another well known rabbi a few decades after Jesus he only had five but he had thousands of men and women who would follow him all over Israel in fact discipleship didn't even start in Israel it started a few hundred years before in Greece Plato for example was a disciple of Socrates later it spread across the Mediterranean all that to say discipleship was part and parcel of the first century world but sadly a lot of the time in the church particularly if you grew up around the church and you're familiar with that language of discipleship when we talk about it it's absolutely torn out of its first century context so here's the deal give me a minute or two or three to nerd out on you an unpack kind of first century discipleship and just if you're not like into watching the history channel for fun just stay with me this is going somewhere I promise in the first century discipleship was the apex of the Jewish education system so there were three levels to Jewish education the first was called baits suffer a Hebrew phrase meaning house of the book was essentially a grade school where you would learn to read write do basic math and you would learn all of it from the book meaning the Bible in fact on top of that you would memorize most if not all of the Torah that's the first five books of what we now call the Old Testament can you imagine that so those of you that have been reading through the Bible this last year Genesis through Deuteronomy memorized by like age 12 you're thinking that's why my kids are so messed up yes you have nothing now the vast majority of children were done right after that around age 12 if you were female you would get married and start to bear children by age 13 or 14 so I know we have a long ways to go sisters and women's rights but we've come a ways so 13 or that's wow that's young and if you were male then you would apprentice to your father in the family business but the best of the best moved on to a second level of education called bait tal mood or the house of learning there was a school that was literally built off to the side of the synagogue for men and men only ages 12 to 14 or 15 who would learn from a full-time paid teacher and who would memorize most if not all of what we now call the Old Testament so you can you imagine that like it took us what eight months to read the thing can you imagine act and some of you're like bro I did not make it through February that's okay no guilt trip we're in Luke right now feel free to join up late but can you imagine all that now it's an oral culture just keep telling yourself so that so you don't feel so stupid all of that memorized in the back of your head so now at that point almost everybody was done but the best of the best of the best the summa calade the road scholarship the elite would go on to become a Talmadim or an apprentice to a rabbi that was the third level of education but this was over the top heart to even get into you would sit for an interview with the rabbi if you were lucky enough to get one and he would just grill you how well do you know the Torah what about the missionary familiar with rabbi halal's take on the Nephilim from Genesis 6 or whatever the thing was he would interrogate you and if he thought that you had the smarts you were intelligent enough you had the acumen you had the work ethic and the drive and the knack and the talent to become a rabbi yourself one day then he would turn to you and say something like come and follow me or come and be one of my Talmadim now let's say that would happen all right and the odds are not in your favor but let's say you made the cut and you became an apprentice then you had three goals as an apprentice of a rabbi your first goal was to be with your rabbi think of that line we read quote that they might be with him a apprenticeship was 24/7 so it was not like you know class Monday Wednesday Friday it was all day every day you would literally follow your rabbi around every single day you would eat and eat three meals a day at a side sleep at his side all day long there's a well-known Hebrew blessing in the first century that sounded something like may you be covered in the dust of your rabbi keep in mind this is the desert it's the first century there's a paved road is a rare thing pretty much only in a city and so at the end of a day after following and that was not a metaphor by the way that was literal after following your rabbi from town to town the hope was if you were lucky if you were blessed in Hebrew vernacular then you were covered in the dust of your rabbi so it's your first goal to be with your rabbi secondly to become like your rabbi that line we read about how Jesus said to Peter and James and the guys hey follow me and I will make you into fishers of men now most of the time we read that and we think it's like a cheesy pun or something like that like hey you're fishing for fish and I'll make you fish for people or something like that that that is not actually what Jesus I mean he has a better sense of humor than that it's actually quite funny but it's lost in translation fissures of men was a well-known Hebrew idiom that for a teacher so a great teacher if it was just a great kind of rock star rabbi was called a fissure of men because he would capture your mind and your imagination Jesus is saying hey you're a fisherman come follow me I'll make you into a great teacher I'm a rabbi I'm a great teacher I will make you into a great teacher as well and that was really the heart and soul of apprenticeship we live in an age particularly in city like Portland and a generation like ours where it's all about be true to yourself and you're a snowflake