Number Five is Alive
Deep Discipleship and the Exploration of the Soul's Operating System
Hi folks – and welcome to the newest members of the Soil & Roots community here on Substack. Thanks for coming along as we dive into deep discipleship!
We’re wrestling with The Great Omission (Dallas Willard’s term describing modern Christianity, in which we talk about making disciples but struggle to do so) and the Three Primary Problems that make spiritual formation challenging in our current age.
Willard defined a disciple as an “apprentice of Jesus” for the purpose of becoming more like Him. Over time, we increasingly think like He thinks, act like He acts, relate like He relates, and love like He loves. We become more like our King while becoming the best version of ourselves.
However, this isn’t the aim or vision of many Christian institutions today. Conversion, doctrinal conformity, replication, accumulation of knowledge, and increased service are often assumed as the primary goals of modern Christianity. They have their important place, though they dance around the edges of the central focus of being “conformed to the image of Christ.”
Not only do we experience The Great Omission as we watch various nations and cultures (and a recent slew of churches) flail amid moral decline, but we may also sense it in our inner lives.
Where is this “abundant life?” Shouldn’t I have a two-way conversational prayer life with God? I’m in the midst of crisis, but I don’t seem to be able to grasp this elusive “peace that passes all understanding.” Why can’t my soul find rest? Why do I struggle to love my enemies? Do I love more like Jesus than I did five years ago?
We sense this disconnection, this internal disintegration, and wonder if this is all there is.
There is a depth of discipleship missing from many institutions and programs. Yet, as Richard Foster wrote, “The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”
If the world needs deeper people, it raises the question: “How are these people formed?”
The Heart’s Operating System
One way is to come together to solve the Discipleship Dilemma.
Paradoxically, the journey to become more like Jesus runs continuously through our own hearts and, thus, through our stories. Yet exploring our stories as a means of growing in Christ is often ignored or condemned as selfish or sinful. As I noted last week, this makes little sense considering God’s home on earth (post-Pentecost) isn’t a garden, tabernacle, or temple. He makes His home in our hearts.
You are worth exploring.
We’re now moving into the recesses of the human person rarely talked about or taught, though this is where true and lasting character formation occurs. You may find this a strange (and perhaps a bit uncomfortable) way to frame and explore discipleship but hang in there with me.
In the last post, I suggested there are layers of our hearts that function like involuntary body systems or deeply ingrained habits. We don’t consciously tell our bodies to convert food into energy. We don’t normally force our eyes to focus on a particular object. We probably don’t have to tell ourselves to shampoo our hair in the shower. Much of our human experience occurs behind the scenes. We are powered and governed by functions and forces that rarely cross our conscious thoughts.
You’re most likely reading this on your phone or computer. My guess is you aren’t thinking about your device’s RAM, system version, hard drive space, or CPU. But if any of this essential hardware or software breaks down, our device immediately lets us know. If you want your device to function better, you have to make sure its operating system and hardware are healthy and flourishing. To “transform” your device, you need to pay attention to and work on those components not normally noticed.
So it is with the heart.
Ideas and Desires
There are at least two powerful forces at work in the “operating systems” of our souls: ideas and desires. Ideas are assumptions, principles, and conclusions that power us, and they aren’t so much intellectual statements as they are experienced realities. Sometimes they align with our stated, conscious beliefs, but many times they don’t. Our desires are those relationships, things, and experiences for which we truly and desperately long.
If we wish to have our character formed more like someone else’s, these largely unconscious ideas and desires must be formed more like theirs. If someone does the things Jesus modeled and commanded without even thinking about it, this is a sure sign their ideas and desires (their operating systems) are being renewed and redeemed.
Jesus constantly invited people to explore their “operating systems” when He walked the earth, and He still does today. His habit of turning the tables on questions asked, using confusing and sometimes obscure parables, performing surprising miracles, and offering shocking metaphors were attempts to “awaken” or “attune” the hearts of those around Him to His ideas while becoming aware of their own.
That’s also why we’re playing with another definition of discipleship: the progressive transformation of dark ideas to light in the bedrock of our hearts.
What Factors Transform the Heart?
Positively forming a human being’s operating system involves far more than what we typically assume.
Modern Christianity often functions from the premise that instruction is the primary, if not sole, catalyst to form our ideas and desires. This assumption is easy to validate – simply look at how much time, energy, focus, and attention is placed on the Sunday sermon, Bible studies, and the proliferation of Internet Bible teachings.
Yet anyone who has tried to instruct a toddler into behaving properly knows this assumption is flawed. Simply telling us what is good, right, and true may or may not affect our ideas and desires. Apologetics has its necessary and helpful place, but it is not a silver bullet.
