Introduction
According to Guinness World Records, on the evening of April 5, 1987, an 11-year-old boy named Michael Dixon was put to bed by his mother in Danville, Illinois. In the early hours of the morning, she received an unexpected phone call from police in the town of Peru, Illinois, over 100 miles away, saying they had found her son—whom she thought was still safely tucked in bed. As it turned out, the boy had been sleepwalking, and in his sleep, he had gone barefoot in his pajamas out of the house, had walked to nearby train tracks, had boarded a passing freight train, had gotten off the train 100 miles later, and was walking along the tracks when he woke up. At first, young Michael thought he was still in his hometown of Danville. But when he found out he was over 100 miles from home, we can only imagine he must have thought, How did I get here?[1]
This is pretty much the opposite of our intended approach at Soil & Roots. We desire to be increasingly ‘awake’, or ‘attuned’, as we sometimes put it, to our own hearts and stories, those of others, and even the heart of God. On the podcast, we strive to regularly ask that important question: How did we get here?
So here, at the beginning of Season 6, we’ll start with a brief recap of key points from the previous five seasons before we step through an overview of what we’ll wrestle with in this new season, which, spoiler alert, is all about exploring what it means to think, act, love, and relate like Jesus.
Oh, and in case you were worried, little sleepwalking Michael was just fine.
Where Are We Going?
Over the past five seasons, our major recurring topics have been the Great Omission, the Three Primary Problems, the Five Key Elements of Spiritual Formation, and the particular importance of Heartview, which describes how we evaluate the condition of our hearts and those around us.
We’ve covered a LOT of ground. If there’s one comment I get from listeners and viewers, it’s that the podcast is thought-provoking, deep, and may result in the reframing of some of our assumptions. I get it – that’s been my experience too.
And along the way, we’ve talked about this concept of “ideas”, but maybe in a different way than you’re used to.
Here’s the definition of an idea that we have been using: a fundamental concept, assumption, or principle in which our hearts are rooted but of which we are generally unaware.
These ideas function as part of our internal “operating system” – we normally aren’t aware they are there and working in our lives. And sometimes, our ideas are different than our beliefs.
Sometimes, we mentally assent to something; we may even feel we believe it strongly, but our hearts say otherwise. This is why people can act in ways that are contrary to their particular belief statements.
We might mentally know that we are unconditionally loved by God yet struggle with feeling that we have to perform and do the right things in order to be loved. Or we might understand Scripturally that we are beautifully and wonderfully created by our Maker but still compare ourselves unfavorably to movie stars and other celebrities. We might praise God as Jehovah Jireh, the provider, but stress and panic if we lose our job.
All of these indicate a disconnect between our beliefs and ideas.
It’s hard to overstate how important ideas are to our spiritual formation. In fact, I’ve suggested that discipleship is, at its core, a process of transforming ideas of darkness into ideas of light. The ideas of Jesus are purely ideas of light or ideas of the Kingdom. And our goal should be to reach a place spiritually where our ideas match with his ideas. That means we may end up thinking, acting, relating, and loving like Jesus without really having to think about it.
I’m reminded here of American baseball catcher Yogi Berra, who is remembered for his sayings off the baseball diamond as much as for his skill on it. He is quoted as saying:
- “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.”
- “He hits from both sides of the plate. He’s amphibious.”
- “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
- “Always go to other people’s funerals. Otherwise, they won’t come to yours.”
- And: “It’s deja vu all over again.”
Yogi Berra had another line that’s helpful here: “If you don’t know where you are going, you might end up someplace else.”
How can we, as Christians, know where we are going? Many would immediately answer, “I do know—I’m going to heaven.” But is heaven the end-all, be-all of our goal? Do we exist solely to punch our ticket and get to paradise? Is that the point and purpose of Christianity?
Put another way, what is our goal as Christians?
Way back in Season 1, I posited another prime question, one which encompasses the point, purpose, and goal of Christianity, and it’s this:
Am I becoming more like Jesus?
Like most good questions, this leads to a slew of other questions.