and there's nobody else like you in the universe and you're the most special thing ever and blah blah blah blah blah right and like we're just all into like be weird and of course that weird is now normal so if like you really want to be weird just be normal um especially in this city but and that's that's fine that's not even a bad thing but in Jesus' day it was not like that at all your goal was to become the carbon copy of your rabbi I mean you would literally follow him around and copy his every move imitate his tone of voice his mannerisms his dress you wanted to be him so first be with your rabbi second become like your rabbi and your your third goal was to do what he did did you see that line about how Jesus end goal was to quote send them out to preach and have authority to drive out demons that's what Jesus had been doing preaching and driving out demons and at some point he said all right now you're ready you're up to that did I just use a sports analogy holy cow me wow that was for the 20 of you that care um and uh that that was your goal like now your up it's your turn the whole point of apprenticeship was for you one day to become a rabbi yourself so the hope was that after a few years in the program whatever if you made the cut that your rabbi would turn to you and say something like all right kid I believe in you believe you have what it takes go and make disciples now history lesson over let's flip this around from the first century to the 21st century from Israel to Portland organ to follow Jesus is to apprentice under Jesus the rabbi what does that mean exactly well it means that you order your life around the exact same three goals if you're taking notes go ahead and write this down first off to be with Jesus this is our first and I would argue most important goal to be with Jesus to spend every waking moment with our rabbi but how exactly does this work now my bet is that you're thinking I mean we're not actually with Jesus I'm not Peter I'm not James like to follow Jesus is down more of a metaphor in fact Jesus is not here it's at the right hand of the father we'll talk more about this next weekend the short version is it's through relationship to the spirit of Jesus this means that the first and primary goal of apprenticeship to Jesus is learning to live in a constant state of awareness of and connection to the spirit that is the baseline for all life in the kingdom of God if you're new to the whole Jesus thing and you're just thinking where do I start right there like just start learning how to live in a constant state of awareness of a connection to the Holy Spirit just start carving out time in the morning or at night or a few short little spurts during the day to just touch in and connect with God I think of John chapter 15 this is one of Jesus most famous teachings let's read it really fast I am the true vine and my father is the gardener remain in me or that can be translated abide in me as I also remain or abide in you no branch can bear fruit by itself it must remain in the vine neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me I am the vine you are the branches if you remain in me and I in you you will bear much fruit this is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit showing yourselves to be my disciples so Jesus metaphor for how to be with the spirit is that of a branch abiding in or remaining in the vine Dallas Willard says it this way in my all-time favorite quote ever he writes the first and most basic thing we can and must do is to keep God before our minds this is the fundamental secret of caring for our souls our part and thus practicing the presence of God is to direct and redirect our minds constantly to him in the early time of our practicing we may well be challenged by our burdensome habits of dwelling on things less than God he's so gracious but these are habits not the law of gravity and can be broken a new grace-filled habit will replace the former ones as we take intentional steps toward keeping God before us soon our minds will return to God as the needle of a compass constantly returns to the north if God is the great longing of our souls he will become the pole star of our inward beings his point is that living in a constant state of awareness of and connection to God all day long that takes practice this is what the spiritual disciplines or what we prefer to call the practices of Jesus are four things like silence and solitude and prayer and fasting and reading the Bible and Sabbath these are time tested ways to the language of Jesus abide or remain in the vine to present yourself before God throughout your day throughout your week throughout your life just to take a moment to slow down and stop to breathe in to breathe out God you're here you've been here all along but now I'm here and I've not been here I've been in traffic or I've been in the bike lane or I've been on email or I've been on Twitter or I've been somewhere else but I've not been here but now you're here I'm here with you together I'm telling you this is where the money is at the best part about following Jesus is Jesus like hands down it's in this idea practicing the presence of God so that's the first goal for you and for me to be with Jesus secondly to become like Jesus out of that place of abiding in the vine your goal and mine as an apprentice is to become like our rabbi Jesus back in the day if you grew up in the church this was called sanctification now the kind of insider lingo for it is spiritual formation here's a definition that I think is really good spiritual formation in the Christian tradition is a process that's not all at once takes time