a black belt in Jesus?

i think one of the most challenging struggles which christians experience is moving from understanding the message of Jesus as "things to think", "category to check" or "voucher to use", and instead experience it as "way to live". while i think 2000 years of practice (and even longer if you include the headstart given to us by Judaism) has helped us make some strides, it may have also caused us to lose our way a bit. if we were to rewind back to the life and teaching of Jesus and the early movement we might be somewhat surprised by what we would find. we would more than likely uncover a subversive, counter-cultural revolution begun by a teacher/savior/prophet/God wherein he begins an apprentice program for all those who would choose to live more fully human, what God intended from the very beginning. these apprentices were to learn by watching, listening to, living with, and mirroring their master. they were to learn how to treat "outsiders" and how to respond to violence and oppression. they "took classes" on living generously, practicing justice, and reconciling people to God and each other. they took tests on trusting God and themselves, and ruining their reputations by loving lavishly. by their apprenticeship of "do-know-be" they were being shaped into people which were shaping the world. they were embracing the role God had intended for people from the very beginning, being co-creators with God, "bringing out the God-colors in the world" as one paraphrase of scripture tells it. when Master Jesus left he commissioned this ragtag group as the next wave of rabbi, charging them to "Go out and train everyone you meet, far and near, in this way of life, marking them by baptism in the threefold name: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Then instruct them in the practice of all I have commanded you. I'll be with you as you do this, day after day after day, right up to the end of the age." - the good news written of by Matthew, an apprentice of Jesus." Unfortunately, I think we/I have lost alot of the understanding of what Jesus did, and called the successive generations to do. The word disciple, which meant student, apprentice, pupil, etc. has somehow been reduced to "knowing stuff". When we say "discipleship" we often mean Bible study. However Jesus' regimen of disciple-making was much more action/experience-oriented, kind of like a disciple of a martial arts master. Sure, they talked about the Torah (even though it was often Jesus re-framing their traditional understanding by saying "you have heard it said...but I say..."), but Jesus' point in bringing to their attention the scripture was to help them form a "way to live" to which they could align themselves. He routinely pointed out that the religious leaders of the day had a wealth of knowledge about scripture, but had a broken way of living, not at all formed by a healthy understanding of God's agenda in the world. One of his students records him saying that those who hear his words and put them into practice are wise people whose lives are built on a solid foundation. He then says that those who hear his words but do not make them a life practice, will live "out-of-balance" lives. It is also interesting that the majority of Jesus' lessons were taught outside of a worship setting or religious building. The couple of times that tell the story of Jesus' church attendance he is either chasing people with whips or offending worshippers so greatly that they attempt to throw him off a cliff. Not your ordinary Sunday service. For Jesus, learning life with him meant attending weddings and funerals, keeping dining appointments with drunks and whores, chastising leaders of the religious establishment, playing with children, and walking on water. What would that kind of discipleship look like now? "As part of this discipleship study we will befriend loose women and drunks. We will be going to yell at the pastors down at the church, make sure and disrupt weddings and funerals with cheer, and we will practice "not worrying" this week. Next week we will clean out our houses and if we have two of something we will give one away, and then we will invite a white-collar crook to join us for dinner." Wow, and that's just Disciple I. Wait until you see the other studies!

several years ago i got to hear a speaker at a conference in nashville, mark scandrette. he too was working out what it meant to "integrate" the way of Jesus into every fiber of his life, becoming an apprentice of the Master. he began a non-profit organization in San Francisco and as part of that endeavor founded the "Jesus Dojo". He describes this adventure by saying "If we want to believe Jesus' message and become the kind of followers his early disciples were, we may have to shift our expectations of what spiritual education looks like-- leaving the metaphor of a lecture hall to enter "The Jesus Dojo." A "dojo" is a Japanese word meaning "the place where you learn the way." Jesus once declared, "I am the way, the truth and the life," implying that he is both a savior AND a teacher for life-- he provided the way to God and teaches us how to live in the way of God. We enter the dojo through new experiences and by moving from ideas to action."
I am reading Mark's book "Soul Graffiti: Making a Life in the Way of Jesus" and am excited about some of the things it invites me into. While I don't embrace anyone's perspective without question, I do think this is a really helpful conversation. I am excited about how it might affect my life and the youth community i am a part of. i am excited about inviting teenagers to "enter the Jesus Dojo" where we are learning by living. One of the ways we might see these evolve this coming year is to invite teenagers to embrace 3 S's into the rhythm of their life: study (or discovery)- committing to learn the wisdom of the Bible and teachings of Jesus, soul-care-saying they will find a small community of adults and teenagers who actively care for one another, and service: practicing a regular basis of entering into others' lives in a way which serves them in love. Let me know your ideas for how we can learn from Jesus' classroom style...