- How can I know if I am becoming more like Jesus?
- What would that look like in my life?
- Am I more like Jesus now than I was a year ago?
- How does this connect to the modern-day assumptions about discipleship?
Discipleship
Discipleship, at its core, is becoming more like Jesus from the inside out. It’s a lifelong journey of spiritual formation, or what is also known as heart formation or character formation. We often refer to it as deep discipleship.
A disciple is an apprentice of Jesus, someone whose life is ordered around being spiritually formed in order to increasingly think like Jesus thinks, relate like he relates, and love like he loves. This happens when our underlying ideas and desires are formed more like His.
Yet many Christian theologians, leaders, writers, and thinkers agree that deep discipleship is missing in the modern Christian church ecosystem.
Theologian and philosopher Dallas Willard called it “the great omission”: the fact that the contemporary church talks about making disciples but struggles to do so. Too often, we create converts instead; we focus on a wide pool of belief statements rather than pursuing depth and absorbing what Jesus taught and modeled.
In terms of the Critical Journey, as we have discussed, most churches focus on stages 1, 2, and 3, and aren’t aware of or help with stages 4, 5, and 6.
This is because most modern churches do not see themselves as “character-forming” communities. They promote a version of Christianity focused on instruction, on the accumulation of facts and knowledge about Jesus and the Bible, and on acts of service. But this does not necessarily produce people of increasingly Christ-like character.
I have made a number of provocative points on this podcast, and not everyone has agreed with all of them, and that’s all right—in fact, it’s healthy. We encourage dialogue, disagreement, and debate. But this statement about the great omission, about the failure of the modern church to focus its efforts on creating deep disciples, has met with virtually unanimous agreement.
Everybody concurs that this is a real concern. As Pastor Jeff Struecker notes, “There is no single measure in American church and culture to suggest true discipleship is happening.”
But relatively few are working to resolve this.
I think it’s not just an issue facing the church, but the issue. The downstream effects of the lack of deep discipleship on every part of our lives, our cultures, and our world cannot be overstated.
On a personal level, the lack of spiritual depth often results in a struggle to inhabit God’s promises of abundant life, perfect peace, and joy even in the midst of struggle. And many Christians find themselves asking, “Is there more to the Christian life than what I am experiencing?”
If we are to overcome the Great Omission, we’ve identified three key obstacles, what we here at Soil & Roots call the Three Primary Problems. They are:
- The Forgotten Kingdom
- The Discipleship Dilemma
- and The Formation Gap
The Forgotten Kingdom
The primary theme of the New Testament, and a prominent theme of the Old, is that of the Kingdom of God. Yet modern Christianity abounds with confusion regarding the definition, timing, and growth of the kingdom. If you ask a dozen Christians to define what the Kingdom is, you’ll get a dozen different answers. This lack of clarity or focus on the Kingdom of God is a concern. If we don’t understand Jesus’s primary mission, we will struggle to understand our own.
Too often, the “Gospel,” the good news of Christianity, is discussed in terms of, “Here is what Jesus did for you.” Or, “I invited Jesus into my heart.” Or, Jesus died for me.
And, yes, he certainly did. But this is only part of the Gospel. This is the Gospel of Salvation, and it is vital. But the Gospel of the Kingdom is the good news that Jesus is, right now, renewing and reconciling all things—including the very cosmos itself. He is restoring all four relationships that mankind was placed within, all the way back in the Garden of Eden: with God, self, others, and creation and culture.
The reductionist gospel, as it’s sometimes called, focuses on just one of these, our relationship with God, to the neglect of the others. In other words, Jesus came and died for my sins, and that’s it.
He is our savior, yes, but he is also king of the universe. Jesus is making all things new. And he is also restoring our relationships with ourselves, with others, and with creation and culture.
This is what we mean when we talk about the Kingdom. Dr. Jeremy Treat’s definition of the Kingdom is God’s reign through God’s people over God’s place.