The modern Christian spiritual formation movement rightly focuses on habits, or what’s known as spiritual disciplines. They practice many habits some of us have never heard of or attempted: lectio divina, the Ignatian exercises, silence and solitude, radical acts of generosity, scarcity, fasting, and so on. No doubt, practicing intentionally formative habits can and does impact these deep, unconscious areas of our hearts.
However, I have attempted to practice good eating and exercise habits for months on end… numerous times. Yet here I sit a good 20 lbs over my target weight, which is where I’ve been for most of my adult life. My attempts at practicing good habits haven’t yet led to permanent changes in my body’s “operating system.”
In addition to instruction and habits, there are three other vital elements that Jesus modeled as a means of transforming dark ideas into light: time, community, and intimacy.
The optimal environment for deep, permanent spiritual formation – so that we unconsciously do the things Jesus desires us to do – is one that intentionally incorporates all five elements: time, habits, community, intimacy, and instruction.
As we’ll explore down the road, you and I may or may not have access to these types of intentionally formative, five-element groups. However, it’s something easily remedied.
Practicing Awareness of Our Heart’s Operating System
Lastly, let’s expand a bit more on the first step toward transforming these hidden ideas and desires.
We’re defining deep discipleship as the progressive transformation of a heart’s operating system (our ideas and desires) from darkness to light. This journey is best accomplished when we intentionally join with Jesus and others in five-element ecosystems featuring time, habits, community, intimacy, and instruction.
Yet if these ideas and desires largely govern us from the shadows, how do we know what needs to be transformed?
By practicing awareness. Just because we primarily function from hidden ideas doesn’t mean they have to remain hidden.
I briefly noted last week that the Bible reveals every human heart sends up flares or signposts that point back down to the true ideas and desires that govern us. Scripture shares that we all have at least Eight Indicators: our thought patterns, emotions, relationships, behaviors, health, words, and how we use time and money.
By becoming increasingly aware of these Eight Indicators in ourselves and those around us, we become increasingly attuned to our operating systems. Over time, this awareness leads to deeper intimacy with Jesus and an increased capacity to love and serve others.
We’re going to continue to dig into these Indicators over the next few posts, though here are some examples of what happens when our statements of faith don’t align with the ideas and desires that govern us.
The Bible-teaching parents who routinely triangulate their kids and don’t know they’re doing it
The mom who maintains a frenetic, chaotic “Christian” life because she unconsciously functions from the idea that her value is wrapped up in her performance
The porn-addicted pastor who suffers from tremendous guilt and shame, having figured out how to lie to his accountability partner and bypass his porn filters, while never being guided into his own story to uncover why his operating system bends toward darkness
The Christian woman who blows up her close relationships every few years due to pent-up rage that she was never permitted to grieve
The elder who knows more Scripture than the rest of his church, yet no one approaches because of his shocking lack of self-awareness
The middle-aged mother who continuously serves others yet has sunk into a years-long pattern of perpetual self-talk abuse and beratement
The successful businessman who has experienced every level of corporate and church success yet is hounded by the sense that God doesn’t approve of him
The prosperous couple who has no reason to worry about money, but whose lives and behaviors reflect a couple perpetually anxious about money
Every one of these people knows the Bible, goes to church, and is considered a “mature Christian” by those around them. Yet they all suffer from the Discipleship Dilemma, and they all struggle to experience the depth of the abundant life to which Christ invites us. Their brokenness isn’t in their statements of faith – it’s in their unconscious ideas and desires that govern them, and it’s precisely where Jesus invites us to meet Him.
Duc In Altum!
Brian
This Week on the Soil & Roots Podcast
I’m joined by Matt Davis, former megachurch pastor and now head of an organization committed to helping leaders and laypeople heal and find purpose after church hurt.
In a wide-ranging conversation, we discuss and debate several key questions about the modern church:
· Do the power structures that so often characterize our churches help or hurt?
· Is the assumed role of the modern pastor what the Bible envisions for a pastor?
· How often is the institution valued over and above the needs of the individual?
· If we go to a church where we remain lost in the crowd, can that even be considered discipleship?
Listen in to our raw, unfiltered conversation as we wrestle with modern Christianity in modern churches.
You can reach Matt at www.pastoraltransitions.com and check out his fabulous podcast (which he co-hosts with his wife, Marilee) called Life After Ministry.
Watch here:
Grab the Book!
If you’re interested in exploring deep discipleship and Christian spiritual formation, the Soil & Roots book is a wonderful primer. Check it out and make sure to leave a review! Available in softcover and Kindle.
Why Is There No Option for a Paid Subscription?
I write on behalf of Soil & Roots, a Christian non-profit organization that works to cultivate deep discipleship through its content and through supporting small formative communities called Greenhouses. As such, our efforts are funded through donations and Substack doesn’t offer a donation option. If you wish to support the writing and the work of Soil & Roots, just visit our website and make your monthly, tax-deductible contribution there. Thanks!
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Email me at fish@soilandroots.org or leave a comment on Substack.