Practicing the Way

By: John Mark Comer

ISBN: 978-0593193822

READ: May 2024

RATING: 7/10

Summary: This is primarily a book about discipleship, not disciple making. Comer does a wonderful job in the first half of the book setting up the call that we all have to follow Jesus. He defines a disciple as an apprentice who must 1. Be with Jesus 2. Become Like Jesus 3. Do what Jesus did. The first half of the book is a thoughtful, detailed, and precise explanation of our call as disciples. It ties in our present situation in Western Christianity to the ancient practice of being an apprentice/disciple. However, despite such a great set-up, Comer inexplicably never suggests that the reader should make disciples of others. Instead he offers spiritual growth practices and a rule of life that will help individuals become more like Jesus. This book leaves out practical teaching on how to make disciples (what Jesus did). Overall, the book was barely a 7 for me, but the first half was a 9.

**I’ve added my comments (in italics) throughout because I think this book warrants more interaction and I was surprised at the turns and choices Comer made in part two.

Chapter titles are: Dust 1. Apprentice to Jesus 2. Goal #1: Be with Jesus 3. Goal 2: Become like him 4. Goal #3: Do as He did 5. How? A Rule of Life 6. Take Up Your Cross 7. Extras

Dust:

“None of us comes to what we believe by ourselves. The world has no free thinkers.” – Tish Harrison Warren Pg. Xii

“The key to getting people to follow you is to convince them they aren’t following anyone at all.” Pg. Xii

“What might once have been called advertising must now be understood as continuous behavior modification on a titanic scale.” – Jaron Lanier Pg. xii

“The question is not, Am I becoming a person? It’s, Who or what am I becoming?” pg. xiii

“If we’re not being intentionally formed by Jesus himself, then it’s highly likely we are being unintentionally formed by someone or something else.” Pg. xiii

“It’s my conviction that contrary to what we hear, living by faith isn’t a Christian thing or even a religious thing; it’s a human thing—we all live by faith.” Pg. xiii

“There is no problem in human life that apprenticeship to Jesus cannot solve.” -Dallas Williard Pg. xv

“I have come to believe that there is a Way of life laid down by Jesus himself, and that if we give ourselves to it—and ultimately to him—it will lead to the life we all most truly crave.” Pg. xvi

 

Part 1: Apprentice to Jesus

“The title rabbi literally means ‘master.’ Rabbis were the spiritual masters of Israel.” Pg. 3

“Every rabbi had his ‘yoke’—a Hebrew idiom for his set of teachings, his way of reading Scripture, his take on howe to thrive as a human being in God’s good world. How you, too, could taste a little of what they’d tasted.” Pg. 4

“They [rabbis] could have been farmers or blacksmiths or even carpenters. Most trained under another rabbi for many years, then began to teach and call their own disciples around the age of thirty. But there was no formal certification like in our modern educational system. Authority worked differently. Your life and teaching were your credentials.” Pg. 4

“Of course, saying that Jesus was a rabbi is about as insightful as saying that he was Jewish….to a large number of Western Christians, he is a delivery mechanism for a particular theory of atonement, as if the only reason he came was to die, not to live.” Pg. 5

“As Dallas Willard said, ‘What lies at the heart of the astonishing disregard of Jesus found in the moment-to-moment existence of multitudes is professing Christians is a simple lack of respect for him.” Pg. 5

3 Goals of an Apprentice: pgs. 7-10

1.     To be with your rabbi

2.     To become like your rabbi

3.     To do as your rabbi did

“Discipleship (or, as I’m about to relabel it, apprenticeship) was the pinnacle of the first-century Jewish educational system., much like a PhD or graduate program is in our system today.” Pg. 7

            -Comer’s re-terming discipleship to apprenticeship is fine as he unpacks it, but I don’t think it makes it any clearer, it just places the haziness in a different spot. In our culture apprenticeship happens most happens in a trade. So, the risk is the listener believes discipleship is simply what we do, as opposed to a more holistic who we become. I think he unpacks this well though to avoid such a misunderstanding.