of increasingly being possessed and permeated by the character traits of Jesus as we walk in the easy yoke of discipleship with Jesus our teacher and the thing is you know I don't like to hear this much less to say it but the reality is we're all disciples of somebody or something we're all being formed into the image of something we want to think I'm unique I'm independent I'm at the end of the organ trail I'm my own man you're not really I'm sorry we are a compilation of this influence and that and the others so the question is not are you being formed it's who or what are you being formed into if you plot the trajectory of your character arc out a decade two three forty years into the future who or what are you becoming are you on track to become Jesus expressed through your personality and your gender and your socioeconomic spot and all of that is that who you are becoming or is it somebody or something else I don't know about you but my guess is I'm not alone and I want to grow and mature into the kind of person who is like Jesus from the inside out so I want to live out the sermon on the mount if you ever read that if not go read Matthew 5 6 and 7 and the next few days it's this kind of all of Jesus most famous teachings put into one spot I want to become that kind of person but not just in behavior I'm after more than behavior modification although I'll take that but I want inward transformation from the heart out I want to become the kind of person for whom it's easier to love my enemy than it would ever be to hurt them or kill them or gossip about them or water board them or whatever I want to become the kind of person for whom it's easier to trust God because God is my father than it is to stress out and worry over bills at the end of the month or whatever it may be I want what the New Testament writers call transformation for those of you thinking yeah like I want it too but how exactly does that work well that's the main thing we're going to teach on don't have time to get into much of it tonight to sum up the next two months of teaching by the way normally vision series is five weeks long this year 12 so we have a lot of ground to cover but to sum it up it takes practice and it takes practice in community it won't just happen and it won't just happen in a day or two or a year or three we have to partner with God and with our community to become our true self to become the man or the woman that God created you to be we use the phrase I think life changing way too often I really feel like we have some life changing ideas to get into over the coming few weeks and few months so be with Jesus what's the second one become what's the second wow am I doing that bad of a job become like it so what's the first one be with Jesus what's the second we come like Jesus yeah we're like back in Tehran Kindergarten I'm sorry that sounds unkind third goal is to do what he did the whole goal of apprenticeship was to carry on your master's work as I said before now this is where it's a bit tricky because Jesus was a rabbi but he was more than a rabbi he was also the Messiah and the Son of God so Jesus work was not only to teach about God and the Bible it was to usher in the kingdom of God and so our goal is in apprentice isn't just to know all about the Bible our goal is to actually join up with what Jesus is on about in the world as I see it you can break down Jesus kingdom work and do about 10 categories here's my short list preaching the gospel teaching the way healing the sick casting out demons eating and drinking with people far from God doing justice peacemaking praying prophesying and standing up against religious and political corruption now here's the thing if you're an apprentice of Jesus then eventually not like on day one or even year one but eventually your goal is to be able to do all of that this morning there was an apprentice who's new to our church and our city moved to Portland to apprentice to a plumber so he's in a four year apprenticeship program to become a plumber so his goal at the end of that four year program is not just to know all about plumbing it's to be able to plumber house and by the way plum is a verb I asked him it's a verb it's to be able to plumber house your goals and apprentice of Jesus isn't just to know all about Jesus but it's to actually grow and matured to the place where you have the capacity to join in Jesus kingdom work in Portland as it is in heaven so what does it mean to follow Jesus first be with Jesus second become like Jesus third do what he did it's a life built around those three goals you know the thing about Jesus following Jesus is it just does not work as a hobby you know like I'm kind of into Jesus and rock climbing or whatever it just doesn't work when it's kind of in a side to the main point of your life in fact it's actually really hard and difficult to do it that way and kind of it just does not yield the life that Jesus has on offer following Jesus makes the most sense when it's the whole point of your life and this doesn't mean that you need to quit your job and become a pastor or start a nonprofit and follow Jesus as an investment baker or a teacher or real estate agent or an architect or a full-time parent or a doctor or whatever your thing is follow Jesus right where you're at but it means that the focal point of your life is a apprenticeship to Jesus of Nazareth and this is the kind of life that you're invited to not only by me and by our church but you're invited to by Jesus himself that invitation is for you come and follow me come and be my one of my Talmadin or a disciple or an apprentice now notice a few things before we