THE JESUS-SHAPED WAY

Six Steps to Being and Making Disciples the Way Jesus Did

Bob Rognlien

Table of Contents

Introduction: Recovering the Way of Jesus

           Chapter 1: The Disciple’s Creed

           Chapter 2: A Tool Box

First Step: The Foundation: Identity and Authority

            Chapter 3: Baptism and Temptation

            Chapter 4: Tools

Second Step: The Mission: Investing in People of Peace

            Chapter 5: From Nazareth to Capernaum

            Chapter 6: Tools

Third Step: The Context: A Family on Mission

            Chapter 7: The House of Simon and Andrew

            Chapter 8: Tools

Fourth Step: The Training: Disciples Who Make Disciples

            Chapter 9: The Sower’s Cove

            Chapter 10: Tools

Fifth Step: The Rhythm: Abiding and Fruitfulness

            Chapter 11: Jesus’ Retreats

            Chapter 12: Tools

Sixth Step: The Cross: Dying and Rising

            Chapter 13: Golgotha and the Empty Tomb

            Chapter 14: Tools

Epilogue: A Movement of Everyday People

Introduction: Recovering the Way of Jesus

Chapter One: The Disciples’ Creed

Treasure Hunting

I can still remember the feeling of his tiny hand in mine as we walked through the Plaza, a shopping mall in Santa Rosa, California. It was near where we lived, about an hour north of San Francisco, and we were enjoying a Saturday outing. I was a young dad and Bobby, the first of our two sons, was a toddler. As we entered Macy’s, the flagship department store, Bobby twisted his hand out of mine and shot under the nearest clothes rack. This was a familiar pattern he had developed. He was always searching for “treasures”, and he knew just where to find them!

Several minutes later, just as I was starting to feel nervous, Bobby emerged from the forest of coats and sweaters beaming like a Cheshire Cat. Both of his pudgy hands were crammed full of the treasures he had found, pieces of broken hangers, lost price tags, little clips. He was so proud of himself. You’d think he was Long John Silver who had finally found the buried chest of gold!

As we left Macy’s and began to make our way through the mall, Bobby’s eyes suddenly lit up. He had caught sight of the unmistakable sign over the entrance to Letty’s Ice Cream shop. I had to run to keep up with him as he shot straight to the glass freezer filled with his favorite flavors of frozen delight. Wordlessly he looked up at me and then looked into the freezer. I told him, “Well, you have a decision to make. Your hands are too full to hold an ice cream cone. You are going to have to choose. Treasures or ice cream?”

I could see him wrestling with this seemingly impossible decision as he studied the treasures in his hands and then peered longingly into the buckets of ice cream. Finally, he made his choice and blurted out, “ice cream”! Holding out the cone to him he reluctantly dropped his collected treasures in the trash and reached out to take the ice cream. He took hold of my fingers with his other hand, and we continued our exploration to see what other treasures this mall had to offer.

That was over 30 years ago, but I still remember it like it was yesterday because I realized Bobby was mirroring a pattern in my own life. I was the one filling my hands with so-called “treasures,” and then left to wonder why there never seemed to be enough room in my life for the most important things. Jesus told Martha her sister Mary had “chosen the better part”, and I found myself wanting to learn how to do the same. (Luke 10:42)

The Better Part

By the objective measure of his impact on the world and the people in it, we can confidently say that Jesus lived one of the most, or perhaps the most extraordinary life in history. The four eyewitness accounts of his life that we have in the Bible are chock-full of incredible treasures Jesus left for us to discover, the things he said, the things he did, the things that were done to him. Beyond these historically accessible facts about Jesus, there are the extraordinary claims he made that countless others who followed him have trusted and believed. Jesus said of himself, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God.” (John 3:17-18) If Jesus is telling us the truth, then there is no question he is the most important person who has ever lived. But how do we sift through all the things we have heard or read or assumed about Jesus to find the most important parts? If we are going to let go of the trash we thought was treasure, what is the real gold that we should take hold of?