 

Bet Sefer = the house of the book, started at five years old, ended at twelve or thirteen.

Bet Midrash = the house of learning, started at 13, ended at 17.

Discipleship (apprenticeship) = whole life learning and molding. 17-30ish.

“The whole point of apprenticeship was to train under a rabbi in order to one day become a rabbi yourself. If you made it through the gauntlet of discipleship (and that was a real it), then, when he thought you were ready, your rabbi would turn to you and say something like ‘Okay, kid, I give you my blessing. Go, and make disciples. This was what it meant to be a disciple. This is still what I means to be a disciple.” Pg. 10

            -He nails this here, which is why it’s so perplexing that he doesn’t really include the part of us discipling throughout the rest of the book. He addresses it in a bit of a strange manner to me on the very next page.

 

“Disciple is a noun, not a verb. The problem with the word disciple is that we don’t use it much outside church circles. The Hebrew word is talmid and it simply means, ‘a student of a teacher or philosopher’—not just a learner but a practitioner of an embodied way of life, one who is diligently working to be with and become like their master.” Pg. 11

“But whatever translation you adopt—disciple, apprentice, practitioner, student, follower—let me state the obvious: Talmid is a noun, not a verb. People regularly ask me, ‘Who are you discipling?’ or ‘Who discipled you?’ But as far as I can tell, not one time in the entire New Testament is disciple used as a verb. Not once. Grammatically speaking, then to use disciple as a verb is bad form.” Pg. 12

“People have come to me actually bitter because their former pastors ‘did not disciple’ them. What they usually mean is that these pastors didn’t spend one-on-one time with them. While I’m all for pastors giving their time to foster people’s growth in Jesus, I would argue that you can’t ‘disciple’ somebody any more than you can ‘Christian’ them, ‘believer-er’ them, or ‘follwer-er’ them.” Pg. 12

“Please hear me: This isn’t just semantics. Language matters. Here’s why: If disciple is something that is done to you (a verb), then that puts the onus of responsibility for your spiritual formation on someone else, like your pastor, church, or mentor. But if disciple is a noun-if it’s someone you are or are not—then no one can ‘disciple’ you, but Rabbi Jesus himself.” Pg. 13

 

            -What Comer is saying here is BIG and I think it eventually undermines what he’s trying to do in the book. If, as he said, the whole point of discipleship is to become a rabbi yourself, then what should we call the process or the action that the rabbi does with the disciples?? Comer runs into the same problem later in the book and uses apprentice in verb forms on pg 12 (quietly placed in the footnotes), as well as on page 21 and 120 (and maybe others). Apprentice and disciple are nouns, but English needs a verb form to communication the action that a rabbi or master does with the one that he’s leading/training/etc.  Many call it discipling. But he’s right, the Scriptures don’ use that form.  

            -This argument undermines the last part of his central message, “Do as he did,” because Jesus was a rabbi and had disciples. When Comer says “no one can ‘disciple’ you, but Rabbi Jesus himself,” that also means YOU can’t disciple anyone else. But making disciples (or being the rabbi in a relationship with another) is exactly what Jesus asks the disciples to do and to teach others to do!

            -So what do we do with the attitude of believers that He’s hitting on here? We point out to them that being discipled by another human is a luxury, not a need, because the Scriptures teach us that we already have everything we need for life and godliness.

