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Grace and Peace to you today!
When I first became a Christian in high school, I thought being a follower of Jesus was all about what I believed.
I think that those who were discipling thought this was the way it worked as well.
What I did, at most, was apparently what came “naturally”—but modified by my beliefs.
In the early centuries of the Church, It didn’t work quite this way.
Growing and blossoming in the midst of pagan culture, people were being trained to be like Jesus.
They had to lose old ways—but by replacing them with new ways.
Jesus, and then Paul, taught that they had Christ in them. So the Spirit was bring Jesus out in them.
But they knew that outward action would shape inward belief. Christlikeness grew from the inside out and the outside in.
The Spirit of Jesus in them was helping them to let go, surrender, to let him take the lead in their formation.
But then, they participated in that transformation.
Their habitus, their series of dispostions and bodily responses to the world, was being re-trained to become a Christian habitus instead of a pagan one.
To think, feel, and act like Jesus—by new, first instinct—was the goal.
Mentoring, worship practices, and observation were all a part of this process.
Love for Jesus and one another bound it all together in one, community learning system—rooted in worship practices.
Alan Kreider in his book. The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, noted the following ways a Christian habitus was formed, in community, in those centuries.
Many of the items on this list describe worship as a primary place of formation.
• “Meeting frequently
• Standing in prayer, arms raised
• Praising and thanking God
• Making the sign of the cross
• Eating together
• Giving the kiss of peace
• Memorizing texts
• Visiting the poor, the sick, and prisoners
• Exercising hospitality
• Putting money in the collection box
• Replenishing the stocks of food and clothing
• Feeding needy people
• Discerning carefully
• Being truthful
• Maintaining sexual purity
• Observing disciplines that limit impatient behavior
• Being willing to lose out
• Allowing people to leave the church
• Facing death without fear ” (Kreider 122-123)
So, like you, I want to become like Jesus. It will take a lifetime, but I’m in.
He is in me, and my union with Him will bring my goal to fruition.
Yet there are practices in my life that will help me become like Him in this world (1 John 4:17).
Sit with the list above today, for at least a few moments, and next week we’ll begin to at a few of these habitus-development areas for the times in which we live.
Your brother,
Dan +
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