On the night before he was arrested and crucified, Jesus hosted his final Passover meal in the upper room of a large home in southwest Jerusalem, and he shared some of his most important treasures with the disciples that night. They became deeply disturbed when Jesus told them he was going away to prepare a place for them. Thomas piped up, “Lord, we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?” Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:5-6)

This is the final of seven “I AM” statements that Jesus used to describe himself to his followers. He is telling us if we want to know the secret to living the extraordinary Life he modeled for us, if we want to live the life we were created to live, there are two things that matter most, his Way and his Truth. Since we only have two pudgy hands to take hold of the better part, Jesus is telling us to drop what seemed like treasure and hold on tight to his Way and his Truth. It is no wonder the two primary imperatives Jesus gave his disciples were, “believe in me” (John 14:1) and “follow me.” (Mark 1:15) It is by listening to his words that we come to believe in him, and it is by watching the pattern of his life that we learn to follow him. These are the two treasures that we are to take hold of and never let go!

Losing the Way

The first followers of Jesus were clear about what it meant to choose the better part. They understood that to be a disciple of Jesus was to live in such a close relationship with him that they could hear what he was saying and believe, and they could see what he was doing and follow. The disciples were those who believed Jesus’ Truth and followed Jesus’ Way so they could learn to live the Jesus-shaped Life. This kind of discipleship unleashed an explosive movement of everyday men and women who were living lives that looked like Jesus and produced the same kind of fruit his life produced.

These Jesus-shaped disciples proclaimed the Truth of a Gospel that had the power to transform those who were broken and in need of healing. They lived a Way of life together in community that provided a home for those who were desperately lost and in need of a family. Just as Jesus foretold, this movement of Jesus-shaped lives spread like wildfire from Jerusalem to Judea, from Judea to Samaria, and from Samaria to the ends of the earth. (Acts 1:8) Apostles like Peter and John and Paul continued proclaiming Jesus’ Truth and modeling his Way across the Gentile world, and disciples who were learning how to make disciples multiplied this extraordinary Life in the lives of those who learned to do the same.

The movement built slowly at first, unnoticed by many in the diverse Roman Empire, where countless gods were worshiped and religions practiced. But, over time, this singular movement of sacrificial love and transforming power began to make its mark on the world. As more and more people came to believe in the Truth of Jesus and follow his Way, philosophers tried to refute it, magistrates tried to subdue it, religious leaders tried to manipulate it, but nothing seemed capable of stopping it. Even beatings, imprisonment, and death couldn’t quench the power of the Spirit flowing through ordinary women and men who were bringing Jesus’ Kingdom to the world!

By the beginning of the fourth century the movement of Jesus had become well-established in the Roman Empire, so much so that the Emperor Constantine’s own mother, Helena, had become a devoted follower of Jesus. Through her example and for the purpose of military expediency, Emperor Constantine decided to embrace this new “religion” rather than trying to fight it. However, painting crosses on your soldiers’ shields in order to gain God’s favor in battle, doesn’t sound much like the Way of Jesus, does it? Rather than submit to the Way of Jesus, Constantine saw Jesus as a tool to get his own way. Before long this new “Christian” emperor legalized Christianity, began to build monumental church buildings, and instructed church leaders to sort out their theological differences. Once the church and state became united, the power of influence began to shift. By AD 380 Emperor Theodosius declared Christianity the official religion of the Empire and this state-sponsored religion was being forced on a pagan world at the tip of the sword.

Rather than the movement of Jesus impacting the Empire, more and more the Empire began to shape the church in its own image. The once-persecuted leaders of the church became honored “lords” in Roman society and were rewarded with large estates and conspicuous wealth. Instead of focusing on living in extended spiritual families where the lost were welcomed, disciples were trained, and the Kingdom of God was extended, now churches became places where ordinary “lay people” came to listen to elevated “clergy” who held on to spiritual power by controlling access to the Scriptures and the Sacraments. The emphasis shifted away from living a Jesus-shaped way of life to attendance at religious services held in impressive public buildings, where participants were expected to contribute financially to the maintenance of this religious institution. The definition of a Christian became agreement with the professed truths of Christianity.

Truth Without the Way

Somewhere in this tragic shift, the Way of Jesus was overlooked and gradually faded into the background. As a result, the Truth of Jesus became the focus of trained clergy who maintained their position of dominance in the church by framing themselves as the sole arbiters of biblical truth, interpreting the teaching of the Bible for “ordinary” people. Less and less emphasis was put on training people to follow the Way of Jesus in their everyday lives and communities.