 

“If an apprentice is simply anyone whose ultimate aim is to be with Jesus in order to become like him and live the way Jesus would live if he were in their shoes, then a no-apprentice…is simply anyone who ultimate aim in life is anything else.” Pg. 16

“Much preaching of the gospel today does not call people to a life of discipleship. Following Jesus is seen as optional—a post-conversion ‘second track’ for those who want to go further.” Pg. 16

“The apprentices included all Jesus’ followers—the twelve apostles, but also many others, including women. The crowds were simply everyone else. There is no third category of ‘Christians’ who generally agree with most of what Jesus was saying but don’t follow him or make a serious attempt to obey his teachings…” pg. 16

“The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is wheter those who…are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples—students, apprentices, practitioners—of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.” -Dallas Willard Pg. 17

“I could not agree more: The greatest issue facing the world today is not climate change, surveillance, human rights, or the specter of nuclear war, as utterly crucial as all these are….You see, Jesus is not looking for converts to Christianity; he’s looking for apprentices in the kingdom of God” Pg. 17

            -Agree, but if we want more apprentices, we need more rabbis to lead them. It’s not that Jesus is unwilling or unable, it’s that He’s positioned and equipped us to do that important work.

 

“For Jesus, salvation is less about getting you into heaven and more about getting heaven into you….It’s less of a transaction and more of a transformation.” Pg. 21

The main problem with the evangeliscal gospel is that is simply does not sound anything like the Gospel Jesus preached. Pg. 22

“One way to judge the veracity of your gospel is by this simple acid test: would someone hearing your gospel naturally conclude that apprenticeship to Jesus is the only fitting response?” pg. 23

“It seems the Western church has at times been more careful to avoid, ‘works righteousness’ than to avoid sin.” Pg. 23

“Grace is not opposed to effort, it is opposed to earning.” -Dallas Willard Pg. 23

 

Goal #1: Be with Jesus

“This is the first and most important goal of apprenticeship to Jesus: to be with him, to spend every waking moment aware of his presence and attentive to his voice. To cultivate a with-ness to Jesus as the baseline of your entire life.” Pg. 35

“[Speaking about abiding] Jesus isn’t asking you to do something you’re not already doing. All of us are abiding. The question isn’t, are you abiding? It’s, What are you abiding in?” pg. 37-38

“Apprenticeship to Jesus is about turning your body into a temple, a place of overlap between heaven and earth—an advance sign of what one day Jesus will do for the entire cosmos.” Pg. 39

“What Willard and all these spiritual masters of the Way are saying is that through habit you can co-create with Jesus a mind that is fixed on God all through the day.” Pg. 43

“Neurons that fire together wire together.” -Dr. Donald Hebb pg. 45

“Do you believe that? That the most important thing in all of life is to love and be loved by God?” Pg. 47

            -For me it depends on how we are defining this. It could be read as a pretty selfish—me and God—sort of way. I wish he’d clarified that His mission is His purpose for us here, not just knowing and being known.

 

“The question for goal #1, ‘be with Jesus,’ was, How do we be with Jesus? And the answer was basically we abide in the vine; rooted in a relational connection to Jesus by the Spirit.” Pg. 48

“The question for goal #2, ‘is not all that different: How do we become like Jesus? A full answer would take a book, but here’s the SparkNotes version: through contemplation. We let God love us into people of love.” Pg. 48

            -Comer is out on a limb here. In my experience/reading/understanding there are three main paradigms for discipleship: Obedience-based, knowledge-based, and relationship-based discipleship. Comer is suggesting a very different paradigm here centered on contemplation. However he doesn’t take time to explain or ground this assertion in the Scriptures. He does explain the benefits of contemplation, which I agree with, but to assert this is the main how in becoming like Jesus is a big claim.

 

“That said, no family of origin is healthy enough to transform us into the kind of love we see in Jesus, and no family is dysfunctional enough to keep us from becoming people of love in Jesus.” Pg. 48

“David Benner, a psychologist and spiritual director said, … ‘Meditating on God’s love has done more to increase my love than decades of effort to try to be more loving.’” -Pg. 49

“It’s just that you reach a point in any relationship, but especially with God, where words and even thoughts can no longer carry you forward toward intimacy. They bring you so far but not all the way. They may even hold you back.” Pg. 51

“I’m with theologian Karl Rahner, who said, ‘The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.” Pg. 51

