Walking
the Discipleship Circle
The
gathered delegates, pastors and attenders of the North Central Conference
Annual Conference 2015 made a radical
commitment.
We
all committed to weekly and intentionally “Walk
the Discipleship Circle” with at least one other person. The Discipleship
Circle is a simple way of living out daily devotion to Jesus and grow as His followers.
We
will encourage each other to daily BE with God, in His holy and loving presence
through intentional prayer and searching the Scriptures. Consequently, we have faith that as we spend
more time with our Lord we will SEE more clearly his will for our lives – how
to treat others, how to bless our communities, how to treat ourselves, how to
bless the church, how to honor God. We believe that in so being with Christ and
seeing the Spirit’s direction, with community encouragement and spiritual empowerment,
we can actually do what God desires. Jesus said, “Those who love me, obey me”
(John 14:23, 24, & Ps.119:167, 1Peter.1:22, 1John.2:5, etc.).
As
a conference, we have identified together a startling definition of “disciple.”
A disciple is a radical follower of Jesus living out self-sacrificial love for God and
others, and helping others do the
same.
Radical
means at the root, an event or change that affects the fundamental nature of
something, thorough and comprehensive. The concept of being a radical follower
of Jesus flows directly from a principle distinctive of the Free Methodist
Movement – entire sanctification.
Entire sanctification is simply the hope, possibility and reality that God can
and does answer the scriptural prayer (1Thessalonians 5:23) “May God himself,
the God of peace, sanctify you through and through” and that as a gift of the
Holy Spirit, nurtured through our being, seeing and doing, we really can “Love
the Lord with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength and love our neighbors
as ourselves.”
It’s
radical – not complicated. With whom are you going to walk the discipleship
circle?
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