discipleship

We're going to attempt an experiment in an online discipleship study. You'll have to join the "forums" http://forums.opendiscipleship.org/ and request to be added to the "Study" group. We're going to work through Wayne Grudem's "Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know," in parallel with the live group I'm leading on Wednesday nights. If this proves successful, we'll do other online projects.

Mere Christianity Notes - Book 2, Chapter 1, "The Rival Concepts of God."

The Principles of Christianity from PleaseconvinceMe.com:

"As a Christian, I am not trying to DEFINE what Christianity is, I'm simply trying to DISCOVER what Christianity is. After all, I am not the final authority here. But it seems fair to say that ANY belief, whether religious or otherwise, IS defined by some set of belief principles. And I think Christianity is no different. Our faith system can be described. It can be defined. It has basic principles. It has limits and ideas that it finds acceptable and unacceptable."

I've seen notes for Mere Christianity where the whole book was covered in four weeks. I've done a study with one group in which we took one chapter per week (which means it takes almost an entire year to get through the book once you figure in Holidays and other interruptions). I thought we could force the book through at a run in 8 weeks....

Years ago, when I started my first discipleship small group, I found this small group commitment. It resulted in a more cohesive group that I have ever witnessed before. I dug it up this week while getting ready for an 8-week Sunday School class. I thought I'd make it available to anyone who wants to use it. I wish I had written down the source material that I pulled it from. If I can figure that out, I will update the file with attribution. I apologize for my shortsightedness.

Parent: Mere Christianity: Leaders' Notes Series

Buy a copy of Mere Christianity from Amazon.com

Chapter 11: "The New Men"

In this chapter, Lewis uses the illustration of Evolutionary change. Of how man came to be (according to that theory), and the common views of "what's next" for humanity, according to Evolutionary extrapolation.

But what should we expect? We should expect something completely new, not something marginally new. Lewis makes the case that "the Next Step" is already upon us.... Christianity is the Next Step for humanity.

Parent: Mere Christianity: Leaders' Notes Series

Buy a copy of Mere Christianity from Amazon.com

Chapter 10: "Nice People or New Men"

Jesus is in the process of making Christians perfect, as He is perfect

• If so, can we expect all Christians to be nicer than all non-Christians?
• Not necessarily -- we have to start from where each Christian is
• A Christian should be becoming nicer than the person they were before they started following Christ (before He started his work in them)
• A tree is known by it's fruit
• When Christians fail to act Christian, we make Christianity unbelievable.
• Some people are just born with better dispositions than others...
• Christian is a process of transformation... some becoming more Christlike.... sadly, some becoming less... some confused and inconsistent

So, what of the individual?

Parent: Mere Christianity: Leaders' Notes Series

Buy a copy of Mere Christianity from Amazon.com

Chapter 9: "Counting the Cost"

Some people are bothered by the words, "Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." Some think that maybe it means that if we're not perfect, we fail as Christians. On the contrary, Lewis points out Jesus is working in us to make us perfect -- and will accept nothing less, even though we would.

Example of the child's toothache:

• the child only wants something now to make the pain go away now
• if he goes to his mother he will get that but...
• he will also go to the dentist the next morning...
• then the dentist will go messing with every other tooth that has problems
• and all the child really wanted was for that one tooth to stop hurting

(An 'ell' is about 45 inches, "It was derived from the length of the arm from the shoulder (or the elbow) to the wrist." wikipedia.com)

Jesus is the same way:

Parent: Mere Christianity: Leaders' Notes Series

Buy a copy of Mere Christianity from Amazon.com

Chapter 8: "Is Christianity Hard or Easy?"

Putting on Christ is not just one job that Christians have, it is the one job that Christians have.

• It's not something only a special class of Christians do, it's what Christianity is all about.
• This is completely different from any other idea of 'morality' or 'being good.'

The ordinary idea for young Christians, or non-Christians is

• We start with ourselves
• We admit that there 'morality' or 'decent behavior' or 'the good of society' has some claim on our lives
• Those claims interfere with our own desires
• We try to do all of the 'right' things and not do all of the 'wrong' things and have something of ourselves left over to pursue our own interests.
• Lewis likens it to paying taxes, and hoping we have something left over to live on.

Parent: Mere Christianity: Leaders' Notes Series

Buy a copy of Mere Christianity from Amazon.com

Chapter 7: "Let's Pretend"

Two pictures:

• Beauty and the Beast
• A masked man

This is a discussion about practice, the things we do as Christians.