It was in this context that two great theological controversies came to the fore, the Trinity and the dual natures of Christ. In these early centuries there were many false teachings circulating and one of the tasks of the first theologians was to root out these heresies and clarify orthodox biblical teaching. The two thorniest issues were understanding the relationship of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and defining the divine and human natures of Jesus. Through a series of official gatherings of the primary church leaders from the largest cities in the Roman Empire, called Ecumenical Councils, these theologians and leaders wrestled with the biblical texts and hammered out, among other things, an orthodox teaching of the Trinity and the natures of Christ.

The Emperor Constantine directed the leaders of the church to convene and come to an agreement about these teachings. In AD 325 the bishops and theologians gathered in Nicaea, just south of Constantinople, and agreed on theological formulations describing the Trinity and the dual natures of Christ. To communicate these decisions, the Council of Nicaea issued an authoritative summary of these orthodox teachings about God, which has come to be known as the “Nicene Creed.” This statement of faith was slightly refined at the Council of Constantinople in AD 381 and this is the Nicene Creed accepted by nearly all Christian churches today, recited by hundreds of millions of Christians in their worship services each week. This creed, and others like the Apostles Creed and the Athanasian Creed, have been helpful reminders over the centuries of the most important aspects of Jesus’ Truth. We could summarize these most important truths as follows:

·         God is our all-powerful Father.

·         God is the transcendent Creator of the universe.

·         Jesus is the eternal Son of God, equal to and one with the Father.

·         Jesus was miraculously conceived in Mary through the Holy Spirit and became fully human.

·         Jesus died on a cross in Jerusalem at the hands of the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate.

·         Jesus rose bodily from the dead, eternally victorious over sin, death, hell, and the devil.

·         Jesus reigns as King and will return in a dramatic cosmic event to make all things right.

·         The Holy Spirit is also equal to and one with the Father and the Son.

·         The Holy Spirit is the source of life itself who unifies the Church into one body.

·         The Holy Spirit speaks to us through the written Word of God and inspired people.

Obviously, there is far more teaching in the Bible than this collection of statements. Jesus’ Truth is much wider and deeper than the Nicene Creed, but it is helpful to boil it down to the most important, defining truths of our faith. But what about the Way of Jesus? Somehow orthodox Christianity became all about the Truth but not about the Way. And that pattern has continued down till today. Most people think of Christianity as a collection of beliefs, rather than faith in truths expressed through a lifestyle that creates an extraordinary Jesus-shaped life.

Just as there was confusion in the early church about the Trinity and the true nature of Jesus, there is confusion today about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Perhaps the greatest heresy of our time is the idea that a disciple is someone who simply understands and agrees with the Truth of Jesus. These truths are foundational to our faith, but a disciple is someone who not only believes the Truth of Jesus, but is also learning to follow the Way of Jesus! If we are going to learn how to follow the Way of Jesus, in addition to believing the Truth of Jesus, we will need a new creed, a “Disciples’ Creed,” that will become a foundation on which we can build a more Jesus-shaped life.

Recovering the Way

You have probably heard the well-known story of the “Big Rocks”:

An expert was addressing a class of high-achieving business students and he said, "Okay, time for a quiz." He pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed mason jar and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.

When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is this jar full?" Everyone in the class said, "Yes." Then he said, "Really?" He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks.

Then he smiled and asked the group once more, "Is the jar full?" By this time the class was onto him. "Probably not," one of them answered. "Good!" he replied. And he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this jar full?"

"No!" the class shouted. Once again he said, "Good!" Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, "What is the point of this illustration?"

One eager student raised his hand and said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some more things into it!"

"No," the speaker replied, "that’s not the point. The truth this illustration teaches us is: If you don’t put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all."[1]

The Way of Jesus, as exemplified in the four Gospels and contextualized in the rest of the New Testament, is a wonderfully rich tapestry of rhythms, patterns, groupings, values, postures, practices, and habits. Jesus’ lifestyle is incredibly deep and wide and beautiful, but as a new disciple it can be hard to know what to focus on. Where do we begin? If we are to recover the Way of Jesus in our time, we will need to gain clarity on the most important aspects of his Way and we will need tools to help us put these priorities into practice. We will need to identify the “big rocks” in the Way of Jesus. We need a kind of “Disciples’ Creed” and a “Disciples’ Tool Kit.”