When we forget the Kingdom, we are teaching a private faith. When we forget the Kingdom, we are missing the totality of Jesus’s mission and, therefore, our own. We unconsciously create this gap between our salvation and our death and neglect the fact the Kingdom is a present reality.
And if discipleship means becoming like Jesus, yet we’ve forgotten his Kingdom, we will have a skewed vision of the One we are to become like.
The Discipleship Dilemma
For centuries, Christians naturally understood that the journey to become more like Jesus required knowledge of two people: Jesus and ourselves. Theologians from Augustine to Calvin referenced and embraced this “double knowledge”: that to know God better requires us to explore our own hearts and our own stories.
However, in many modern Christian environments, the journey of learning how to explore, craft, and share our stories in light of God’s grand narrative is ignored if not condemned. Thus the dilemma: to become more like Jesus, we need to explore our stories, yet we’re consciously or unconsciously discouraged from doing so.
Perhaps there is a stigma around it because digging into one’s own story feels too self-focused, self-centered, even self-ish. We’ve been taught that we are to die to self. We’ve been taught to focus on others. We’ve been taught that the way to cope with the wounds and hurts from our past is to just lay them down at the foot of the cross, which is a phrase I still can’t quite get my head around.
I don’t wish to minimize the very real change that can come from giving our worries and fears to God. But God chose to place us in those four relationships—with him, but also with ourselves, with others, and with creation and culture—and in his wisdom, he elects to utilize all four relationships as instruments of learning, growth, and healing. Sometimes, dare I say it oftentimes, the way that God chooses to heal and deliver us is through one of those other three relationships that doesn’t get as much press.
God frequently speaks to us through other people. The most profound growth and healing can occur when we are open, intimate, and vulnerable with others, opening up about our pasts and our stories and understanding them better ourselves in the process. That kind of trust and intimacy takes time and intentionality.
The Formation Gap
So, then, if our churches are not intentionally providing deep, formative spiritual experiences, and the grand scope of the Kingdom and the full meaning of the gospel has been forgotten, and we do not feel the freedom or have the opportunity to explore our own hearts and stories, we find that we are facing a formation gap.
Notice I did not say “to act like Jesus.” There are typically plenty of service opportunities to be the hands and feet of Jesus, imitating actions that he did or that he praised: visiting the sick or those in prison, feeding the hungry, clothing the destitute, providing for the homeless. These are important, necessary, and a vital part of the Christian life, and they accomplish great good and are pleasing to the heart of God.
But acting like Jesus does not necessarily mean being formed like Jesus. Formation is its own process.
Anthropologically speaking, if one person wants to be formed more like another, they intentionally engage in what Soil & Roots calls a “five-element community.” These five formative elements are common to all human experiences and are designed to help someone be formed from the inside out: time, habits, community, intimacy, and instruction.
Examples of intentionally formative five-element communities include marriage, the military, higher education, competitive sports teams, addiction recovery programs, and so on. If we wish for the inner life—those parts of the human heart that often function behind the scenes, like an operating system—to be transformed more like Christ, we should consider whether we are being formed in groups that feature all five elements.
The modern Christian experience rarely features all five elements. Most people experience bits and pieces of the necessary elements, and generally not in intentionally formative groups.
Greenhouses and Heartview
To meet this need, we here at Soil & Roots encourage and facilitate the formation of small, intentionally formative groups called Greenhouses.
One of the key parts of a successful Greenhouse is the emphasis on Heartview, which you’ve also heard me discuss if you’ve listened to this podcast for any length of time.
As I began the process of exploring ideas as the fundamental concepts, assumptions, or principles in which our hearts are rooted but of which we are generally unaware, my intent was to answer two central questions:
- Is it possible to explore our hearts in order to uncover the ideas and desires that govern us?
- If so, how?
The answer to the first question is yes; it is possible to uncover hidden ideas and desires in our hearts. In fact, God is constantly inviting us into that exploration to experience his healing and freedom.
The answer to the second question, how, is the process, or perhaps the habit, we call “Heartview.” It’s a made-up word.