move on and talk about kind of vision for the coming year first off I just if you still have your Bible open to Mark chapter eight in that invitation of Jesus you know whoever wants to save whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves take up the cross follow me notice first that the invitation of Jesus is to become an apprentice not a Christian whoever wants to be my apprentice or my disciple did you know that the word Christian is used a meager three times in the New Testament it's actually only used in a negative light in the New Testament whereas the word disciple is used are you ready for this 268 times more than any other moniker for what it means to be the sons and daughters of God families the next one after that but that's like the category to be a disciple to be an apprentice what's the difference between a Christian and a disciple well a little bit of that as semantics but in for most people in the U.S I think that all the word Christian means is that you believe in the basic idea of the religion that is Christianity you go to church once in a while which might mean like Easter and you're a semi moral person for a lot of people being a Christian just means you're like not Muslim or something like that being a Christian for a lot of people in the West is more about Jesus following you Jesus following you around to kind of give you a pick me up in the morning before you go to school or answer a prayer two or three or help you out and you're like she is really hot all right here you go or whatever rather than you following Jesus this is a huge problem in the U.S and a recent gallup poll and obviously the stats are way lower for a city like Portland but nationwide 76% of Americans claim to be a Christian but a number of independent surveys put the number people actually following Jesus and don't ask me how you measure that but a number of independent surveys all put the number at right around 8% so 76% check Christian under 10 is actually following after Jesus I just want to say with a lot of kindness that is an alien idea to Jesus and the writers of the New Testament here in Mark chapter a and really all through the New Testament you have two groups of people so you have the disciples and you have the crowds and when you read the disciples don't just think about the 12 Peter James and that's a subgroup that's the apostles Jesus had hundreds if not thousands of disciples in Galilee and really up and down is really had male any had female disciples that was unheard that's right bring it on as far as we know there was no other rabbi anywhere around the time of Jesus who had female disciples who was just way way ahead of the curve and this sharp divide between the disciples and the crowds is a literary device used by the writer Mark and not just Mark a number of other writers as well it's a way of saying to you and me the reader which group are you in are you a face in the crowd like who knows like sure okay you're all right or are you a disciple or an apprentice of Jesus and that's a question that two millennia later is still just as piercing what about you even here tonight are you a Christian or are you disciple of Jesus maybe you're just like bro I'm just confused I don't even know what I am that's great we're happier here you're welcome take your time but it's a question that you and I need to ask again Dallas Willard said this I feel like I should just say tonight's teaching was brought to you by Dallas Willard last quote I promise the greatest issue facing the world today with all its heartbreaking needs so just pause think about that right now think about everything that is cracked in our world right now the political system racial injustice and our city and across our nation the gap between rich and poor like just everything all right the greatest issue facing the world today with all its heartbreaking needs is in his opinion this whether those who are identified as Christians will become disciples students apprentices practitioners of Jesus Christ steadily learning from him how to live the life of the kingdom of the heavens into every corner of human existence that's it Jesus is not looking for converts to Christianity he is looking for apprentices to the kingdom of God so I want you to notice that second thing I want you to notice is that this invitation is open to anybody quote whoever wants to be my disciple whoever means whoever whoever means you whoever means me now remember what I said before discipleship in Jesus day was for the best of the best of the best it was not open to anybody so a rock star rabbi like Jesus standing in front of a crowd of thousands of people and saying whoever wants to become my disciple come take up your cross follow me first off that was unheard of secondly that would be I don't know the equivalent in our world of a rock star professor saying you know going on Twitter and saying whoever wants a full ride scholarship to Harvard or Oxford or whatever just direct message me no problem no high school diploma that's okay full ride here you go we'll have nobody would say that exactly nobody would say that and here's Jesus doesn't matter where you've come from or not come from doesn't matter what you've done or not done doesn't matter if you are smart enough or intelligent enough or you have the work ethic or the driver you have to act together or not you are invited here now tonight to step into the water in a few minutes and to follow Jesus but here's the thing this kind of life that Jesus has on offer what Jesus at one point called life and life to the full how great is that phrase life and life to the full this kind of life for your