Because truths can be conveyed by words, it is easier to express them in writing. But a way of life is lived out in real places with real people who are shaped by a prevailing culture. It is something that needs to be observed. For this reason, when we read the Gospels outside of their geographical and cultural context, we may be grasping some of the Truth of Jesus, but we often end up missing much of the Way of Jesus. For forty years now I have lived in and traveled regularly to the Holy Land to walk in the places where Jesus lived and carried out his mission, studying the history, archaeology, and culture of those places to help illuminate the Gospel texts. This has given me greater clarity about the Truth of Jesus, but much more it has revolutionized my understanding of the Way of Jesus.

For more than thirty of those forty years I have been leading people in a unique 14-day historical and spiritual pilgrimage, following the life of Jesus from birth to resurrection, focusing on the historically verifiable places and seeking a fresh encounter with Jesus. Now my wife Pam and I lead at least four of these unique pilgrimages every year. All these years of visiting and studying the actual places where Jesus lived and carried out his mission over and over again with groups of pilgrims has brought into focus six specific aspects of Jesus’ lifestyle that I have come to believe are the “big rocks” of the Way of Jesus. A few years ago, as I led these pilgrimages, I noticed I kept reinforcing the most important things we had experienced along the way by counting off these six places and principles on the fingers, thumb, and palm of my hand:

·         Jordan River and Judean Desert – Live From Your Identity and Authority

·         Nazareth – Find and Invest in People of Peace

·         Capernaum – Build Families on Mission

·         Sea of Galilee – Make Disciple-Making Disciples

·         Caesarea Philippi – Live in Fruitful Rhythms

·         Jerusalem– Take Up Your Cross

I have come to see this “Disciples’ Creed” as a kind of roadmap for us to learn the Way of Jesus. As we follow Jesus to these six places and use history, archaeology, and culture to uncover what time, distance, and culture have hidden from us, we will begin to recover the six most important steps in the Way of Jesus and learn to live a more Jesus-shaped kind of life.

DISCIPLES’ ROADMAP: SIX KEY STEPS ON THE WAY OF JESUS

Our Journey

It was nearly 20 years ago that Pam and I realized the things we were learning from spending time in the places where Jesus lived and ministered, were actually meant to teach us how to look and live more like Jesus back in our hometown, in the church we served, in the neighborhood where we lived, and in our own family. The simple call, “Follow me,” is actually a radical invitation to allow the Way of Jesus to fundamentally shape our way of life. As Pam and I began to shift our focus from only believing the Truth of Jesus, and started to intentionally imitate the Way that Jesus lived his life as well, we found our way of life starting to change.

Instead of seeing our home as a fortress where we could retreat from the stresses of ministry carried out at the church buildings, we started to open up our home and family as the center of our mission like Jesus did. Instead of focusing on inviting our neighbors to attend our church services and programs, we started to welcome them into our very lives. Instead of thinking of discipleship as a class we were teaching or a curriculum we were leading, we started to invest ourselves in the lives of people who were open to learning the Way of Jesus by following our imperfect example. Instead of working too hard and burning ourselves out with ministry activities, we started to learn Jesus’ healthy rhythms of abiding and bearing fruit. And finally, instead of trying to do all of this by our own strength and wisdom, we started to learn how to take up our cross, die to ourselves, and allow the Holy Spirit to guide us in living by the authority and power of the risen Jesus.

In all these steps of faith we were learning how to allow the shape of Jesus’ life to shape our lives. We have come to see every aspect of Jesus’ way of life as the model for our lives, the example for us to follow by God’s grace and the power of his Spirit. We still have a long way to go on this journey, but we will never go back to the way we used to live. The Way of Jesus is so much more abundant and life-giving than any other way we could ever find or create for ourselves!

This is the journey on which we are about to embark. It is a journey that will forever change you, if you submit your way of life to Jesus. It is a journey that will upend your comfortable habits and challenge the status quo. It is a journey that will bring you into conflict with the cultural assumptions you have grown up with and those of the people around you. It is a long journey and there are parts of it that will test you deeply when you are tempted to turn back. You will have to let go of some “treasures” you have collected along the way in order to take hold of this new way of life. In the end it is a journey of taking up your cross, because it is only in giving up our life that we will begin to truly live.

