We have a new United Methodist blogger in the bl'ouse (blog-house)!!!! Check out Steve Manskar's blog- Accountable Discipleship.
Steve is the author of "Accountable Discipleship, Living In God's Household", 'Perfect Love: Understanding John Wesley's "A Plain Account of Christian Perfection'" and is also the Director of Accountable Discipleship for the General Board of Discipleship, Nashville, TN.
Look for good thoughts and posts at Accountable Discipleship.
Steve, welcome to the neighborhood.
4 comments:
I've come across this in passing. Not too familiar with it, but was wondering two things about it:
1) How are compassion and justice different according to this study?
2) Where does evangelism fit in?
(My semantic worldview sees justice and compassion as the same basic activity, and then links them closely to evangelism, but as a discernibly different activity that must accompany compassion and vice versa).
Compassion are the acts/practices that we as Christians do that help those in need- serving the homeless, offering shelter, ministering to those in need, etc...
Acts/practices of justice are 1. asking the "why" questions- why is there homelessness and what societal facters help perpetuate homelessness, why is an entire group of people time and time again having these social needs?
2. Trying to help correct the societal ills that perpetuate the "injustice".
Both are needed, both are complementary.
As for evangelism- i'd like to think that all four quadrants play a holistic part of evangelism-
it is through meeting one another's needs and showing compassion toward one another that we come into relationship in the church;
we see the welfare of our "city" and those who live in it through acts of justice that all might have access to the highest good and be in a place to love God and love neighbor w/out feeling the pressures that social ills cause;
we we find a community that we are welcomed into we are taught the rituals and "disciplines" of the community so that as we "practice" these disciplines in our own life- we begin to change our habits and our way of life changes to look more like that of Jesus;
our community comes together to worship the God that has blessed us with community, practices, compassion through hardship, as we seek the welfare and justice of all Gods children.
In my eyes- this would be how the different quadrants work together and compliment one another.
shalom
My fear is that evangelism isn't stressed enough in this study; with no proclamation of the Good News, how is the Church any different than the Rotary. Arguably, that's where worship comes in, but the Masons have prayers and worshipping rituals as well. It's the Good News being shared that's distinctive of the church because we minister to the whole person--not just their physical, emotional, psychological, and relational needs, but their spiritual needs at all.
However, I do agree with you that these aspects are integrated and work together.
Maybe another way to look at this is that this is the next step after evangelism- what happens when someone comes into the life of the church? they are put into a covenant discipleship group and begin learning what it means to follow the lifestyle and way of Jesus.
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