Thursday is for Discipleship
Updated re-post: I am busy with a doctoral class and all my gray matter is focused on other tasks, so I thought it might be a good time to re-post something from the archives. Personal Note: I have never seen and will never see any episode, and I hope the show loses all its audience soon.
The sad state of the church in America is illustrated in the following quote from Peter Feuerherd’s Holyland USA, (2006):
The women of Wisteria Lane [Desperate Housewives] created must-see Sunday nights all over blue and red America. Their behavior was far from holy, but evangelicals watched as much as anyone else did. “American culture … is an enormously powerful force, and it will change religion, just as religion will change culture,” concluded Wolfe.
Wolfe, a Jew who teaches at a Jesuit College, has long had an interest in the sociological developments of Middle Americans, including evangelicals. He’s come to one conclusion: “evangelicals are here to stay, and they will continue to influence the rest of us. At the same time we will be influencing them.”
Dr. Wolfe is absolutely right, “American culture … is an enormously powerful force, and it will change religion.” It not only will, it has changed it, it is changing it and the evangelical viewing of TV programs like Desperate Housewives is proof that the culture is having more influence on us (the Church) than the Church is having on the culture.
Question: How does your discipleship process impress upon the saints the need to not be conformed to this world but to be transformed, by the renewing of their minds?
ChosenRebel's Blog 
Brother, I’m with you…I’ve never seen the show and don’t plan to. From the title it appears to be nothing worthy of depositing in my mind. Its influence among our evangelical churches proves the lack of genuine spirituality. When the leaders present themselves like ‘rock stars’ and their wives like the women in the photo above, the ones they lead lose all spiritual and character distinctions between the show “desperate housewives” and their own christian leaders. (Muscle men and Hooter girls)
As to your question…I have found that when the principles of the victorious christian life (Romans chapters 6-8) are taught in discipleship, it brings out application issues which faces off with the spirit of this world and the Spirit of Christ. A short while back I had a young man, who is in leadership training, open up about many intimate struggles while working through these chapters. He felt comfortable to do so because I presented it in a we (christian) struggle and not just an unregenerate man’s struggle. Our discipleship has to include more than just –“don’t do this.” (That approach actually strengthens the power of the temptation.)
So, IMO, the ‘renewing of our mind’ has to be a walking through of the dynamics of the renewing, how it takes place, what our part is in it…all from the biblical understanding. Those of us who lived so fully for the devil before conversion (me), found that the power of Christ, His Cross and His Word as the ONLY victory for weak man! Better stop…
Praying for you today. May the Lord continue to give you strength and clarity of mind. I too, covet your prayers as my ‘cancer re-staging’ battery of tests comes around in the middle of August. Already feel the spiritual battle beginning. God bless…
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