Be aware, however, that this is not a solo journey. You cannot do this alone. You need people who are ahead of you who will help to show you the Way. You need people beside you on the journey to share the burdens and help you overcome the challenges together. You will also need to bring along people who are behind you on the journey because, by definition, the goal of every disciple is to learn how to make disciples. So don’t just read this book on your own. Look for mentors who can help you make sense of all this and show you how to put it into practice. Gather a group of peers to discuss what Jesus is saying to you and share how you are going to respond in faith. Look for those people who are far from Jesus but open to you, and invite them to join you on this journey. Use the processing questions at the end of each chapter and the companion study guide as resources to make sure you are taking concrete steps of faith in response to the things Jesus is showing you. This is the how you will learn to live the extraordinary, Jesus-shaped life for which you were created, the life that truly is life!

SIX KEY STEPS ON THE WAY OF JESUS

Chapter Two: The Disciples’ Tool Box

The Builder’s Tools

When I first visited Israel there were so many things that were different than I had imagined. That is the power of actually walking in the places you have only read about. One of the things that surprised me was how much stone there is everywhere. The topography of the Holy Land is basically a thin layer of topsoil spread across a solid bed of limestone. You don’t have to dig very deep before you hit that ubiquitous bedrock! This is what Jesus was referring to when he told the parable of the soils and described the seed that fell in the “rocky ground where it didn’t have much soil” (Mark 4:5). The problem wasn’t that there were lots of small rocks mixed into the soil, it was that the roots of the seed could not go deep because of the shallow limestone bedrock, so they withered and died in the sun. This also makes it difficult for trees to take root and thrive, so there is very little timber available in that part of the world for building, but there is lots of stone.

Most people assume Jesus’ vocation before his public ministry was that of a “carpenter,” meaning someone who works primarily with wood. However, the Greek word in Mark 6:3 which is typically translated “carpenter” is tekton, which actually means “builder.” Jesus’ family business was more like what we would call a “general contractor.” They built houses, roads, bridges, tombs, lookout towers, vineyard walls, etc. Like Joseph before them, Jesus and his brothers were primarily stonemasons because nearly everything in the Middle East was, and still is, built out of stone.

In Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, there is a fascinating discovery that brings this point alive. Nearly all Christians who travel to Nazareth visit the famous Basilica of the Annunciation which is built over the ancient remains of the extended family home where Mary, the mother of Jesus, grew up. But very few even know about the ancient remains that have been discovered across the street, underneath the Sisters of Nazareth Convent. Recently it has come to light that a series of ancient churches were built there, over another first-century Jewish house, which was identified as the extended family home where Mary and Joseph raised Jesus and his brothers and sisters!

Even more intriguing is the beautiful first-century rolling-stone tomb they found built into the bedrock underneath that house. Normally Jewish tombs and burial sites were intentionally located outside the villages and cities, due to concerns of ritual purity. The exception to this rule was for rabbis who were considered exceptionally righteous. It is interesting that Matthew describes Joseph as “a righteous man” (Matthew 1:19). Since he is never mentioned in the Gospels after Jesus’ childhood, it seems that Joseph died sometime after Jesus was 12 but before he left home to carry out his mission at about the age of 30. This means that beautiful rolling stone tomb underneath the house Jesus grew up in was probably built by Jesus and his four brothers to honor their father, Joseph. That means we can see with our own eyes the beautiful craftsmanship of Jesus the stonemason!

To build a beautiful tomb like that, or anything out of stone, the builder needs an excellent set of tools. They need calipers to measure stones, heavy hammers and sharp chisels to shape the stone, squares to cut them true, and plumb bobs to set their cornerstone. The quality of a craftsman’s work was directly related to their skill and the tools they used. It is not enough to study and understand the six key steps in the Way of Jesus if we hope to build a Jesus-shaped life. We will also need a good set of practical tools that will help us actually put these principles into practice and pass them on to others so they can do the same.

A Visual Tool Kit

Jesus lived in a profoundly oral culture. People were trained to listen to long speeches and lectures. They memorized huge passages of Scripture by hearing them read out loud. They recited lengthy poems which they learned by hearing others recite them. When Pam and I lived in Jerusalem I can remember sitting on rooftop terraces in Jerusalem, late at night, listening to our Palestinian friends reciting long sections of Arabic poetry from memory. Sometimes they went on for ten minutes at a time! In that culture it is no surprise Jesus used oral tools to help his disciples learn and pass on his way to others. That is why Jesus so often told parables to explain the Kingdom of God to his followers. These short stories, rooted in daily life, were easy to remember and easy to pass on to others. This allowed his disciples, who were mostly everyday people, blue-collar workers with only a basic education, to learn the Way and Truth of Jesus and then share that with others. In addition, these first disciples lived with Jesus and so they got to watch him living out the Way every day.