change from the inside out to where you love your friend and you love your enemy to where you're not rack by anxiety and greed and lust you're set free from all of that to where you become a part of a family with a father and with a brother and a sister this kind of life that Jesus has on offer it won't just happen it's like if you just come to church three or four Sundays a month and read your Bible every other day just do that for a while and then boom you'll just wake up one morning you're like I'm kind of mother Teresa the second you know it just I wish that was the case but it's not it won't just happen as I said before the similar amount Matthew 5, 6 and 7 is the most important teachings of Jesus all in one place it's as least as I read it Jesus manifesto for how to live as an apprentice into this new reality that Jesus called the Kingdom of God and it's not idealistic right so go read it on your own time it's messy Jesus assumes that you will send and that other people will send against you he assumes that you will get into a fight and argument that somebody will sue you and drag you to court he assumes that you will have not only a friend but you will have an enemy he assumes that you will last after a man or a woman on the street that you'll like want more money and stuff than you have and then you need like he assumes the messy ordinary here we are in the thick of it kind of life but still if you've ever read it it's a high bar am I right like do not worry how you guys doing with that one like yeah no man can serve two masters like hate the one love the other you cannot serve God and money how's that going for all of you out there it's a high bar but here's the thing if you pay close attention you'll notice that Jesus begins and ends the sermon on the mountain with this idea of practice so here's the line right before Jesus starts to get into all the commands so the you have you've heard it said but I say to you notice this is what Jesus says right before that therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands that he's about to get into and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven but whoever what does he say practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven then at the end of the sermon on the mount so this is literally the last paragraph so after all the commands listen to this therefore anyone who hears these words of mine and what puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock the rain came down the streams rose the winds balloon beat against that house yet it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock but everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand the rain came down the streams rose and the winds balloon beat against that house and it fell with a great crash so Jesus bookends the sermon on the mount with this idea at the beginning and at the end of practice and this is actually something that Jesus um you regularly read Jesus teaching on not only in Matthew but all through the four gospels meaning what meaning Jesus assumes this way of living that's what the way of Jesus is it's not just a set of ideas it's a way of life Jesus assumes this way is going to take a lifetime of practice a lifetime not a year or two or three of like I dabble a few times a week not a hobby it's going to take a lifetime of practice anybody who is good at anything a musical instrument a sport clearly not me a second language a skill of any kind you all get well yeah it takes practice now when I say practice please listen carefully because we could we could go off the rails really fast right here when I say practice I don't mean hey you guys this coming week go read the sermon on the mount and just try really hard all right just try harder because last week you kind of sucked it up all right so just try really hard that's not what I'm saying if you've been following Jesus for any length of time you know that does not work how one of the most important ideas in spiritual formation is this it's not about trying it's about training it's not about trying it's about training here's the best metaphor I know I think I used this last fall let's say hypothetical situation that you're out of shape and you're overweight and for whatever reason tonight you decide you know I want to run a marathon 26.2 miles to clarify that's a long ways how do you run a marathon do you wake up tomorrow morning and run 26.2 miles no what would happen if you tried even if you tried really hard what would happen yeah you would die thank you exactly you would make it I don't know mile three four five and then you die uh anybody here anybody here run a marathon before you I can't see out there in the dark who is it oh hi Amy um so let's say Amy was there with you and Amy just decided do you still run no okay well you did a marathon so well done you get to add a jail prayer let's say Amy was right there and she would have run with you and Amy I know Amy she's just delightful and kind and happy and let's say that she were just like go for a go for a go for a go for and how she has the Holy Spirit she would have prayed for you and anoint you in the name of Jesus maybe you'd make it like past mile three the mile five and then you would die at that point and then you would collapse on the side of the road leaking lung fluid so like we laugh clearly that's not the way to run a marathon so how do you run a marathon well you wake up tomorrow morning and you run I don't know a mile some of you are like a quarter mile and then Tuesday you run two miles Wednesday you take the day off and so on and so forth you've ever run a marathon or any kind of race you know it's like