The Vision
April 23, 2008 by ryanmthurman
An apprentice of Jesus
is a person who chooses
to be with Jesus
to learn from Him
how to become like Him
An Apprentice is characterized by a…
§Passion to be with Jesus
§Passion to study, and meditate on the life, words, and teaching of Jesus with the purpose of learning obedience from a transformed heart
§Passion to practice the disciplines Jesus modeled; such as prayer, solitude, fasting, service, & simplicity
§Passion to live a personal rhythm of prayer, service, and study as well as a communal rhythm together with other apprentices
He who follows Me, says Christ our Savior, walks not in darkness, for he will have the light of life. These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by them we are admonished to follow His teachings and His manner of living, if we truly be enlightened and delivered from all blindness of heart. Let all the study of our heart be from now on to have our meditation fixed wholly on the life of Christ—Thomas a Kempis
We have a theology that says just believe it and it will happen. Jesus taught the pursuit, “follow me, and do the things I am doing. Join me in my Father’s work. We have created a Christianity that has removed itself from Jesus and His teachings—We have lost Jesus as Teacher
Mankind needs a teacher in order to grasp this truth, a teacher free from error. This person is Jesus Christ, who has come into the world to reveal the truth to us.—Soren Kierkgaard
Our modern Christianity that has formed us is often about pursuing fun/happiness…come to this retreat it is fun, instead we should say come to find life’s purpose in Christ.
It is not difficult in such a world to get a person interested in the message of the gospel; it is terrifically difficult to sustain the interest. In our kind of culture anything, even news about God can be sold if it is packaged freshly; but when it loses its novelty, it goes on the garbage heap. There is a great market for religious experience in our world; there is little enthusiasm for the patient acquisition of virtue, little inclination to sign up for the long apprenticeship in what earlier generations called holiness(discipleship)-Eugene Peterson
Current Development
We are working to develop Apprenticeship to Jesus as a model for discipleship that will train young people for a life of fruitfulness in the context of missional communities here in Phoenix that are involved in works of Compassion, Justice, Reconciliation, Evangelism and Service both locally and internationally, trusting that this model can be reproduced in any cultural setting & context. The desire through apprenticeship is to become like Jesus and learn to “obey all He commanded” and then help others do the same.
If you have any questions, please leave them as a comment