“Unfortunately, many of us still view following Jesus as a means to an end—a ticket to heaven, to nice feelings, to a successful, upwardly mobile life, and so on. We still don’t get it: He’s the end.” Pg. 52

“Once you’ve tasted of prayer—true prayer—you realize that deepening your surrender to and honing your attention on God are literally the most important things in the world. Prayer (that is, being with Jesus) is our primary portal to joy. It’s the best part of not just each day but of life.” Pg. 54

“…Jesus’ life template was based on a rhythm of retreat and return, like breathing in and then out.” Pg. 57

“For Jesus, the secret place wasn’t just a place; it was a practice, a habit, a part of his life rhythm.” Pg. 57

“This practice from the life of Jesus has come to be called, ‘the spiritual discipline of solitude, silence, and stillness.’” Pg. 58

“Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.” Pg. 58

“Jesus is calling you to slow down and simplify your life around the three goals of an apprentice: to be with your rabbi, become like him, and do as he did.” Pg. 60

“The number one problem you will face is time, because most people are just too busy to live emotionally healthy and spiritually vibrant lives.” -Unnamed psychologist, Pg. 61

“We live time-torn lives: We want to be with Jesus, but we just don’t have time to pray.” Pg. 61

“So, this will require us to take intentional steps to slow down. It will likely start with a formation audit of our lives, where we take a serious look at how we spend our time and cut out more than we add in, in a desire to be with Jesus.” Pg. 62

 

Goal #2 Become Like Him

“What you are now, we used to be. What we are now, you will be.” Ancient carving at an ossuary. Pg. 67

“Western culture is arguably built around the denial of death through the coping mechanism of distraction. As Ronald Rolheiser put it, ‘We are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.’” Pg. 68

“To recap, the aim of a first-century apprentice wasn’t just to learn the Torah from a smart rabbi, but to learn life from one who had become master of it.” Pg. 69

“For Jesus, the point of apprenticeship was to be with him for the purpose of becoming like him, which happens through an in-depth process of training.” Pg. 69

“Spiritual formation happens to everyone, whether they are ‘into’ it or not.” Pg. 70

“Stasis is not on the menu. We are either being transformed into the love and beauty of Jesus or malformed by the entropy of sin.” Pg. 71

“…spiritual formation in the way of Jesus is how each of us is formed to be like Jesus and, in doing so, to be our deepest, truest self—the self that God had in mind when he willed us into existence before time began.” Pg. 72

“…a working definition of spiritual formation in the Way of Jesus: the process of being formed into people of love in Christ.” Pg. 73

“Spiritual growth is similar to bodily growth—very gradual. It takes place over a lifetime at an incremental, at times imperceptible rate.” Pg. 73

“It’s agape—to will the good of another ahead of your own, no matter the cost or sacrifice that may require….It’s the cross. Which isn’t just something Jesus did for us; it’s also something we do with him…” Pg. 78  

“This is where spiritual formation veers in a wildly different direction than self-actualization movement or the Western obsession with project self: It has an end goal, a telos—it’s designed to form you into a person of agape.” Pg. 79

“’In Christ’ is a phrase used through the New Testament, more than eighty times in Paul’s letters alone.” Pg. 79

 “Jesus has come to draw us into God’s inner life of Love loving.” Pg. 79

“Jesus’ invitation to apprentice under him isn’t just a chance to become people of love who are like God; it’s a chance to enter the inner life of God himself. The ancients called this ‘union’ with God, and it is the very meaning of our human existence—for me and for every human on the planet, whether they realize it or not.” Pg. 79

            -For me full union with God will not happen until we are fully sanctified in Heaven. There is just as much a compelling vision for our human existence that is engaging the mission Jesus has for us and had for himself. (Luke 19:10). When we miss the balance of relationship and mission we error towards isolationism (just me and God) or towards do-gooding.

