To a degree, our culture blinds us from some biblical truths. We make assumptions about what it means to follow Jesus. It has been said that many people who claim to be Christians don’t follow Jesus. That is, we don’t always choose to become like Jesus; rather, we ask Jesus to follow us and become like us. Even those of us who set out to radically follow Jesus, develop blind spots in our lives. Radical challenges many of the assumptions we have about how we live our lives and inspires readers to live a radical life.

If you’re looking for a book to challenge you to a radical life of following Jesus–check this book out! In fact, there’s a year long challenge at the end! Find Radical here on Amazon.

Want to know more about the book, check out what the author, David Platt (Pastor of The Church at Brook Hills) has to say about it:

(Trouble viewing this? Click  check it out on YouTube: David Platt on Radical)

Want a free copy? Be the first to hit me up on Facebook, Twitter or with a comment below and you can have the extra copy the publisher sent me. Or Multnomah is giving more away while supplies last–so check it out here.

Btw, this book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

As the preface by Troy Miller observes, “Often in matters of Scripture and theology, the gap between the academy on one side and the church on the other is wide–often, regretfully, too wide” (vii). Although the three chapters derive from scholarly lectures, the book is readable and accessible for non-academics looking for historical background and evidence on the death burial and resurrection of Jesus.

Predictably, some new theory or archaeological find surfaces every year around Easter. These claims normally try to show the contradictions between much of what Christians believe and the latest theory or finding. To someone with little training, many of these theories seem logical and often convincing–and therefore confusing. However, the “scholars” who purport them have their own agendas. While this book does not directly deal with all of these modern theories, it does an excellent job dealing with the historical evidence and background.

The first two sections, covering the death and burial of Jesus, are written by Craig Evans. Currently at Acadia Divinity College, Dr. Evans happened to be one of my teachers while an adjunct professor at Fuller Seminary. I learned a lot in his class and still refer to my class notes. A prolific scholar, N.T. Wright wrote the third and final section, covering the resurrection.

I’m fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to study the historical issues and details at a scholarly level, but still learned some new things reading this–and it’s only 107 pages. I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in the background and history of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.

After traveling around the Northeast with other young adults to explore different young adult ministries, I came to a conclusion: Young adult ministry is small group ministry. Despite the great preaching we heard, every successful ministry we visited used small groups to build community. I’m sure someone will find a young adult ministry somewhere that has been successful in the long term without developing small groups, but as a rule, they are essential to forming young adults into disciples.

Dallas Willard observes in The Great Omission, “As much as I believe in the power of preaching for conviction and decision, I would be naive to believe that preaching alone produces disciples. If preaching could produce disciples, the job of making disciples would be done.”¹ Community is necessary for spiritual growth and it’s part of the answer to making disciples—but just forming small groups of people will not create the life-change. The New Testament specifies no particular structure of small groups for the Church. Small groups are not essential for their structure but for the life produced in them. Building community in the local church is not essential because of a perceived social need, but because it is the life God intends for His followers as Christ transforms their lives.

While small groups form the backbone of most successful young adult ministries, small groups of people are not inherently spiritual. One of our local papers publishes an annual guide containing all kinds of small groups to join. You can walk the mall, wear red hats to dinner, and learn to knit or play folk music with others. I’ll admit that I’ve never actually gone to any group in the guide. While there are undoubtedly believers in some of these groups, they are not Christian Communities. What makes Christian small groups spiritual is that we celebrate Christ in our midst. In our young adult small groups and in one-on-one discipling relationships, we’ve noticed that young adults are hungry for spiritual food and in depth Bible study. We need to be careful to create opportunities for them to grow spiritually—giving them more than they can find in a local knitting group. Jesus must be the center of our community if we want to create life-giving communities of faith.

So, how do we form groups centered around Jesus? Here are a few questions to think through as we move in the right direction: Do we pray about what our groups need to study? Or do we choose coolest thing without thinking about where the group is spiritually and what they need to grow? Are we stuck moving from one curriculum to the next and dealing topically with books of the Bible? Should we take a break from curriculum and consider studying a book of the Bible in depth?

1. Dallas Willard, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’ Essential Teachings on Discipleship (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2006), 5-6.

I love to read. And I’m a big fan of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His book, The Cost of Discipleship, is a classic on what it means to follow Jesus. If you spend any amount of time in the car, want something to listen to while working out on the elliptical or prefer to listen rather than read, you might want to download this book. Of course, since it’s free, there’s no downside…

This book is quite simply, one of the most profound and important books of the 20th century. Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived a testimony of his thoughtful and engaging writers.

What to Expect:

Focusing on the most treasured part of Christ’s teaching – the Sermon on the Mount with its call to discipleship, and on the grace of God and the sacrifice which that demands.

