Chapter 2 Blog Post – ReJesus by Bonnie Piazza

A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church.  What?  What?  A wild Messiah?  I am thinking more like passive but stern, displaying tough love when necessary.  The only wildness I would point to is His rant in the temple over the selling of goods in His Father’s House.  I have to admit the word wild scared me a bit, but I decided to read on anyway.

Chapter 2 Titled ReJesus and Personal ReNewal sounds like something I could handle reading and writing reflections about.  It may be helpful for you to know I am one of the laity writing this blog post so my perspective is from a theological perspective. I have spent my life in the church, which is another story as it relates to this book and comments I make here and I have not “studied” the scriptures. So I am asking for a wee bit of grace as you read my excerpt.

After a lifetime in Christian churches you would think I would have a pretty good sense of what The Great Commission is all about right? Well….I am a bit embarrassed to admit I don’t.  It has only been in the last 15 years that I have even heard the term (thanks to my UMC family), but still am not motivated to act.  Hmmm, why?  This is not a poke at you pastor folks, but more of an observation I think many Sunday Christians experience.  Well yes, I could have sought out the meaning as I do when I have other questions about Christianity, such as forgiveness, grace, death etc.  As I read it was helpful to understand that the things of this world, capture my imagination (p.45).  You name it, kids, work, what’s for dinner, driving, etc, etc. These things, worldly things, just as those living in the time of Christ dealt with their own day in and day out list of to do’s, tend to constantly pull my attention away from focusing on Jesus and seeking to become more like him.  So what is one to do?

The authors use the concept of rebooting to Jesus.  It means just what you think.  When our computers get messed up and we get frustrated with all the reasons why and all the crap we did to it over its lifetime, sometimes you just have to start over from scratch.  So we reboot back to the way it was originally and hope it fixes the problem.  Now we all know the only real fix in life is Jesus.  So who couldn’t use a reboot to Jesus every now and then? So this is a concept I like and can relate to.  But yet I am challenged to find out more about what that actually looks like.

I am not much for movies so I haven’t seen the movie they referred to in this chapter. The authors talk about the movie “V for Vendetta” (p.49) to describe how the leader got his followers to replicate him in order to overtake the government.  He talks and talks to them and before you know it they are marching towards the government, dressed just like the leader with a passion to overtake. They translate this scene to Jesus and discipleship saying that the more we as individuals become like Him, we grow together into a group (church) and then into a movement (discipleship together as church).  They go on to say that having a pastor simple state “go and make disciples” isn’t enough.  In order for Matthew 28 to be effective it must become an act of love and grace not an order.  When you are a devoted follower, you just live out the Great Commission without realizing it.  I love page 54, the authors’ reference:

 “Jesus does not disciple people by generating information, developing programs, or implementing plans. Rather, Jesus’ discipleship always involved a deeply personal process of being drawn into becoming more like the image, or form, of Jesus.”

To that I say AMEN.  Fully understanding that through these plans and programs we can disciple to those who participate.  So just what is being said above?  I wonder what should I focus on if I am to strive to Re-Jesus”?  And in good form we get the tables on pages 56-58.  Hallelujah!  This I can do.  This helps me start somewhere on living out my faith and spreading the gospel.  This table is a list of core truths about Jesus that he laid out for us as a guide map.

I encourage you to study this section row by row.  Maybe one per day or week to see how it feels to work the examples into your life. 

At the end of the day, I believe this chapter is trying to help one reset back to the basics of what Jesus asked us all to do.  Once that is understood, and we follow suite, the end of the chapter begins to focus on what the Missional Jesus did in order to prepare us for what Re-Jesus looks like for us a church.  (Whew! Was that a run on sentence?) The last paragraph on pg 61 makes reference to just that:

“Renewal will begin with each of us…it will have consequences for the renewal of the church as a whole.”

-Bonnie Piazza is the owner of Piazza Childcare Solutions and Piazza Consulting. Bonnie lives in Tustin with her husband and two kids.