the regimens not really that complex basically each week you add on one mile to your long run so your long run the first week is like a mile and a half and then the next week it's two miles and the next week it's two and a half and the next week it's three then you take a break Matt who's over here is in my community is training for a marathon that's a year away did you run this week? bro we need to talk tomorrow all right he's kind of sort of training for it you just man that was my moment you just that when you just messed up my teaching because you're such a slacker Matt come on so my point is what happens is over a long period listen listen to this over a long period of time through practice so six from something now nine months from now ten months from now Matt or whoever you're running 20 miles you're running 22 you're running 24 you're running 26 you become the kind of person for whom running 26.2 miles is hard it will always be hard but unlike now it will be well within your capacity as a human being how through practice if you want to run a marathon you have to practice if you want to experience life and life to the full life with God all through the day not this like scatter shot oh yeah what I'm at church and when I have a moment with the spirit all through the day you want to become like Jesus and you want God to actually terraform your interior interior world and then have it leak out everywhere you go you want to actually start to live into the teachings of Jesus whatever the if you want to experience that it takes a lifetime of practice in community now what does any of this have to do with the vision series and what's on the docket for the coming year a brief history and just this won't take long for the last few years we've been running after this idea of emotional community um half a decade ago if you were here back then we rebuilt our church from a Sunday centric mega church to a network of missional communities spread out across the urban core of the city that gather here at First Baptist and Sunday nights and now at Chapman on Sunday mornings and each community as you know if you're in one is organized around a mission some kind of a focal point a way to join up with Jesus kingdom work in Portland as it is in heaven and the idea was hey let's make mission kind of the driving force and then do discipleship and spiritual formation on all of that along the way and it's been an interesting learning experience been a great five years but we have been learning a lot and a lot through trial and through air through success and through failure and we've been rendering I don't know if I lost two or three years what if you know kind of mission first and then discipleship second is cart before the horse so right idea but wrong order every year we do a vision series and our tagline has been it's about to change but it has been family of missionary disciples and I've noticed this trend of the last few years we do the teaching on family and that's what most of our communities do the best not all of it some of you're like not mine I'm sorry but most of our communities do that really well and we kind of get that family alright you share a weekly meal with this group of people okay and we do the teaching on mission and then we get to the end and we do this teaching on discipleship what it means to be an apprentice of Jesus basically the last thirty minutes which if you've been around is not all that new and I've started to notice this trend where it's like every year in that teaching there's like this deep collective sigh like an exhale in our church there's this sense of yes that's it be with Jesus become like Jesus then out of that do what he did and the thing is that's the area of our church that we give the least amount of time and energy to it's the area where frankly I as a leader had been the most confused on the how like it's really easy to say the what be with Jesus become like Jesus it's whole other thing to say the how and we'll talk about more that in the coming weeks but over the last few years you know we've been discovering life as a church and things like emotional health if you've been around for that conversation it has been life changing for me and my wife and family and our leadership team and I know all scores of you across the room tonight we've been discovering life and the things of the Holy Spirit people have been getting freedom and healing and a wholeness and life what Jesus called life and life to the full and we want more of that not less so we want to change up how we format our communities and if you know at Bridgetown the Sunday gathering is very important but it is secondary we really believe that kind of the home and the table that's the most important part of the church so if you're here and you're not in a community love to pastor you into that next step and we've already always said that the mission of community isn't a program it's a platform for following Jesus and if we find a better one we hope to have the humility and the wisdom to change it up and I think we have we've been baited testing a new format for community and my community and few others for about a year now so think of it like this in particular if you don't like change I feel like we've been here's my metaphor it's like we've been on a journey together for the last six years it's how old Bridgetown is and our compass heading is not changing like we still have the exact same destination in Portland as it is in heaven but we feel like it's time for our vehicle to change I think about any journey so I was in London this last week I started out in a car from here to the airport then I was