The United Methodist Church in the USA has published ‘standards’ for formation and discipleship. They raise an important question: what are you aiming for when you seek to form and educate people for Christian faith? How would you know if you were succeeding? The schema uses Tom Groome’s categories of inform, form and transform as the flow of formation and education. Each of theses is applied to three theological foundations:Continue Reading
What is a Christian?
Here are some quotes about discipleship from various sources to promote discussion about what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
Christianity is not a collection of truths to be believed, of laws to be obeyed. Christianity is a person, one who loved us so much, one who calls for our love. Christianity is Christ.
Oscar Romero
This is my living faith, an active faith, a faith of verbs: to question, explore, experiment, experience, walk, run, dance, play, eat, love, learn, dare, taste, touch, smell, listen, argue, speak, write, read, draw, provoke, emote, scream, sin, repent, cry, kneel, pray, bow, rise, stand, look, laugh, cajole, create, confront, confound, walk back, walk forward, circle, hide, and seek. To seek: to embrace the questions, be wary of answers.
Terry Tempest Williams
Some tell us that following Jesus is a simple matter of inviting him into our hearts. But when we do that, Jesus always asks, “May I bring my friends?” And when we look at them, we see that they are not the kind of company we like to keep. The friends of Jesus are the outcasts, the marginalized, the poor, the homeless, the rejected — the lepers of life. We hesitate and ask, “Jesus, must we really have them too?” Jesus replies, “Love me, love my friends!”
Peter Storey
Ten Characteristics of Being a Disciples
Thanks to Mary Hess for this!
http://donmilleris.com/2011/03/29/ten-characteristics-of-a-disciple/