Jesus’ parables continue to be a powerful part of Jesus’ teaching for us today, but for those of us who live in a different culture on the other side of the world where the Way of Jesus has largely been forgotten, we also need some different kinds of tools. Ours is a profoundly visual culture. We spend much of our lives looking at screens and nearly everything is expressed in images as well as words. That means the neural pathways of our brains are wired to understand and remember by seeing things. We are visual learners. If we are going to recover the Way of Jesus in our culture today, we will need to offer the visible example of our own imperfect lives so people can see it lived out. We will also need some robust visual tools that help us to show people the principles of Jesus’ Way, so they can understand, remember, put them into practice, and pass them on to others.

I remember how I reacted when a fellow pastor first shared some of these visual tools with me years ago. We were having lunch in a Chinese restaurant, and he was enthusiastically drawing triangles and circles on a napkin. I thought it seemed contrived and unnecessary and immediately concluded that I didn’t need such gimmicky tools. It took me years to realize that, even if I didn’t need these tools to understand and remember the Way of Jesus for myself, those who I discipled and those who they discipled would need them! It is not enough for us just to make some disciples.

To follow the Way of Jesus means we need to learn how to make the kind of disciples Jesus made. And Jesus’ disciples were able to make disciples. And their disciples were able to make disciples. That is how the Good News of the Kingdom spread across the Mediterranean world, through replication. This means we need a high-quality set of memorable and transferrable tools that will empower disciples to pass on the Way of Jesus to other disciples. As we take this journey through the six key steps on the Way of Jesus, I will be introducing you to helpful visual tools that have been developed over the years by those who are actually putting these principles into practice. These have been game-changers for us, and I know they will be for you as well! Let me start by introducing you to two of the most important tools for learning to live a Jesus-shaped life.

Tool #1 | Triangle: The Shape of Jesus’ Life

Jesus lived his life in three key relational dimensions: UP with the Father, IN with the disciples, and OUT with the world. This was the primary shape of Jesus’ life. We can see this reflected throughout the Gospel accounts; here is one succinct example:

During those days he went out to the mountain to pray and spent all night in prayer to God. When daylight came, he summoned his disciples, and he chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles… After coming down with them, he stood on a level place with a large crowd of his disciples and a great number of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon. They came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those tormented by unclean spirits were made well. The whole crowd was trying to touch him, because power was coming out from him and healing them all. (Luke 6:12-19)

On the eve of choosing his inner circle of disciples, we find Jesus praying all night in order to discern the Father’s will. Throughout the Gospels we see that Jesus lived in an intimate relationship with his Father. Everything he said and did flowed from that relationship. Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, the Son is not able to do anything on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son likewise does these things.” (John 5:19) In the upper room on his last night with the disciples Jesus said, “For I have not spoken on my own, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a command to say everything I have said… So the things that I speak, I speak just as the Father has told me.” (John 12:49-50) Jesus lived in such a close relationship with the Father that he simply did what he saw the Father doing and said what he heard the Father saying. This is what we call the upward dimension of Jesus’ life.

Although Jesus could have tried to carry out his mission by himself, he made a deliberate choice to share his life deeply with an extended spiritual family of disciples. After his own family rejected him and his Messianic vision, Jesus moved to Capernaum and built a new kind of family there. (See Luke 4:16-41.) These were the ones he called to follow him. He shared life with them in the extended family home of Simon and Andrew, teaching them and healing the broken. He called them members of his new family. (See Mark 3:31-35.) From this houseful of disciples, we see Jesus deliberately choosing 12 of them to form his inner circle of disciples. These were the ones in whom he invested everything he had, giving them full access to his life. This is what we call the inward dimension of Jesus’ life.

After choosing his twelve disciples, Jesus immediately led them and his wider circle of disciples out to engage with those who were far from God. He showed them how to welcome the outcasts, heal the broken, and deliver the oppressed. No matter how close Jesus grew to his own spiritual family, he never let that keep him from his mission of gathering up “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24). He was continually taking his disciples out to find those who needed the Good News of God’s Kingdom. They traveled to villages, gathered with people on the open hillsides, and even engaged with the holiday crowds that filled the Temple courts. When Jesus invited himself and his disciples over to the house of Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector of Jericho, he explained his mission this way, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10) This is what we call the outward dimension of Jesus’ life.