 

“Christlikeness is possible, but it’s not natural. In fact, the gravity and inertia of life will likely take you in the opposite direction.” Pg. 80

“Spiritual formation in the North American church is often truncated to this three-part formula: 1. Go to Church 2. Read your Bible and pray. 3. Give

“Most people do not have a working theory of change; meaning, a reliable path of transformation to follow.” Pg. 82

 

Well-known phenomena in the Western Church Pg. 83-84

            -Churches who are full of Christians but not apprentices.

            -Cancer of hypocrisy where the gap between daily life and Jesus’ teachings are too great to explain away.

            - Generations leaving the church year over year and a turn towards Eastern self-help and therapeutic strategies.

            -Many who ache for more of God and transformation, but who feel stuck in their growth.

 

3 Losing Strategies Pgs. 84-89

1.     Will power

2.     More Bible Study

3.     Zap from Heaven

“The genius of Jesus’ ethical teaching was that you cannot keep the law by trying not to break the law.” Pg. 85

“You can’t think your way to Christlikeness.” -James K. A. Smith Pg. 86

 

2 Problems Pgs. 89-99

1.     Sin

a.     Sin done by us

b.     Sin done to us

c.     Sin done around us

2.     You’ve Already Been Formed

a.     Stories we believe

b.     Habits

c.     Our Relationships

 

“And the beginning of our healing/salvation is what Christians call ‘confession.’ Confession is a core practice of the Way, and contrary to what many think, it’s not at all about beating yourself up in public.” Pg. 95

“As the activist James Baldwin once said, ‘Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Pg. 95-96

“Pick your stories carefully. They will determine who you become.” Pg. 98

“What we repeatedly do, we become. The things we do, do something to us; they get into the core of our being and shape our loves and longings.” Pg. 98

“You are right now, currently, as we speak, being formed by a complex web of ideas, cultural narratives, recurring thoughts, habits, daily rhythms, spending patterns, relationships, family ties, activities, environments, and much more. Just by waking uip and going about your life. We don’t get the luxury of a blank slate; there are forces within and without—with a vested interest in us not becoming like Jesus.” Pg. 99

“The novelist Flannery O’Connor once advised, ‘Push as hard as the age that pushes against you.’ We have to push back on the forces that seek to deform us, to keep us from reaching our potential in Jesus.” Pg. 100

“But the best teaching does more than just inform us—it gets us into our heads with a vision of the good life.” Pg. 103

“Because we become like who we believe God is. So, to counter the daily barrage of straight-up lies we receive from the world around us, as apprentices of Jesus we must, like good students, prioritize exposure to teaching and truth. There are all sorts of ways to do this: Reading Scripture, memorizing Scripture, Studying the Bible, listening to sermons, listening to podcasts, reading books, meditating, just to name a few.” Pg. 104

Theory of how we change pgs. 101-113

1.     Teaching

2.     Practices

3.     Community

4.     Holy Spirit

5.     Over Time

6.     Through Suffering

 

“One of the first things Jesus says right before his opening command is: Whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And the literal last thing Jesus says is an echo: Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice…Jesus begins and ends the Sermon on the Mount with a call to practice.” Pg. 105

“What I mean by practice is more accurately the practices of Jesus, also known as the spiritual disciplines.” Pg. 107

“Jesus didn’t have a disciple; he had disciples plural. He called people to apprentice under him in community.” Pg. 108

 “Whatever you decide, the key to becoming a saint is to keep walking behind Jesus for the long haul. As the saying goes, ‘A black belt is just a white belt who never quit.’ A saint is just an ordinary apprentice who stayed at it with Jesus.” Pg. 112

“We can’t self-save, and we don’t have to. We have been saved and are being saved, and will be saved by Jesus and him alone.” Pg. 116

 

Goal #3 Do as He Did

“’Go and make apprentices of all kinds of people.’ So read Jesus’ closing words to his apprentices. This is exactly what you would expect a rabbi to say to his students at the end of their training. Remember a rabbi’s goal wasn’t just to teach, but also to raise up disciples after himself to carry on his teaching and his way of life. To this day, upon their ordination rabbis are commissioned to ‘raise up many disciple,’ in a liturgy dating back to the time of Jesus….Jesus was saying, ‘Apprentice under me, and I will teach you to do what I do.” Pg. 120

            -He sets this up beautifully but he doesn’t lead the reader to apprentice/disciple others. Instead he talks about the life rhythms of an apprentice and finally to a rule of life. Such a miss IMO.

