I have been fiddling around with the premise that
life transformation requires a genuine encounter with Christ.
I know, you’re
thinking, “duh!” Everyone knows that. The reality, however, is much of what the
church proffers as the best of discipleship practices are built around the
concept that if we educate people enough, they will experience
transformation. It is the “educate people unto obedience” maxim. It
was the mantra of the movement that I came out of. I can hear in the back
of my head right now the founder’s foundational cliché, “Just teach the Word.”
The upshot of that was, the community of faith essentially became a teaching
center. Of course, in these communities, many other things took place –
mission, small groups, and member care – but, the main show was the Pastor
giving a sermon. It is like that cog of an entire week was built around a 30-45
min dispensement of God stuff from the professional. Sorry, I am letting
my cynicism loose a bit, but this approach almost enshrined the local pastor as
a localized protestant pope. The mentality entrusted almost an “ex
cathedra” type authority because “he” was the purveyor of truth from God’s
Word. He had special status.
Don’t get me wrong; I think there is an important
element of discipleship connected to education. The problem though, is two-fold: 1)
Communities emerge who think about Christianity only as they are informed by “the
guy” even though the congregation is encouraged to read the Bible for
themselves. They were told how to understand the text in a very narrow
perspective that often times missed huge swaths of historic Christianity.
2) There emerged a great number of people who knew stuff about the Bible, but
lacked substantial life transformation. They knew a lot, but lacked elemental
elements in their lives such as compassion for others, integrity in life
practices, forgiveness asking and granting in their personal relationships and
indifference about critical social issues around the globe.
In summary, they often didn’t behave like the Lord that
they were assenting to follow…they weren’t acting like disciples.
Rob