The Bible provides ample evidence and instruction about how we may peer into the recesses of our hearts as we journey through Deep Discipleship. It teaches that if we pay close attention, our hearts consistently and inevitably reveal the ideas and desires that sit at the bedrock of our soils. If we are courageously curious about ourselves and God, we will uncover tremendous insight into the actual condition of our hearts compared to what our polite interactions display.
This process of Heartview involves evaluating and exploring the “Eight Indicators” that God has wired into every human being. The Eight Indicators are our thoughts, emotions, health, behaviors, relationships, words, and stewardship of time and money. Regardless of how we present ourselves on the surface, our hearts will always bubble up their true ideas and desires through these Eight Indicators.
These indicators are powerful tools as we journey into Deep Discipleship. Working through our indicators leads to wonderful and freeing steps forward as we seek to become more like Jesus.
Heartview is a simple, ongoing, three-step process in which we engage with God and a trusted friend or two. With Heartview, we:
- Uncover. We use our Eight Indicators to uncover our hidden ideas and desires in cooperation with God and trusted, safe friends.
- Determine. We determine whether our ideas bend toward the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light.
- Immerse. We immerse ourselves in cultures designed to transform dark ideas into light.
Heartview applies these three steps to the most vital formative experience of our lives: our spiritual formation. Heartview is a process we practice in Greenhouses in order to solve the Discipleship Dilemma. It’s an inherent part of the inward journey, an effective tool that lets us observe the Eight Indicators in ourselves and others as a way to be attuned to people’s hearts.
We understand better, but we also love better—ourselves, others, and our God, thereby helping us to fulfill what Jesus said were the two greatest commandments.
Season 5
That recap brings us up to the last season, Season 5, which featured a number of interviews with other folks who are compellingly grappling with many of these same concerns and ideas.
Here at Soil & Roots, we like to say “more dialogue, less monologue,” and in order to walk the walk, we spent a whole season bringing outside people onto the show. We wanted more voices speaking into these topics, and we had some terrific conversations and certainly benefited from the wisdom of the guests who joined us.
We had conversations about soul care with Adam Ormord, The Critical Journey with Dr. Jim Reiter, storytelling with Zach Leighton, spiritual formation and children with Emily Riffe; the ‘beautiful mess’ of modern Christianity in modern churches with Matt Davis; discipleship as viewed through various end times systems with Dr. Darrell Bock; and we wrapped up with Greenhouse discussions centered on the desperate need for deep people and the desperate need for deep communities.
And there you have it, a 30,000-foot-view of the first five seasons, spanning 30 months and 113 episodes.
I think that answers little sleepwalking Michael’s question I started the episode with: How did I get here?
So, it’s time to posit a new question:
Where do we go from here?
Intro to Season 6
Well, we’ve said a thousand times that the point is to think, act, love, and relate like Jesus; that we become more like Him and behave more like Him, even unconsciously.
That’s what will bring greater human flourishing, that’s what will create stronger marriages and households of peace and joy, that’s what will heal our nations, that’s what will bring the abundant life to our lives, and that’s what will share the full gospel with the world.
It’s the point of solving the Three Primary Problems. It’s the answer to the Great Omission. It’s the foundation for Heartview and the whole reason to have Five Element Communities.
So what does it mean to think, act, love, and relate like Jesus?
What would that even look like in our own lives? How can we better understand this radical life that he lived, and the radical love he embodied?
The answers are not as simple as we might think.
Two paths we’ll be following:
First, as we tackle this topic over the rest of the season, you’ll see an emphasis on being more than doing. In mainstream Christianity, the focus is often on imitating Jesus’s actions. This is a worthy goal; who better to imitate? We are meant to watch and learn and to act like Jesus acted as best we can. Habits are an essential part of our formation.
Just look at the once-popular acronym WWJD, found on everything from bracelets to bumper stickers: What Would Jesus Do?
The word ‘homiletics’ refers to the art of preaching or writing sermons, and many of the most popular homiletics methods have “application” as one of the steps. That is, while part of the sermon involves the reading of Scripture, another part involves discussing its application. Verse, exposition, application. Many Christians are encouraged to read the Bible that way: read a verse, find the universal truth, and apply it to your life. This can be helpful, but it can also train us to see Scripture as an instruction manual. In fact, many kids are told that BIBLE stands for “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.”
