BLOG. 9/5/13: DISCIPLES THE OTHER 100+ HOURS A WEEK

BLOG. 9/5/13: DISCIPLES THE OTHER 100+ HOURS A WEEK?

So we are called to be disciples. So we spend, maybe, four hours a week in church gatherings, and maybe fifty-six or so hours sleeping. That leaves about 108 hours in which we are to be salt and light in the real stuff of life. What does that mean? That’s the real test. Anyone can ‘go to church’, sit in a seat and listen to a sermon, or be on a church committee and engage in ‘churchy’ activities’ (even the proliferation of unconverted believers who inhabit most church communities can do that).

But how to function joyfully and fruitfully 24/7 as disciples, say, a single mom, or a special education teacher, or an astro-physicist, or a truck driver, or a sanitation worker, or a bank manager, or an environmentalist, or a graduate student, or you-name-it? That’s the real test, given the tensions and demands and ethical challenges of our lives. How to be incarnations of the Light, the image of God in the midst of so much that is broken? … that is where those who are disciples display the excellence (II Peter 1:3) to which we are called. And who equips us for such?

I heard a Labor Day sermon once in which the preacher spoke of “six days shalt thou labor” and concluded that our purpose was to “glorify God and enjoy him forever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism). No one can argue with the catechism … except that it doesn’t answer the questions I’ve raised above. It would be like someone telling you to “catch the train.” Sure: what train? Train to where? Where’s the station? What’s the purpose of catching the train? What’s the fare?

The exhortation to catch the train leaves all those questions unanswered (ridiculous illustration, admittedly). But, it is the same with a well-meaning exhortation to glorify God. First off: what is the glory of God? Then, what does it mean to glorify God? What are the pieces of that? How do I apply that to my 24/7 life in the midst of all the ‘crap’ (or worse) that is so often a part of our daily lives in this present reality?

Gregory Boyd has defined glory as: “the radiant display of the divine nature,” which would, in turn, mean that we glorify God by radiantly displaying God’s nature in our human lives. This is exactly what Peter is indicating in the passage noted above, namely that God’s “divine power has granted us all things that pertain to life and godliness, … precious and very great promises so that through them (we) become partakers of the divine nature having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire” (II Peter 1:3-4). That escape, please note, requires that we also live a life of repentance in which we always putting off all of the social, political, economic, religious, and cultural idols and habits by which we are naturally formed, i.e., materialism, consumerism, sensualism, conformity to the dominion of darkness, etc. It requires that we also know how to be always putting on the garments of light.

A good question with which to conclude here: Do our 3-4 hours in church gatherings give us practical equipping for such a radiant display of the divine nature in our 24/7 lives? If not, then they are questionable in God design to form in us the divine nature. If the church gathered does not equip us for our ministry in the ‘Monday morning world’, then who does?

Maybe we’re left on our own!

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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