Viewed against the background of Nazi Germany, Bonhoeffer’s book is striking enough. At the same time, it shares with many great Christian classics a quality of timelessness, so that it has spoken, and continues to speak powerfully, to the varied concerns of the contemporary world.

To get the book, check go to Christian Audio’s free section. Add it to your cart and use coupon code MAR2010 during checkout. Then, simply download the files. (Of course, all good things come to an end, and this expires at the end of the month, so download it now if you’re interested.) If you like free stuff, follow Christian Audio on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

Of course, you can always buy it in print at Amazon and read it.

I’ve got to say that I’m a big fan of Mark Batterson. (You can be his fan on Facebook!) His writing weaves together stories that challenge thoughts and inspire action. Primal reminds readers to strip away the superficiality that weighs down our faith and keep us from truly living and experiencing the life God calls us to live. This is a great read if you want inspiration to refocus your faith on God. This book, like his others, inspires readers to live with hearts focused on God while living as part of God’s solution to the problems of the world.

I can’t help but read this and think about Jesus when he encounters Matthew at his tax collector’s booth (Matthew 9:9-13). I doubt Matthew had ever thought that Jesus would want to come, eat and hang out with him. My guess is there are few cultures, if any, that love tax collectors. I’m also guessing that there are a lot of people who don’t feel like “religious people” would be interested in them. So, I imagine Matthew was as shocked and surprised as the religious elite were. When criticized by the religious people for hanging out with the “wrong people” another time, Jesus replied with this story:

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. (Luke 15:4-7)

I wonder sometimes if we, as the Church, are pursuing people like Jesus pursues people? To make it more personal…if you’re a follower of Christ, are you pursuing people with the love and compassion that Jesus pursues people?

Since I use Google Docs to type up the notes each week, you can view the all of the handouts here.
(If you’re not familiar with Google Docs, it’s basically an online word processing program. Check out the Wikipedia article on Google Docs.)

We went over the basics of the purpose of Inductive Bible Study and the purpose of this class–to increase proficiency at studying Scripture using the Inductive Bible Study Method and teach how to write questions in order to take people through the process with you. It’s geared to people who want to learn to study the text in more depth or who want to lead discussion of Scripture in Small Groups or Bible Studies.

After this class, the participant should be able to:

• read Scripture with greater depth of insight,
• be skilled at using basic tools (books & online resources) for Bible study and
• be capable of writing & leading Bible studies.

Session 1 – Introduction & Observation

From the beginning of my life as a blogger, I have always sought to share my life and what God is doing in it. Preaching is an enigma to most people. The average person who listens to sermons gets up, goes to church, hears a sermon–and probably has no idea how that sermon came to be. While I can’t speak for others, I can show you how the sermon I preached this morning came to be–and through the convenience of mp3s, you can even listen to the final product.

Stage 1: Reading & Praying
I read the Bible–and I love to study it. It’s the primary way God speaks to me. When I read it, often passages stand out. When they do, I write them in my journal. (I use a journal with removable pages so it’s easy to move things around into different categories–sermons, potential series, thoughts for my small group, etc.) Often I’ll go back through the journal and an entry might make its way into a sermon. In this case, which is typical for me, I wrote down a passage and just couldn’t stop thinking about it for several weeks. I would read it often and jot questions and thoughts in the margin of my journal. At the same time, I began to read Bible Dictionaries, Commentaries and Theological Journals. (Because that’s the way God wired me!)

Stage 2: Outlining
Since the opportunity to speak was coming up, I began to flesh out an outline. As I outline what I’m going to say, I continue to pray for clarity of thought with the passage and insight into what the people who will be there need to hear from God. As I do that, I begin to outline the message and put extra thoughts in the margins. (Please excuse my poor penmanship!)

Stage 3: Finish the Outline
In our church, we hand out outlines for the message. So I type it up and email it to the person who prints them and puts them in the bulletin. I have been intentionally low tech up to this point–except for digital commentaries, etc. I prefer handwritten notes in my journal while praying and developing sermons. Normally I like to type my own outline at this step because it is easier to edit–and I like to see how it lays out on the paper. Since we use an 8.5 x 11″ piece of paper cut in two,there are two pages to the outline.

Stage 4: Organizing my Notes into the Outline
Although I have been thinking and praying about the message for quite a while by now, I have to decide what will make my notes for the sermon. I don’t like to script everything out so that I’m tied to the pulpit. And, of course, when preaching, often God brings things to mind during the sermon.

Stage 5: Pray and Preach!
Nothing is more important than our relationship with God–especially when preaching! So, I just enjoy His presence in my life and continue to pray…and here’s the final product…

IntoTheDeep.mp3

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