I’m shocked . . . in a very nice way.

As a pastor who thinks he lives and breathes disciplemaking I find myself rocking on my heels after picking up Bill Hull’s “Choose The Life: Exploring A Faith That Embraces Discipleship.”

One sentence grabbed me by the throat and won’t let go, “Nothing fails like success. . .” He goes on to say that success at modeling anything other than Jesus gets you nowhere. But what about guys like me who try with all their might to emulate Jesus? Success can get to us to.

This is the first book I’ve picked up in more than 30 years that actually challenged me to rethink our approach to disciplemaking. We’ve built a model straight from scripture, resisted the tides of churchthink and stood our ground in a dark world. We’ve made disciples and planted many churches. In short, we succeed at what we do! But, we are not Jesus, only humans trying to be like him and this is where the blister begins. We act like we know all the answers (and all the questions).

Bill Hull, in this great read challenges even life-giving discipleship that has fallen into its ruts of contentment.

I’m still getting into the book, but had to write about it because it is so good.

He says things like, “Jesus was irrelevant and unnecessary to his culture . . . even though it cost him everything, he became the most relevant and necessary man of history.” It seems that we struggle to be relevant only to find the world thinking us un-necessary.

Another thing I like is his press to think in terms of disciplemaking prior to evangelism. We once did a campaign called “Seven For Heaven” where we distributed Bible markers where people could build a prayer list of seven people they want to evangelize. I now wonder if we should limit that to just one or two people per person. By this I mean to teach our people to pray for one person to begin discipling into the gospel through intentional relationships. This book is all about process and people.

This is a fun read and I’ll try to keep posting as I get further into it.

Choose The Life: Exploring A Faith That Embraces Discipleship