Out of Control Disciple

I shared this with my seniors on our retreat last weekend. It was awesome to sit around and hear which of these phrases grabbed their heart. I would love to graduate a slew of out of control disciples from our ministry in May!

“I am a member of the Church of the Out of Control. I am an out of control disciple. I’ve given up my control to God. I trust and obey the Spirit. I’ve jumped off the fence, stepped over the line. I’ve pulled out all the stops. There’s no turning back, looking around, slowing down, backing away, letting up or shutting up. It’s a life against the odds, outside the box, over the wall, the game of life played without goal lines other than ‘Thy will be done…’

“I’m done primping and pimping for the overdogs, the wonderdogs, the lapdogs, or even the underdogs. I’m done playing according to the rules, whether its Robert’s Rules of Order or Miss Manner’s rules of etiquette or Martha Stewarts’ rules of living, Louis Farakhan’s rules of America’s least wanted, or Merrill Lynch’s rules of money-minding, bottom-lining and ladder-climbing.

“I am not here to please the dominate culture or to serve any all-show, no-go bureaucracy; I live to please my Lord and Savior. My spiritual taste buds have graduated from fizz and froth to fire and ice. Sometimes I’m called to sharpen the cutting edge and sometimes to blunt the cutting edge. Don’t give me that ‘old time religion’ or even the new time religion. Give me that all time religion that’s as hard as rock and soft as snow.

“I can’t be bought by personalities or perks, positions or prizes. I won’t give up, though I may give in…to openness of mind, humbleness of heart, and generosity of spirit. In the face of adversity, I will no longer simply hang in there. I will stand in there; I will run in there. I will pray in there;

I will sacrifice in there. I will endure in there; in fact, I will do everything in there but hang. My face is upward, my feet are forward, my eyes are focused, my way is cloudy, my knees are worn, my seat uncreased, my heart burdened, my spirit light, my road narrow and my mission wide.

“I won’t be seduced by popularity, seduced by criticism, travested by hypocrisy, or trivialized by mediocrity. Just because the show must go on, whether in Hollywood, Washington, Nashville or Denver, doesn’t mean the show is worth watching.

“I am organized religion’s best friend and worst nightmare. I won’t back down, slow down, shut down, or let down until I’m preached out, teached out, healed out or hauled out of God’s mission in the world entrusted to the member of the Church of the Out of Control, a mission to unbind the confined, whether they’re downtrodden or upscale, overlooked or under-represented.

“My fundamental identity is as a disciple of Jesus—but even more, as a disciple of Jesus who lives in Christ, who doesn’t trek through history simply ‘in His steps’ but seeks to travel more deeply in His Spirit.

“Until he comes again or calls me home, you will find me not killing time so that one day he will pick me out in the lineup of the ages as one of His own. And then, it will be worth it all to hear these words, the most precious words that I can ever hear: “You are my beloved son, in whom I am well-pleased. Well done, thou good and faithful…out of control disciple.”