To build a stone arch, ancient builders had templates which defined the shape of the stones needed to form that arch. The mason would hold the template up to the rough stone so they could see where it needed to be chipped away to match the template. To be a disciple is to deliberately imitate the life of your rabbi. If we are to be disciples of Jesus, we will intentionally seek to allow his life to shape ours. That means we need to be vividly aware of the shape of Jesus’ life and how it compares to the shape of our lives. The more we allow Jesus, the Great Builder, to chip away at the rough edges of our life that do not conform to his, the more we will begin to look and sound and act like him. Jesus is meant to be the template of our lives!

I remember when I first understood that I could use the shape of Jesus’ life to assess the shape of my life. I had been thinking about these three dimensions of UP-IN-OUT in my life and I saw that I was out of shape. My worship and prayer life were consistent (my UP), and I spent a lot of time at church engaged with my Christian friends (my IN), but as I stood on my front porch and looked to the left and to the right down my street, I realized I really didn’t know any of my neighbors, except the ones who attended my church. In that moment the Holy Spirit convicted me, and I realized I needed to grow in the outward dimension of my life. Based on this, I started making an effort to be present when people were coming home from work, walking their dogs, and taking their kids to the park. I started introducing myself to people and looking for those who seemed open to friendship. Before long we started inviting some of these neighbors over for dinner and eventually some of them reciprocated. This was the beginning of our learning how to live out our mission in our own neighborhood.

To help us remember the shape of Jesus’ life and use that as a template for our lives, we use the simple shape of a triangle:

In many ways this is the most important tool we have for learning to live the Way of Jesus. This is our baseline picture of the Jesus-shaped life. We regularly hold this template up to our lives to make sure that Jesus is the one shaping us and everything we do. This is what Paul means when he says, “But speaking the truth in love, let us grow up in every way into him who is the head ​— ​Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15) We know that we still have a lot of room to grow in each of these dimensions, but as we keep taking intentional steps of faith UP-IN-OUT, we are becoming more like Jesus day by day. [2]

Tool #2 | Circle: Hearing and Doing

When Jesus launched his public mission in Galilee he offered a very simple challenge, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Then he began calling the fishermen into a discipling relationship, saying “Follow me” (Mark 1:15-20). The simple fact is you can’t follow Jesus unless you can learn to recognize and respond to his voice. To be a disciple you need to learn to see where Jesus is going and follow. Jesus explained the relationship between himself as the Good Shepherd and his disciples as the sheep when he said, “the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out... The sheep follow him because they know his voice.” (John 10:3-4) Right here, at the very beginning of his public ministry, Jesus is teaching us how to hear his voice and follow where he is leading us.

The Greek word translated “time” in Mark 1:15 is kairos. This is different from the standard Greek word for time, which is chronos, as in “chronological.” Chronos is linear time, ticking away like a clock, one second after another, like marks on a ruler. Kairos is a specific moment in time, a moment of opportunity, a moment of decision. It is like driving a car into a four-way intersection where you have to make a choice. Are you going to continue straight, turn left, or turn right? A Kairos moment is a crossroads in time where an opportunity has opened up and we have to make a decision about what we are doing to do. Jesus goes on to tell us what is happening in this kairos: “the kingdom of God has come near.”  The Greek word translated “come near” means it is here but it is still arriving, kind of like a train when it has entered the station, but it has not yet fully arrived; it is still coming in. Jesus is telling us that the Kingdom of God is breaking into our world and into our lives and this calls for a decision. We have to choose whether we will continue along our own path or whether we will let Jesus lead us down a new path.

A “kairos moment” can be anything Jesus is using to get our attention, a Scripture verse, something someone said to us, a beautiful sunset, or a fender-bender on our way to work. These events are meant to awaken us to the fact that there is an opportunity for God’s Kingdom to break in to our life. Once we recognize we are at this Kingdom crossroads, then Jesus tells us to do two things: repent and believe. Repent is often assumed to mean “feel bad about your sins and change your ways.” It can mean that, but it means so much more! The Greek word is metanoia which means literally to have a change of mind. To repent means to let Jesus change your mind, give you a new perspective, send you in a new direction. We do this by asking the question, “Jesus, what are you saying to me?”

