I Don't Remember This in Sunday School
The Surprising and Essential Habit of a Deep Disciple
Hi everyone!
Welcome to all of our new subscribers. Great to have you with us as we journey together into deep discipleship!
We’re working together on a series of sorts, so if you read today’s post and find yourself a bit lost, just jump back to the first post on this topic and move ahead as you see fit.
I’ll also provide a brief catch-up below.
The Story So Far
We’re exploring an uncomfortable premise - that modern Christianity can accurately be described as “The Great Omission.” We talk about making disciples but struggle to do so. It’s Dallas Willard’s label, and we’re borrowing his definition of a disciple: an apprentice of Jesus for the purpose of becoming more like Him.
Discipleship is not so much a journey of increasing information, it’s a journey of character formation.
We’ve also borrowed a structural way of looking at discipleship from Hagberg and Gulich’s book, The Critical Journey. Though they theorize there are six stages in our spiritual formation, the modern church institution only helps and guides us through the first three. After that, we’re on our own.
The Great Omission results in loneliness, hurt, and harm for both individuals and cultures at large.
For individuals who are quietly aware of their hearts, we can often sense this disconnection. We wonder, “Is this all there is to the Christian life? What about this perfect peace, this joy amidst suffering, this deep intimate connection with God, others, and ourselves? Where are the extraordinary unity and selflessness today that we find so beautifully portrayed in Acts 2:42-47?”
Culturally, a lack of deep discipleship results in relational and moral decay. It doesn’t really matter how many converts we think we make. Tragic divorce and pornography addiction reports from inside the church reveal this unfortunate reality: perhaps people are getting their tickets for Heaven, but our lives here on Earth don’t seem to be all that different from anyone else’s, at least statistically speaking.
One of the drivers of The Great Omission is an array of reduced assumptions about anthropology - what it means to be human. Due to the last few hundred years of the dark side of Enlightenment philosophy, we often unconsciously conclude that the key driver in our hearts’ formation is information - that if we simply accept the right set of Biblical facts, we’re good to go.
However, like me, chances are you’ve run across a few people who know their Bibles better than most but have no clear understanding of their hearts or the hearts of those around them. And, to be uncomfortably candid, I’ve fit into that category on too many occasions.
Now This Is Just Getting Weird
A large part of what we wrestle with at Soil & Roots is what it means to be “attuned” to the heart of Jesus and our own hearts. To do that, we’re going to explore a way of looking at discipleship, the life of Jesus, our inner lives, and how human beings are formed that is admittedly odd.
Because we often over-intellectualize our formation, we may not realize there may be a divide between our belief systems and our hearts' real, authentic condition:
We believe God loves us. But an honest assessment of how we talk to ourselves or think about ourselves reveals that our hearts don’t agree. The shame, condemnation, and pessimism with which we address ourselves don’t reflect the love we say God has for us.
We believe we are extraordinarily valuable. Yet many followers of Jesus suffer from patterns of self-abuse, including harmful habits such as eating disorders. Their hearts don’t accept the value God has instilled in them, most likely because their hearts’ value has been powerfully formed by someone else.
We believe we can’t earn God’s favor - it’s a gift. Yet how many of us serve and work ourselves to death attempting to do just that?
We believe God is in control. Yet our hearts grasp for control in all sorts of ways: we attempt to control our relationships, money, children, time, image, and reputation. We claim that the truth sets us free, but our hearts are anything but.
Some of us weave our way through life unconscious of this constant, nagging disconnection, unaware of the harm it brings to us and our loved ones. If we do become conscious of it, it’s often accompanied by unhelpful guilt, shame, or judgment.
Rather, someone intentionally journeying into deep discipleship develops a courageous curiosity - a gentle, kind wondering about the authentic state of our hearts compared to our belief statements. And we work towards integrating the two, carefully, slowly, over time, with Jesus and the help of a trusted friend or two.
I’ve Got An Idea
The construct for this exploration is where things get odd because it involves exploring a world that is rarely (if ever) talked about in modern Christianity.
