Discipling By Jesus

Ernie proposes a structure for The Great Reset with Ted as Producer, David as Director, and Ernie as the Writer.  Unfortunately, David is not impressed with the part Ernie has written for him on the coming Tuesday.  Ernie is frustrated that David isn't onboard with his creative vision.  And everything is complicated by the unresolved questions from last week. 

How will Ted make sense of it all?  And what will they finally end up doing?

References

• Automated Transcript
• Episode 27: A Spiritual Issue, Part 1
• Episode 28: I Don't Understand (A Spiritual Issue, Part 2)
• TGR-S5E7 Jobs to Be Done
• Thanksgiving Special (The Great Reset, S5E7)

After 20 minutes of chatting and context, David and Ernie resume their discussion from Part 1 on Christ-like leadership, this time with Janet acting as moderator. The goal was not so much to reach agreement, but help them understand why exactly they disagreed.  

While the conversation was often passionate and occasionally blunt, both parties expressed sincere appreciation for the other's sincerity, thoughtfulness, and commitment to working things out.

The dialogue covered some heavy ground, including the relationship between power and authority, the good and bad senses of "justifying sin", and whether it is fair to say Christ "fell on his sword" for the sins of others.

In the end,  David summed it best with a honest, heartfelt acknowledgement that he still didn't understand.  The other two participants were able to agree with that, and affirm their desire to keep walking through that lack of understanding together.

This week Ernie turns the tables and offers up a critique of David's style of leadership.  David defends his approach based on its effectiveness, and the fact that he doesn't find Ernie's alternatives particularly compelling.  This seems to mark the end of their two-week experiment of David leading the meetings, especially given how Ernie overrode David's decision to call out Bill's negativity last Tuesday. 

In a surprise twist, though, Ernie invoked Matthew 18 and suggested they bring in Janet to mediate. David objected to characterizing their disagreement as "sin".  Ernie acknowledged that most people didn't share his positive view of sin, but suggested (and David accepted) labeling it a "spiritual" issue -- to distinguish from a problem to be solved via merely human efforts.

Stay tuned to find out what happens next!

In this wide-ranging conversion, Ernie and Janet touch on:

• The upside and downside of having powerful mental frameworks
• Apples of Gold's Seeker/Helper model
• Concerns vs Needs
• Design vs Training
• Studying vs Assimilating Scripture

References

• Automated Transcript
• Apples of Gold (Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty)
• There is no User Error, only Bad Design (Harry Stevens)
• What the Bible says about Assimilation/ Feeding Process (BibleTools)

After a long and winding road, David and Ernie were able to affirm:

1. The most important thing is Loving More Like Jesus
2. The next important thing is tools to help us Love More Like Jesus
3. There aren't any great answers for what will do that
4. The best way to develop such tools is iterating around Revelation, Reason, and Experience

Ernie then shared his belief that hierarchical authority structures are fatally flawed because they discourage the very authenticity and humility necessary for growing in love. David conceded those problems, but challenged Ernie's exclusive focus on non-hierarchical alternatives. Surprisingly, Ernie conceded the point, perhaps because he was excited about exploring a new model (building on David's moderation last week), and didn't really care whether it was hierarchical or not.

In this model:

• Ted is the Host, providing the Zoom and YouTube, plus the intro)
• Ernie is the Creative, curating the content and shaping topics
• David is the Moderator, ensuring everyone is heard and proposing topics

Intriguingly, this resembles the sort of Test-Driven Development both Ernie and David practice with software.  And created a context where they were able to mutually affirm each other's value in this journey.

