{"id":933,"date":"2013-03-07T16:01:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T16:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/all-i-am-is-what-i-am-going-after\/"},"modified":"2013-03-07T16:01:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T16:01:00","slug":"all-i-am-is-what-i-am-going-after","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/all-i-am-is-what-i-am-going-after\/","title":{"rendered":"All I Am Is What I Am Going After"},"content":{"rendered":"

Action movie\u00a0afficianados and those who follow the likes of Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino have most likely seen the movie HEAT. \u00a0I have seen it more times than I can count. \u00a0I\u00a0guess\u00a0that declassifies me as a Puritanical prude! \u00a0Pacino is a detective who focuses on taking down a high tech crime team led by DeNiro. \u00a0Pacino is in his third marriage and failing once again to manage his career and his personal life. \u00a0In the midst of a raw conversation with his wife who is complaining that she is only getting the left overs of his life he confesses that his life as a detective has reshaped him and he reflects, “all I am is what I am going after.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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In\u00a0Nation of Rebels<\/u>, Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter portray their rendition of how\u00a0counterculture movements become consumer culture and hence become normalized. \u00a0They provide a number of ways to view the one who is going\u00a0after societal change and argue that the one\u00a0pursuing change is actually being changed by the very society they are rebelling against. \u00a0They plead throughout the book that the culture is more repressive than we could ever imagine and that anything less than total radical action is only “co-opted” by the system and assimilates meager counter culture attempts at change. \u00a0Like Pacino the detective, the counter culture agent finds more\u00a0happiness in the pursuit than in the change itself and in the end,\u00a0achieves\u00a0a lifestyle no better than before.<\/div>\n
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While reading\u00a0the\u00a0book, I looked for ways in which counter culture agents in the church rebel against the organized and programmed approach to\u00a0discipleship but end up implementing another\u00a0discipleship\u00a0program! \u00a0If the essence of discipleship is the unselfish sacrificial investment of one’s personal life for the Kingdom benefit of another, then attempts to make micro adjustments are destined to fail. \u00a0The authors, in regards to\u00a0countercultural politics, write, “By rejecting any proposal that stops short of a total transformation of human consciousness and culture, countercultural activists too often wind up exacerbating precisely the problems they are hoping to solve.” \u00a0This is precisely what pragmatic driven ecclesiologists do by\u00a0introducing “improved” programmed approaches to discipleship!<\/div>\n
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Jesus’ approach to discipleship was not a radical nor countercultural style of teaching. \u00a0Though\u00a0there were some differences, it was a typical rabbi student relationship. \u00a0However, as the church became more complex more compromises were made and discipleship suffered as a result. \u00a0In order to\u00a0maintain orderliness of church life the\u00a0spontaneity\u00a0and fluidity of lifestyle discipleship was compromised. \u00a0Even though the outward appearance of the programmatic approach looked good, there is activity and resources are consumed, the reality is that disciples are not being made and the quality of spiritual walk is not improved; they are not experiencing outward spiritual growth nor inward joy. \u00a0To counter this development, change agents have attempted to make changes to discipleship programs and most often they\u00a0attempt\u00a0to make them appear to be more relational. \u00a0They seem to make a slight difference for a time, but soon the novelty wears off and they become another inactive program.<\/div>\n
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The authors refer to exoticism and I think that may well describe the church’s quest concerning discipleship. \u00a0They are in constant search of the silver bullet that will truly “work” in their church culture. \u00a0They are willing to do anything except to make the radical shift to a Jesus’ lifestyle approach which looses the program and engages lifestyle for discipleship. \u00a0I absolutely disagree with the authors that what is needed is more rules to promote more compromise to defer to the ‘rights’ of others. \u00a0Who determines where one’s rights end and another’s begin? \u00a0Relational equity will do more to keep harmony and peace than rules. \u00a0I think this is the answer even outside the community of faith. \u00a0The author contends that Nazi Germany did much to press forward the idea that counter culture activity is needed (pg. 319). \u00a0Maybe so. \u00a0I contend that Jesus was the ultimate counter culture warrior and when His lifestyle is adopted it will redefine oneself and others who join. \u00a0<\/div>\n
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Like the detective, a true follower who is ‘following hard’ after Jesus will become like Jesus.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Action movie\u00a0afficianados and those who follow the likes of Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino have most likely seen the movie HEAT. \u00a0I have seen it more times than I can count. \u00a0I\u00a0guess\u00a0that declassifies me as a Puritanical prude! \u00a0Pacino is a detective who focuses on taking down a high tech crime team led by DeNiro. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,114,363],"class_list":["post-933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-heath","tag-potter","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/933\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}