 

“Learning theorists frame apprenticeship as a four-stage training process: 1. I do; you watch. 2. I do; you help 3. You do; I help 4. You do; I watch. You can map this exact process onto Jesus’ training of his apprentices. At first they just followed him around and watched; over time they began to help Jesus; then they began to do Jesus’ work, a little at a time, receiving a lot of feedback as they took their first faltering steps; and by the end, they were sent out in Jesus’ name and power to continue what he started.” Pg. 121

“The final goal of an apprentice is to carry on the work of the master.” Pg. 121

“If you are an apprentice of Jesus, your goal is to grow and mature into the kind of person who can say and do all the things Jesus said and did.” Pg. 122

“Willard defined a disciple as someone whose ultimate goal is to live their life the Jesus would live if he were me.” Pg. 122

“Who Jesus was in his time on earth is an advanced version of who we have the potential to become in him. Jesus is the template for you and me to pour our lives into.” Pg. 124

“Jesus did miracles not by flexing his muscles like Thor but by living in reliance on the Spirit’s power.” Pg. 125

“If Jesus did his work in the power of the Spirit, how much more do we need the Spirit to carry on that same work?” pg. 127

“There’s no official list of what Jesus did, but I find it helpful to categorize Jesus’ ministry into three basic rhythms: 1. Making space for the Gospel 2. Preaching the Gospel 3. Demonstrating the Gospel.” Pg. 128

            -This is so confounding to me! The whole book so far has been about how Jesus had and formed these apprentices, but that doesn’t deserve explicit mention or focus in categorizing Jesus’ ministry?!?!

 

5 Practices for Preaching the Gospel: pgs. 138-143

1.     Offer Hospitality

2.     Find Where God is Already Working and Join Him

3.     Bear Witness

4.     Do the Stuff

5.     Live a Beautiful Life

 

“To follow Jesus isn’t just to watch him do things like heal the sick and deliver the oppressed; it’s to train under him to do those kinds of things too.” Pg. 144

Signs of Demonstrating the Gospel: pgs. 145-150

1.     Healing

2.     Deliverance

3.     Prophesy

4.     Justice

How? A Rule of Life

“For all of us, before we set out on any journey, we need at least two things: 1. A compelling vision of our desired destination, and 2. A plan for how to get there.” Pg. 158

“This is one way to think about discipleship in the modern era: as a disciplined effort to slow down and make space for God to transform you.” Pg. 159

            -Again the consistent theme of discipleship in the book is a focus on me, my growth, my becoming like Jesus—not in reaching others. This is out of alignment with Jesus’ life and example to us.

 

“A rule of life is a schedule and a set of practices and relational rhythms that create space for us to be with Jesus, become like Him, and do as He did, as we live in alignment with our deepest desires.” Pg. 161

“Put simply a Rule of Life is a plan to follow Jesus. To stay true to one’s commitment to apprentice under Him.” Pg. 161

“In both life and marriage with God, it’s the constraint of commitment that will create space for love to mature and real transformation to occur.” Pg. 162

“Even if you’ve never heard of a Rule of Life until two minutes ago, you have one. You have a way in which you live: a morning routine, a typical workday, a network of relationships, a budget, activities you spend your free time on, and so on….Is it working for you or against you?” Pg. 163

“If your emotional life is off kilter, if you feel far from God, stressed, anxious, and chronically mad, and you’re not becoming more of a person of love, then the odds are that something about the system of your life if poorly designed.” Pg. 163

“He [Steve Jobs] clarified, ‘People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.” Pg. 168

