A Copernican Revolution -LA Holmes

If a person decides they want to work harder at discipleship, there is no shortage of resources for them to turn to. Discipleship was part of the great commission given to us by Jesus, and over the centuries Christians have wrote untold volumes about how to go about the process. 

In the current market, most of these books are no better or worse than the others.  What's most important is that whatever plan a person picks, they stick with it. That being said, there are books and plans that over time make themselves stand out and rise to the top of the genre.  Discipleship Essentials by Greg Ogden is one of those books.   In a newly revised and expanded version from InterVarsity Press, Ogden presents a clear and simple plan for discipleship. 

I had not heard of the book before it came across my desk, courtesy of IVP.  But as I read the book and looked over the plan, I was encouraged by the way Ogden writes.  There are many many books that tell us that we need to be making disciples. …

Frederick Buechner was an author, pastor, and writer who knew how to get right to the heart of the matter.  In the third part of his autobiography, he writes about teaching a preaching class at Harvard Divinity school.  Many of his students were professed atheists, and he reflects on how class changed his view of preaching.  
I HAD NEVER understood so clearly before what preaching is to me. Basically, it is to proclaim a Mystery before which, before whom, even our most exalted ideas turn to straw. It is also to proclaim this Mystery with a passion that ideas alone have little to do with. It is to try to put the Gospel into words not the way you would compose an essay but the way you would write a poem or a love letter—putting your heart into it, your own excitement, most of all your own life. It is to speak words that you hope may, by grace, be bearers not simply of new understanding but of new life both for the ones you are speaking to and also for you. Out of that life, who knows w…