We often assume believe means agreeing that something is true. In fact, believe in the New Testament is the translation of a Greek verb based on the noun for “faith.” Literally it means “faithing.” However, we don’t have that verb in English so we translate it “believe,” but that can be misleading. A better translation might be “trust.” Or “exercise faith.” Here Jesus is calling us to respond in faith to what he is saying to us by taking a step, to trust him enough to put faith into action. It is good to remember where faith comes from. Paul says, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17) So as we listen for what Jesus is saying to us (repent), his word is creating faith in our hearts, and so we are called to exercise that faith by taking a concrete step (believe). We do this by asking the question, “Jesus, what step of faith are you calling me to take?”

Don’t forget, Jesus did not call his disciples to follow him by themselves, but he called them into a spiritual family. The disciples learned how to follow Jesus together in community and we need to do the same. This is not meant to be a solo journey. We need other disciples who are helping us learn to discern Jesus’ voice and follow where he is leading us. That means when we ask the question, “Jesus, what are you saying to me?” we need input from our trusted leader and friends to help us accurately discern what he is saying. When we ask the question, “Jesus, what step of faith do you want me to take?” we need support and accountability from our leader and friends to help us follow through with our step of faith. This is the engine of discipleship. Repenting and believing with other disciples is what keeps us moving forward on the Way of Jesus, one step of faith at a time!

I vividly remember when this process first became clear to me. I was in northern England learning about all this at a conference hosted by St. Thomas Church in Sheffield. When the session ended I turned to my friend Greg and blurted out, “This is the whole story! If you get this, you get everything else!” It was hitting me that learning to accurately discern what Jesus is saying to you and then, with the help of your friends, responding by exercising the faith his word is producing, everything else that matters will flow from that! You could say it was a major “kairos moment” for me.

From that time on I began looking for those kairos moments and then intentionally learning how to process them by asking those two critical questions, “Jesus, what are you saying to me and what step of faith do you want me to take in response?” Eventually I joined a small group, called a Huddle, where we focused on processing kairos together. This was so helpful because, for the first time in my life, I had trustworthy people who were helping me discern what Jesus was saying and identify how I was meant to respond. There was also the built-in accountability of knowing they were praying for me to take that step and would be asking me how it went. This supportive accountability helped me to follow through on important steps of faith I wanted to take but could have easily avoided.

Before long I started to invite others in my life to do this same thing with me in small group Huddles. Nearly 20 years later I am still doing the same thing with gifted leaders from all over the world! Without a doubt these Kairos-processing groups have been one of the most fruitful things I have ever done, both for my own life of discipleship and for helping others on their journey of following Jesus. When I was learning these principles in Sheffield, we were also given an incredibly helpful tool that we simply call “The Circle.” It begins with an arrow moving left to right which terminates at an X marking the recognition of a kairos moment. This collision begins to move us around the Circle. The right side of the Circle is about REPENTING and the left side of the Circle is about BELIEVING. Each side includes three steps that help us make our way around the Circle:

·         REPENT

o   Observe: How is Jesus getting my attention through this kairos?

o   Reflect: What does this kairos mean in my life?

o   Discuss: What is Jesus saying to me through this kairos?

·         BELIEVE

o   Plan: What is the concrete step of faith Jesus wants me to take?

o   Account: Who will I ask to pray for me and hold me accountable?

o   Act: Put the plan into action!

It is amazing how this simple tool can help you move forward in your journey of discipleship. As you learn to discern what God is saying with the help of a trusted leader and friends, the key is that you identify a concrete response of faith and get the support you need to actually take that step of faith. Jesus asked, “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and don’t do the things I say?” Then he went on to tell the parable comparing the man who built his house on the ground without a proper foundation, with the man who built his house on the bedrock. Jesus said the man who built his house on the sand represents “the one who hears and does not act,” while the man who built his house on the bedrock represents the one who “hears my words, and acts on them” (Luke 6:47) A critical factor in learning to follow the Way of Jesus is becoming a hearer-doer. This is the path to a Jesus-shaped Life![3]

[1] Stephen Covey, First Things First (Free Press: New York, NY), 1997, pg. 118.

[2] Watch how Bob teaches this tool using a whiteboard in the Disciples’ Tool Box video series, available in the Store at bobrognlien.com.

[3] Watch how Bob teaches this tool using a whiteboard in the Disciples’ Tool Box video series, available in the Store at bobrognlien.com.