Category Archives: Discipleship

The Chosen, Season 5 Episode 8

The highlight of this episode – maybe the highlight of the season for me – was the depiction of Jesus calling Thaddeus. As things go, reading the Bible alone, we know next to nothing about Thaddeus. He’s been much more … Continue reading

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A People Who Are His Very Own

I’ve spent quite a bit of teaching time on the scriptural picture of God wanting a people who are his very, a “chosen people” who will be his primary agents to extend his blessings to everyone else. This was the … Continue reading

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Methodist Desire

A while back I mentioned the Methodist General Rules. Briefly summarized they say: First, Do no harm. Second, Do Good. Third, Attend to all the ordinances of God. Let’s consider the first rule in more detail. In context the full … Continue reading

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Hauerwas vs. Glass Buildings

We continued our discussion of Stanley Hauerwas’s essay, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as a Disciplined Community.” We picked up discovering his preference for brick buildings over glass buildings. Sure, he’s from a family of brick layers and he’s using … Continue reading

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Hauerwas Lays Brick

Stanley Hauerwas came from a family of bricklayers. It’s natural then, that as he looks for a craft to analogize to discipleship, he settles on bricklaying OUR DISCUSSION of this section of his essay, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as … Continue reading

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The Chosen, Season 5 Episode 3

We’re still in Holy Week, racing toward the cross. Jesus knows it. Sanhedrin leaders are plotting for it. The Romans are uneasy. The disciples are confused. Yet in the midst of everything happening this episode had many laugh out loud … Continue reading

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A non-Hauerwasian Interlude

Last week we looked at this paragraph in Stanley Hauerwas’s essay, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as a Disciplined Community.” For example, one of the great problems facing liberal and conservative churches alike is that their membership has been schooled … Continue reading

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Hauerwas – “What Do You Mean ‘We’ Kemosabe?”

The essay we’ve been looking at, “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as a Disciplined Community,” was written with a particular audience in mind. He writes, In this respect it is interesting to note how we—that is, those of us in … Continue reading

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Hauerwas – Minds Worth Making Up?

We continued our discussion of Stanley Hauerwas’s essay from The Christian Century (1991), “Discipleship as a Craft, Church as Disciplined Community.” We spent most the time talking about our culture’s infatuation with autonomous individualism and how that infatuation shows up … Continue reading

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Jesus vs. Mammon

Mammon (an ancient god of money/wealth) says, “You are somebody based on on your wealth or capacity for gaining wealth.” Jesus says, “I love you and bought you with my blood.” Though rarely mentioned by name these days, Mammon is … Continue reading

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