“This is the great challenge of discipleship: to move from aspirational ideas to authentic transformation. A Rule of Life can bridge the gap. It can take aspirational ideas like be with Jesus or become a person of love or you must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life and habituate them into our bodies, literally rewiring our central nervous systems.” Pg. 169

4 Things a Rule of Life will do for You: Pgs. 168-173

1.     Turn Vision into Reality

2.     Experience Peace as you live in Alignment with your Deepest Desires

3.     Live at the Right Pace

4.     Balance Freedom and Discipline

 

“Pay attention when you see a feature of another person’s life and think, I wish my life was like that.” Pg. 171

“A Rule of Life will help you determine in advance the speed of your life, so you don’t burn out or stall out, but ‘press on towards the goal to win the prize.’” Pg. 171

“What I’m calling ‘the practices’ most people call ‘ the spiritual disciplines.’” Pg. 174

What the Practices are NOT: Pgs. 174-180

1.     A Barometer of Spiritual Maturity

2.     A Gloomy Bore

3.     A Form of Merit

4.     A Christian Version of Virtue Signaling

5.     A Means of Control

 

“Love is the metric of spiritual maturity, not discipline. Discipline is a means to an end—to be with Jesus, become like him, and do what he did….Disciplines are the path, not the destination.” Pg. 174-175

“If you do the practices for the wrong reasons (to look good, one-up, or mask your shame), they work against your formation, not for it; they become kind of a parasitic infestation on your soul.” Pg. 177

“The practices are how we meet God in our pain and deepen our surrender to Him, trusting God to do what he will, when he will.” Pg. 177

“The practices are based on the lifestyle of Jesus that create time and space for us to access the presence and power of the Spirit, and, in doing so, be transformed from the inside out.” Pg. `77

The Nine Practices of Jesus: Pgs. 181-190

1.     Sabbath

2.     Solitude

3.     Prayer

4.     Fasting

5.     Scripture

6.     Community

7.     Generosity

8.     Service

9.     Witness

 

4 Basic Levels of Prayer: Pg. 184

1.     Talking to God – Premade prayers, liturgy, psalms, worship songs/prayers

2.     Talking with God – Conversing with God about your life including gratitude, lament, petition, intercession, etc.

3.     Listening to God – Hearing God’s voice through quiet listening, lectio divina, etc.

4.     Being with God- Just looking at God, looking at you, in love (also called contemplative prayer).

 

9 Tips for Crafting Your Rule of Life Pgs. 191-202

1.     Start where you are, not where you should be.

2.     Think Subtraction, not Addition

3.     Take a balanced approach

4.     Take into account your personality and spiritual temperament

5.     Take into account your season of life and stage of discipleship

6.     Keep a healthy blend of upstream and downstream practices

7.     Follow the J Curve

8.     Do this in community

9.     There is no formation without repetition

 

“Find your inner monk. One final thing: Following Jesus doesn’t work as a hobby. It’s not an optional extra to the main point of your life…” pg. 202

“Sin happens when we refuse to keep growing.” Pg. 218

“So, in closing, for those of you who want to embark on the journey of a lifetime, let me offer you a few next steps. 1. You must daily hold before you mind and imagination the beauty and possibility of life in the kingdom of God….2. Once your heart is consumed by a vision of Jesus, you must begin, right where you are. Take one small step immediately….3. Take it slow…4. When you fall (and again, we all fall), repent, yes, but don’t get sucked into self-recrimination or shame. Fall back on God’s mercy. Let him pick you back up.” Pg. 219-220

“In this book, I’ve done my very best to lay out a vision of the wonder of living as an apprentice under Jesus.” Pg. 220

            -This explains my review of the book. It’s about discipleship (apprenticeship by Comer’s language), not one that includes disciple making or apprentice making. We can’t leave out such an important part of our calling and of the life of a disciple or apprentice!

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Find this helpful? Want to grow as a disciple or disciple maker? Check out my books: The Bicycle Illustration and The Foundation of a Disciple Making Culture