References

• Automated Transcript
• The Great Reset (S5E5)
• NP-Completeness (Wikipedia)

As a follow-on to yesterday's The Great Reset (and preparation for next week's), Ernie asked about Ted's concerns, which seemed  to mirror those that Steve had.  Ted identified two things that concerned him about Ernie, which he was surprised that Ernie didn't already see:

1. How defensively Ernie reacted when Steve rebuked him
2. Ernie's negativity towards authority

For the first, Ernie was initially surprised that Ted saw his reaction as defensive. Upon reflection, Ernie granted that it would have been better if he had simply acknowledged Steve's strong feelings and asked  for clarification, rather than demanding follow-through.  By the same token, though, Ernie pointed out Ted could have been more compassionate towards Ernie, rather than "piling on" (which Ted conceded).

For the second, Ernie validating Ted's concerns around issues of authority.  However, he wanted to distinguish between his:

1. Personal belief in (and practice of) submission to authority
2. Philosophical critique of hierarchical authority systems
3. Emotional reactions (not fully processed) towards those systems

One common thread in all these was the human desire to have our views validated, especially when we feel devalued. Ted acknowledged that part of his frustration with Ernie was that he had tried to raise this issue before, and felt Ernie blew him off.  Ernie appreciated that, but pointed that it led him to make essentially the same mistake he accused Ernie of.

The point wasn't to cast blame, but to highlight how pervasive and subtle is the temptation to point out others flaws while overlooking our own, rather than coming alongside others in humility to help them do better.  Ernie argued this is the main reason the world hates the church, because we expose their shame while hiding from our own. He then suggested that being able to cure ourselves of this tendency would be a huge step toward fulfilling Ted's passion to see "the Earth filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." (Habbakuk 2:14)

References

• Automated Transcript (and iMessage followup)
• ValueStorming S5E1 (The Great Reset)
• Better Next Time S5E5 (The Great Reset)
• Matthew 23:1-4 (Bible Gateway)
• Obria Medical Clinics (Real Options)

Ernie and Bill continue processing last week's discussion on The Great Reset.  Ernie starts by confessing that he was so focused on working through his own reaction that he was blind to the fears and questions that many others in the group also had. Bill shares his own frustration that people seemed concerned about their own needs rather than those of the group. 

Ernie pointed out that a lot of this is due to "WEIRD" culture (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democracies), and the challenge is to evangelize (and redeem) that culture without first requiring people to give up those cultural norms.  In particular, how do we create space for self-expression and questioning  authority while still challenging people to live all out for Jesus and others?

References

• Automated Transcript
• S5E1 "ValueStorming" (The Great Reset)
• S5E4 "Lost Sheep" (The Great Reset)
• WEIRD societies

Ernie and Janet wrestle with the strong (if perhaps metaphorical) language Jesus uses about the dangers of human titles and authority.  What is He trying to warn us against? Have we accidentally reinvented the systems Jesus condemned? And even if we agree with Him, how do we un-train ourselves from all the worldly habits we have acquired?

References

• Automated Transcript
• Matthew 23

At the end of this season's Episode 4 of "The Great Reset", David suggested the group dedicate time to processing The Incident from Episode 1.  They both agree it would be ideal if Steve could be part of that.  But even if not, Ernie acknowledged that there are larger issues that the group needs to discuss.  And that David was right that we owe it to the group to acknowledge their concerns, rather than putting them off indefinitely.

However, Ernie admitted that part of his reluctance was that he didn't know how to host a frank yet constructive conversation if Steve wasn't present. David replied that if he were in charge, he'd start by sharing a perspective that defended each of the participants, even at the cost of consistency, in order to set the right tone.

Ernie immediately jumped on this to insist David take charge of next week's meeting.  David was initially reluctant to commit to this, for a variety of reasons. Eventually he conceded that if we criticize someone, we should follow through with showing them how to do better.  His last qualm was that he wanted to hear from Ted (who wasn't there at the end).

References

• Automated Transcript
• TGR Code of Conduct

Robby shares his evolving perspective on key terms for how we related to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and Scripture:

• follow
• apply
• obey
• abide
• figure out

References

• Automated Transcript
• Discipled by Scripture
• Pirate's Code (Disney Wiki)
• John 21:17 (TPT)
• John 21:17 (Interlinear)