Disciple - What is a Christian

Intro

Good evening

Just saying I have to write that in my notes now

lol

We are going to probably take the next few evening to discuss

disciples and discipleship

I recently read a book and

had to write a book report

The book I read was called

The Great Omission

and it was a book that talked about the fact

that the church is good at making christians

but we the “universal” church is not good at

making disciples

we talked this morning about

and actually for the past several mornings

about false and superficial christianity

and… my summer class in seminary

is Evangelism and Discipleship

so… this fits for us to explore in the evening services

so… We are going to take the next few

weeks

maybe even the next few months

in the evening service to run through

and discuss discipleship

we are going to start bare bones

tonight

with, what is a Christian

then move in baby steps if you will

through becoming a disciple

entering discipleship

etc

Intro

So, what is a christian?

Im not a big CNN fan, but there was this reporter

you may have heard of him

his name is Anderson Cooper

he went out and talked to people

he actually did a series on Christianity

I havent watched all of it

I actually havent watched hardly any of it

but it did provide data I needed for this evening

anyway, during this interview or series

he went out to talk to people

and get some opinions on what a Christian is

and believe me

there are a always a lot of opinions about what

a christian is

Jay Leno also had “Man on the street interviews”

I think he called them “Jay Walking”

He didn’t get specific about christianity

but i use this example to prove

that there are a ton of opinions about a ton of things out there

Everyone has an opinion and everyone thinks their opinion is right

it’s always interesting when the opinions are based on politics

because the feelings towards politics and politicians are so polarizing

But, one thing is a fact

even though most think their opinions are right

most are not

So what if we went on the street and asked these similar questions today?

what kind of answers and opinions do you think you would get

I think we would get some doozies

some half truths

and bad opinions

and everything in the middle

here are a few you might hear

A Christian is someone who believes in God

Something like

I believe there is a God

He or she is out there watching us

theres a higher power and I believe there’s a higher power

A Christian is someone who believe’s there is a God

A Christian is someone who tries to live a good life and treats other people right

They do the best they can

Their good parts outweigh their bad parts

They try and help other people occasionally

They dont judge others

A Christian is someone trying to live and let live