Discipleship

I just finished a book a week or so ago called Simple Church by Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger.

The premise of this book is that church has become too complicated, we need to simplify.  Specifically, we need to simplify our process for making disciples. 

In most American churches today, and I'm afraid Almond Union can be included in this, if it happens at all, it kind of happens by accident.  We don't really have a clear and concise process in place.  We have Bible Study and Sunday Schools, and we certainly hope people will grow into disciples, we even pray for them, but is that enough?  Are we willing to risk not doing all we can to intentionally grow people into the people God created them to be?

Since finishing the book, I've doing a lot of thinking about what would a fully committed disciple of Christ look like at Almond Union.  What would a fully committed disciple of Christ do differently?  How can we become more intentional about growing fully committed disciples of Christ here?  

I'm going to be sharing some of my thoughts on this, and my idea of a new process for making fully committed disciples, at the annual meeting on January 29.  

In the meantime, I would love to hear your ideas on this.  What does it mean to you to be a fully committed disciple of Christ?  What does it look like in 21st Century America?  I encourage your comments...