It’s the world of ideas.
For our purposes, I’m not talking about an idea as an “aha” moment or a new thought invention (“I have an idea!”).
Rather, An idea is an assumption, principle, or conclusion in which our hearts are rooted, but of which we’re generally unaware. They power us, direct us, and have an extraordinary impact on who we are and how we relate to the world.
Back to theologian Dallas Willard, who wrote, “Ideas are so essential to how we approach life that we often do not understand when and how ideas are at work… (People) don’t know what moves them, but ideas govern them and have their consequences anyway.”
Stalin is reported to have said, “Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns. Why would we let them have ideas?”
Victor Hugo wrote, “One can resist the invasion of any army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.”
Ideas in the Air and Ideas in the Soil
As we’ll explore coming up, there are two main groups of ideas: Ideas in the Air and Ideas in the Soil. There are assumptions that power and govern societies and cultures (Air), and there are those that power and govern our hearts (Soil).
Examples of Ideas in the Air include accepted cultural conclusions (depending on which society you’re born into) such as freedom, progress, rights, consent, and what constitutes beauty.
Ideas in the Soil (in our hearts) are generally a subset of Ideas in the Air. Ideas seep down into our soils, most notably when we’re very young. That’s why the era and culture into which we’re born and our families of origin have an enormous influence on our hearts.
Learning to discern and evaluate both Ideas in the Air and Soil is one of the most vital and impactful things a disciple can do. And, as we’ll discover together, Jesus was masterful at picking out Ideas in the Air and Soil and transforming them through His words and actions. It’s a work He continues today.
Ideas of Light and Darkness
Ideas originate from only two sources: the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. Ideas of light result in human flourishing. Ideas of darkness are designed to kill us.
Back to our examples above:
If we find ourselves constantly berating ourselves (even if done in false humility), that’s an indication of an idea of darkness in our hearts. If we are in Christ, there is no condemnation. When we screw up, we confess, ask forgiveness, try to make things right, and we move on. If that’s a struggle for us, it’s an invitation to explore our stories with courageous curiosity to see if we can determine the source of the dark idea that’s powering us.
Self-abuse in its various forms is a result of dark ideas, as abuse of any sort leads to emotional, spiritual, and physical death.
The idea that we must perform to earn favor with God is the twisting of a light idea into a dark one. Our good works flow from a heart enthralled with Jesus, not from a heart trying to get Him to like us. Physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual exhaustion are not signs of a hard-working saint. They are signs of a person functioning for some dark ideas and in need of deep discipleship in a caring community.
Oh, control, how we love thee! We often grapple to control because our hearts have been wounded before, and they fight to avoid further pain. Instead of exploring why and how these dark ideas cause us to harm others through our controlling behaviors, we often anesthetize ourselves through justifications, distractions, or rationalizations.
As I said, we don’t find the “exploration of ideas” in most discipleship training programs or Bible studies.
I told you it’s a little weird. But if you stick with me, we’ll discover that learning to identify and discern ideas in hearts and cultures is essential to our spiritual formation, is modeled by Jesus all over the Gospels and Acts, and is a pathway to becoming more authentically in love with God, others, and ourselves, and that always leads to more life, health, and flourishing.
Duc In Altum!
Brian
The Week on the Podcast
Today we celebrate 100 episodes of the podcast with you! Thanks for being a part of the Soil & Roots community.
I carefully walk through key highlights from the last four seasons, tying together The Great Omission, the vital importance of "ideas," and how we come together to restore New Testament discipleship.
Then we explore a key question: So what? What is the cost of not making deep disciples on the individual and civilization? What is the benefit to society when we do become people of spiritual depth?
Let's celebrate 100 episodes with this special bonus!
Or just watch below.
I am glad you are looking at THE CRITICAL JOURNEY. Also I recommend Kierkegaard's TRAINING IN CHRISTIANITY and WORKS OF LOVE. He confronted the Danish Church of his day with its nominalism.