The whole idea behind this is that an apprentice is one who is with his master. You can’t become like your master if you are not consistently with him. In apprenticeship to Jesus, being with Him is the first and most important step. We’ve all seen church folk who’ve acted like a Christian on the outside, but when life hits them hard, the evidence shows they’ve spent little time with Jesus. So many churches, curriculums, and discipleship processes simply forget about the idea of first being with our Master, Jesus. In our post-modern, western, efficient, self-help, American culture, we skip to the end without asking the right questions. A right question to ask is, “What does Jesus want me to do?” John chapter 15 answers this by saying, “Abide in me.” Ok, so how do we abide with Jesus? They say, “…to experience the life of Jesus, we must adopt the lifestyle of Jesus.” Adopting the lifestyle of Jesus includes (but not limited to) the spiritual practices of silence and solitude, sabbath, prayer, fasting, and bible reading. Understanding this first point can lead us to a healthy transition to the next idea.

 

To the average Christian, this idea seems far off. “Become like Jesus? I can’t be perfect like Him, so why even try?” Well, that may be a good point, but the thing is…why does the New Testament call us to be transformed into Christlikeness? ( 2 Corinthians 3:18) Even though perfection is far from us, ongoing transformation is possible. Practicing the Way recommends some ideas of becoming like Jesus, such as: dealing with your past, discovering your identity and calling, forgiving as we have been forgiven, living in community, practicing simplicity, embracing suffering, and developing a rule of life. Each of these things are meant to bring you closer in a relationship with Jesus, thus becoming more like Him. Another way of looking at this is understanding the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians chapter 5 – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. You know that you are becoming more like Jesus when you are cultivating the fruit of the Spirit in your life.

 

Of course, it makes sense that if an apprentice is with their master for a long period of time and they become like them, then the apprentice will do the very things the master did. However, it’s not like the old acronym WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?). It’s more like, “What would Jesus do…if He were me?” Jesus was a first-century, single, itinerate, homeless rabbi. But if Jesus was in your shoes – married with two kids in Texas in 2022 – maybe He would do things a bit different, but many things would stay the same. Jesus practiced hospitality, prayed consistently, healed the sick, preached the Gospel, prophesied, sought justice and peace, and stood up against corruption of power. These are all things that we can do, regardless of who we are. Of course, we may not be good at some of these things at first, but this framework is called “Practicing the Way” – meaning it’s all about practicing. It’s not about trying really hard, but training really hard. We do what Jesus did by practicing.

 

Practicing the Way also has a more practical answer to the question “How do we change?” John Mark Comer has adopted the idea of the Triangle of Transformation (I talked about it in this blog HERE) and tweaked the language of it to fit his church. In this model, transformation comes from TEACHING (the stories we believe; the mind), PRACTICES (soul-training exercises; the body), and COMMUNITY (the church; the social context), by the continual work of the HOLY SPIRIT in our lives. This idea is also expanded upon by pointing out that we can also be formed into the image of the secular culture around us unintentionally by being moved by our ENVIRONMENT instead of the HOLY SPIRIT.

I like this framework of discipleship because it helps us understand more of the vision behind discipleship by focusing on transformation through the mind, body, community, and Holy Spirit. There may be things that some believe are missing in this, but those things may be embedded within the PRACTICES section. For instance, one may ask, “But where is evangelism and sharing your faith?” Well, that’s a part of the spiritual disciplines in the PRACTICES section or in the DO WHAT JESUS DID section. Remember, my definition of a framework (if you remember from the first blog) is that it needs to be general enough to steer a local church in the right direction, but specific enough to customize the process for each individual. There are things missing because it’s general but everything we need is present for one to personalize the process for them and their family.

 

With that being said, what do you think about this framework? Does it make sense? Is it too general or too simple? Do you think this process can be multiplied to people you are discipling? Let me know by commenting below or send me a DM on instagram @apprenticeofjesus.