We just returned from Nogales, Mexico. We went down as a family along with several young adults on an exploration mission trip. Some of you may remember that I was down in Nogales a few times last spring working with a friend of mine, Brian Donahue.
Last month I went down to Tucson to connect with Brian, and he invited my family to explore a deeper partnership with him and his family in Nogales. After this weekend we sensed from God that this work would be a great context for us as we spend this next year inviting others into a lifestyle of discipleship and training for missions that is called “Apprenticeship to Jesus” (read attached file).
We see the work in Nogales as one unique expression for this emerging community of disciples to be practitioners; where they can practice the inward disciplines of solitude, prayer, and silence as well as the outward disciplines of service and sacrifice as we serve the poor and needy. http://cuirimhouse.blogspot.com/
Our family is also praying about a downtown center; a base for “Apprenticeship to Jesus” for those seeking to live out Christ’s call to come away to be with him (intimacy) and also his call to lay down your life for others (service).
We are looking forward to catching up with each of you soon. We are hoping to invite you all to our house (as soon as we get in) to celebrate God’s provision and share more vision for our ministry in this upcoming year!
As we prepare to move into our house we are aware of the fact that our monthly support of $1200 will not be sufficient. Please contact me if you would be interested in joining our monthly support team. Thank You!
Ryan, Noleen, Ethan, and Keilah
Part B
Apprenticeship to Jesus:
Shipwrecked lives are almost as common among “Christians” as among non-Christians. All across the board in church today we find a yearning for greater reality. What is at the heart of this cry, “there must be something more to my Christian experience”? Many find a crippling contradiction between what they intuitively know Jesus offers them and their actual day by day experience of Him. Dallas Willard calls this the Great Disparity:
“There is an obvious Great Disparity between, on the one hand, the hope for life expressed in Jesus—found real in the Bible and in many shining examples from among his followers and, on the other hand, the actual day-to-day behavior, inner life, and social presence of most of those who profess adherence to him.”
Arriving on the human scene, Jesus spoke words of life. No one else in all history has ever spoken with His depth of insight and understanding. What He teaches us is how to live life in the Kingdom of God – life at its fullest – now! We cannot learn this from anyone else, and the context for learning it is apprenticeship (discipleship) to Him. We are with Him, to learn from Him, and how to be like Him. Thus He commissioned us to be and make apprentices to Him among all nations.
In this past year with Antioch Network we have had the rich experience of working with Christians from all around the world and from different Christian traditions. God has gently but persistently been opening my eyes to realize that I have much to learn about living as an ‘apprentice’ to Jesus.
I have begun to ask the question, do we have as our ultimate goal to be followers of Christ, learning to obey everything He commanded, if not, why not? If it is, what are we doing daily for this purpose to be attained?
‘Apprenticeship to Jesus’ is being birthed out of a desire to follow the call of our Lord “to leave all and come follow me” and from conviction that without intimacy with God that transforms our character, our actions will often be misguided and lack the power of God that can bring about the genuine transformation of individuals, cultures, and nations.
If you would like to learn more about how we are exploring a lifestyle of ‘Apprenticeship to Jesus’, I would love to talk with you more about it.
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