Action. Application. Doing like Jesus. All well and good and important.
But what if our focus was instead on “being” like Jesus?
If we become progressively more like him, won’t we also progressively think like he thinks, relate like he relates, and love like he loves? Won’t our doing become progressively like his if our being does?
Pastor and author John R.W. Stott, writing for the C.S. Lewis Institute, states:
I remember very vividly, some years ago, that the question which perplexed me as a younger Christian (and some of my friends as well) was this: what is God’s purpose for His people? Granted that we have been converted, granted that we have been saved and received new life in Jesus Christ, what comes next? Of course, we knew the famous statement of the Westminster Shorter Catechism: that man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever: we knew that, and we believed it. We also toyed with some briefer statements, like one of only five words—love God, love your neighbor. But somehow neither of these, nor some others that we could mention, seemed wholly satisfactory. So I want to share with you where my mind has come to rest as I approach the end of my pilgrimage on earth, and it is—God wants His people to become like Christ. Christlikeness is the will of God for the people of God.[2]
As the nineteenth-century English poet and cultural critic Matthew Arnold would have it, “Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming.”
So for the rest of Season 6 we will look at stories and examples of how Jesus spoke, related, acted, loved—what he said and what he did, as recorded in the Bible—but with the focus and goal on not just acting like Jesus but on becoming like him, intentionally and with His gentle leading and guidance.
We are to be “conformed to the image of the Son,” Romans 8:29. Or, as Luke puts it in chapter 6, verse 40: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.”
So, first, an emphasis on being and becoming.
Second, we must realize that Jesus is multi-faceted. Some of the things he said and did are baffling and complex. We’ll come to grips with the fact that a simple, one-dimensional understanding of Jesus misses the reality of who he was and is.
Too often, we think that to love and relate like Jesus means to preach the gospel of salvation to as many people as we can, to always approach others with outstretched arms of kindness, to never judge, to restrain or avoid negative emotions of anger or sadness, and to think Christian activity fits into the neat box that we see displayed in Sunday morning services.
But does this actually reflect how Jesus is described in the Bible? Jesus was provocative and challenging. And he rarely interacted with people in the same way twice. Why?
Jesus did not proclaim his lordship and the plan of salvation to all he met. He was very selective about whom he revealed himself to. Why not tell everyone?
Jesus sometimes treated his enemies with a kind word. Other times, he rebuked them. Other times, he ignored them. Other times, he judged them. Other times, he walked away.
Sometimes, he told those he healed not to tell anyone about their healing. Other times, they were told to shout it from the rooftops.
The methods he chose for performing miracles varied drastically. Sometimes he merely spoke a word, other times he asked God, other times he touched, other times he spat on the ground.
Jesus was sometimes friendly, engaging, and polite. Other times, let’s face it, he does not come across as all that concerned with other people’s feelings or even very nice.
Jesus showed sorrow. He showed anger.
Sometimes, he told his followers clearly what he meant. But oftentimes, he left them confused and scratching their heads.
He scribbled in the dust. He cursed a fig tree. He sent demons into pigs. He let a good friend die, and wept even knowing his friend was about to live again.
Sometimes Jes,us performed a miracle for someone without even being asked. Other times, people seemingly had to argue and convince him before he would act.
Jesus is the most relationally and emotionally secure person in human history. And we are to become more like Him.
There is no straightforward formula. It’s a becoming that may uncomfortably shake loose our long-held assumptions when we ask, What Would Jesus Do? The answer may not be as simple as we thought.
[1] https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2023/8/bizarre-story-of-boy-who-sleepwalked-on-to-a-train-and-woke-up-100-miles-from-hom-757323#:~:text=The%20bizarre%20story%20of%20one,100%2Dmile%20train%20journey%E2%80%9D
[2] https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/the-model-becoming-more-like-christ/