in a plane for like two days from Portland to London then I was in a train from Heathrow into the city right and so we feel like in the same way we have the exact same destination but for the next leg of the journey it's time to change our vehicle or kind of our mode of transportation not because the last one was bad at all it got us here but because from the next step in order to become to grow into mature in the kind of church that I really believe Jesus is calling Bridgetown to become we need to change our mode of transportation but basically here's kind of what we'll do starting in January every two months we'll take on one of the practices of Jesus so we'll follow the spirit year in and year out it might be something like one of the what are called the spiritual disciplines so silent solitude prayer fasting how many of you are like I don't even know what that is I don't really want to know what that is actually or Sabbath or something like that or it might be a spiritual formation exercise where you deal with family of origin or generational sin and you get healing and freedom or it might be kind of one of the kingdom practices of Jesus that list of 10 things practicing preaching the gospel teaching the way healing the sick all of that stuff well so anything from like you and a cup of tea in your room alone early in the morning all the way to you're out doing justice in the city as a community we have this whole kind of list and basically we'll take on one of the practices of Jesus we'll teach on it for a few weeks here on a Sunday and lay out a vision for how to do it and then we'll go practice it in our communities we'll have two months to basically hack let's say silence and solitude so how in the world do you do that in a city in an apartment that's like 300 square feet with four roommates or with an iPhone in the digital age or as an executive or as a mom or what how in the world and we'll just hack it we'll just go practice it because following Jesus takes practice and we'll practice it in community because we were never created to do any of this alone and we'll just figure out over the years how it doesn't look like to follow Jesus in our city and our time and the digital age living in the alphabet district or forest park or the Alberta arts district or the Clinton neighborhood or wherever you call home as a mom as a teenage kid as an empty nest or your stage of life what does it look like to follow Jesus and in closing I just want to reiterate what I said before all of you are invited to this all of you no matter where you're at or not at like you're invited and I don't mean by me of course yes by me but you're invited by Jesus so maybe you know this is your first time at bridge time to town or second or third and you're only here because of your dang girlfriend or whatever I mean you're not sure what you think about God for that matter much less Jesus you're invited maybe you grew up in the church and you've been around for 10 20 30 years and you are a classic example of a Christian but you're not a disciple of Jesus you're invited maybe like me um a lot of you know this but you know I had a wall a few years ago in my disciples to Jesus where I was leading a church a large church at the time and in some ways I was quote successful but I was not at all at a core interior level there were some deep places in my life that my discipleship to Jesus had yet to touch and so I had to go on this journey I had to slow my life down I had to reorient around the practices of Jesus I had to step into community I had to go through this process and I had discovered so much like I've discovered that guess what Jesus was actually right crazy how crazy is that that life is hard Jesus was really straight up life is hard but life with God is unbelievable right in the thick of I was at the hospital this afternoon with my sister my little niece is in the hospital right in the thick of that right in the thick of dealing with your divorce or abuse as a child right in the thick of the chaos of the urban digital world yeah life is hard the life following Jesus is so beautiful it is life to the full and every single one of you is invited let's stand and pray I love John Mark's picture spiritual formation being like training for marathon it's enticed to get a vision for running 26.2 miles and then become disillusioned when one gets a winded on mile three when much more likely to keep growing if we start with what's in our capacity let's say running one mile and then two and so on save your able let's ask the spirit to show us what it looks like to run one more mile in our spiritual formation maybe start by taking a deep breath become aware of God's presence with you and within you and ask father what's one step I can take this week to grow it in being with you becoming like you or doing what you did I'll leave 30 seconds here and close with amen Amen. Things to listening this podcast is from practice in the way we develop resources to help churches and small groups of practice in the way of Jesus if you enjoy the show consider leaving a written or review it'll help others find us we're a crowd-funded non-profit for everything we make is completely free because it's already been paid for by the circle our community of monthly give-os special thanks today goes to Mallory from Carapolis, Pennsylvania Erin from Louisville Colorado, Angela from Lebanon, Tennessee, Rachel from Woodstock, Georgia and Andrew from Jackson, Tennessee thank you all very much to join these friends in the circle and learn more about our resources visit practiceintheway.org until next time may you go in peace to love and serve the Lord