Nazarene Theological Seminary

I received the chance to travel to Michigan over the weekend and be part of a wonderful youth retreat. For several years this local church community has hosted an intensive retreat that focused on discipleship. This year they invited me to join them and speak on discipleship. I am not the best candidate but I was able to share a short period of time in the subject. 

It is my conviction that discipleship is more of a lesson in shared responsibility than it is a top-down authoritative subject. At a certain point in the retreat (I think it was Saturday night) I emphatically shared that as a traveling speaker I do not come to impart truth and wisdom as if I am the ultimate source rather, I come to live and seek truth within a community. I come to join hands in pointing in a direction.  Together, as minister and congregation we formed a larger body of faith seeking the truths of the Kingdom. No one person or group was the authority over the other.

  Together, we became breaths of life for each other going towards a particular direction in faith. The biggest lesson that I learned this weekend was that discipleshipcouldn’t be separated from the larger body regardless of the context that the larger body is joined. The weekend was a blessing and it is my hope that I am always as much of a student as I am a teacher.