More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
March 26 - April 10, 2025
As disciples of Jesus, we must carefully discern the ways that we’ve been formed (or malformed)—not by the kingdom but by our last names, our family lines, our political tribes, or our zip codes.
You are right now, currently, as we speak, being formed by a complex web of ideas, cultural narratives, reoccurring thoughts, habits, daily rhythms, spending patterns, relationships, family ties, activities, environments, and much more. Just by waking up and going about your life.
All Christian formation is counter-formation.
Examining my daily liturgy as a liturgy—as something that both revealed and shaped what I love and worship—allowed me to realize that my daily practices were malforming me, making me less alive, less human, less able to give and receive love throughout my day.[50]
But the best teaching does more than just inform us—it gets into our heads with a vision of the good life. It undermines the untrue stories we believe; it says, “This is true, and this is a lie.” It shifts our trust. It rewires our mental maps to reality, making it possible for us to live in alignment with reality in such a way that we flourish and thrive according to God’s wisdom and good intentions.
As Tozer famously said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us,”[51] because we become like our mental picture of God. For this reason, spiritual formation in the Way of Jesus begins with the healing of our false images of God. If a person’s vision of God is distorted—if they view him as harsh, demeaning, or chronically angry…or as liberal, laissez-faire, and simply there to champion their sexual pleasure—the more religious they become, the worse they become. Because we become like who we believe God is.
Jesus begins and ends the Sermon on the Mount with a call to practice.
We run a marathon one mile at a time. The problem is, very few of us approach our formation this way—by training.
For most of us, being told to live without anxiety is like being told to run a marathon. We can’t do it. Not yet. So, how do we live without worry? Well, we have to become the kinds of people who have learned to trust in God so deeply that we are free of fear. To do that, we must train (or retrain) our minds and bodies. So, yes, we listen to a good sermon on Matthew 6, and…we practice Sabbath; we set aside an entire day to practice trusting God. And…we spend time in the secret place, where we lay all our fears at God’s feet. And…we live in community, where others encourage us to trust in God.
...more
“Long-term interpersonal relationships are the crucible of genuine progress in the Christian life. People who stay also grow. People who leave do not grow.”[54]
Does the community call people up to a higher level of apprenticeship? Or does it devolve to the lowest common denominator of maturity (or immaturity)?
“Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest, and sacrificial.”[55]
Christlikeness in our inner being is not the result of the right application of spiritual disciplines, finding a “good church,” or mastering the right technique of living—it is always a gift of sheer grace. You will never work harder for anything in your life than Christlike character, and nothing else will ever feel like such an unearned gift.
As the saying goes, “A black belt is just a white belt who never quit.” A saint is just an ordinary apprentice who stayed at it with Jesus.
These unhappy times of great emotional pain, in a beautifully redemptive turn, have the potential—if we open to God in them—to transform us into grounded, deeply joyful people. Suffering is sadness leaving the body.
Learning theorists frame apprenticeship as a four-stage training process: I do; you watch. I do; you help. You do; I help. You do; I watch.[5]
The final goal of an apprentice is to carry on the work of the master. At the end of the day, that’s what apprenticeship is ultimately for.
If you are an apprentice of Jesus, your end goal is to grow and mature into the kind of person who can say and do all the things Jesus said and did.
but I find it helpful to categorize Jesus’ ministry into three basic rhythms: Making space for the gospel Preaching the gospel Demonstrating the gospel
You see, for Rabbi Jesus, meals were not a “boundary marker” but a sign of God’s great welcome into the kingdom; not a way to keep people out, but to invite people in.
The UK pastor Tim Chester wrote a great little book called A Meal with Jesus, where he pointed out there’s an iconic verbal formula that’s used two times in Luke: “The Son of Man came…”[23] First, Luke wrote, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”[24] That was what Jesus did—his mission. Then he wrote, “The Son of Man came eating and drinking.”[25] That was how Jesus did it—his method.[26]
There’s no better place to get to know someone than over a meal, no better place to dialogue and even disagree in love. Because of that, there’s no better place to preach the gospel (the next rhythm) than around a table, with bread and wine.
any form of truth claims, no matter how graciously presented, pass implicit judgment on other truth claims. And what is secular culture but a dizzying bazaar of competing truth claims?
The question is not, Are you preaching the gospel? It’s, What gospel are you preaching? The gospel of third-wave anti-racism? Or LGBTQI+ pride? Or democratic socialism? Or American nationalism? Or free-market capitalism? Or cold-water therapy or intermittent fasting or the keto diet or mindfulness or new wave psychedelics?
The gospel is that Jesus is the ultimate power in the universe and that life with him is now available to all. Through his birth, life, teachings, miracles, death, resurrection, ascension, and gift of the Spirit, Jesus has saved, is saving, and will save all creation. And through apprenticeship to Jesus, we can enter into this kingdom and into the inner life of God himself. We can receive and give and share in Love Loving. We can be a part of a community that Jesus is, ever so slowly, forming into a radiant new society of peace and justice that one day will co-govern all creation with the
...more
let me offer five best practices for preaching the gospel in our secular culture. #1 Offer hospitality
#2 Find where God is already working and join him
#3 Bear witness
Our job is not to “close the deal” with the right technique, but simply to bear witness to our life with Jesus.
we’re not responsible for outcomes any more than a witness is responsible for the ruling in a trial.
#4 “Do the stuff”
#5 Live a beautiful life
Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.[42]
What to us is “normal”—resting, engaging in emotionally healthy relationships, being open and vulnerable in conversation, sharing our possessions, living below our means, serving the poor—is increasingly alien to the watching world.
Do not underestimate the raw power of simply practicing the Way of Jesus in community.
Greek, the word for “witness” is martus, from which we also get the word martyr.[45]
If you want more of God, give him away.
When Jesus expels demons and heals the sick, he is driving out of creation the powers of destruction, and is healing and restoring created beings who are hurt and sick. The lordship of God to which the healings witness, restores creation to health. Jesus’ healings are not supernatural miracles in a natural world. They are the only truly “natural” thing in a world that is unnatural, demonized and wounded.[50]
“Practicing justice is an act of joining God in seeing that the created order (people and everything else) receives what it is due.”[61] And doing this no matter the pain to yourself. It means disadvantaging yourself for the advantage of the “other,” the one in need of care.
Every person we meet is a God opportunity—to love and to serve.
To see like Jesus will likely require that we slow down, that we become present to the moment, that we breathe. And as we breathe, we look for where the Father is at work and join in.
Christ has no body on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassionately on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours![66] But in Paul’s theology, we are the body—not you, not me… Us, together.
The Loving Presence does not burden us equally with all things, but considerately puts upon each of us just a few central tasks, as emphatic responsibilities. For each of us these special undertakings are our share in the joyous burdens of love. We cannot die on every cross, nor are we expected to.[67]
We will find our hearts drawn to particular justice issues, people groups, neighbor families, or lines of work. And it will feel like joy.
What is Christ trying to express to the watching world through your particular life? What’s your task? Your “joyous burden of love”?
To live without a sense of divine appointment is to simply exist, to be detached from an eternal perspective and, therefore, simply marking time.”[70]
Whatever your life’s work is, do it well….If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and earth will have to pause and say, “Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.”[72]
by far the hardest option but the most life-giving path forward is a life of contemplative action or active contemplation.
For all of us, before we set out on any journey, we need at least two things: (1) a compelling vision of our desired destination, and (2) a plan for how to get there.
this is not to say we plan our spiritual lives. To reiterate, we’re not in control. It’s to say we plan for our spiritual lives—we intentionally design our lives to give Jesus free rein over our formation.
