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Summary & Intro

John Onwuchekwa – Christ-follower, husband of 7 years (wife Chandra), grew up in a Christian home, teaching pastor at Blueprint Church Atlanta, church planting pastor of a brand new church plant starting June 7, 2015 Cornerstone Church Atlanta, lover of basketball, wearing the same outfit everyday (booyah!), frequent conference speaker (Verge Network), part of the Rebuild Network of urban church planters and leaders, passion for the gospel, the word, the church and the mission.

Recap & Synopsis

Listen this week as John and I  discuss identity and theological training. What is the purpose and function of theological training and knowledge? I based this interview with John and topic on his video entitled “Identity Formation”. In that video, John “shares his burden for theological training with the goal of identity formation rather than information transfer.” We talk about the implications of identity formation and how they relate to discipleship, the church, the mission, identity crisis, modern American Christianity today and the importance of friends who hold us accountable to our beliefs.

*The following are my favorite top quotes from John and I. Use them freely and widely, but please offer credit where credit is due. Thanks.

ShowNotesEp011JohnOnwuchekwaIdentityFormationTheologicalTraining

Seems strange to share the dark side of a church plant but it’s helpful to bring in the reality of church planting as a beautiful mess. Its a beautiful reflection of the Christian life and how it’s not always tidy and well put together but it’s very messy. (Jonathan)

“Theological training is more about identity formation than it is about information transfer.” – John Onwuchekwa, Rebuild Network video

(JC) How did you come to that conclusion?

(JO) “I saw my heroes fail. It led me to become bitter and self-righteous. Then I went to seminary and saw myself fail. Bitterness and self-righteousness turned into self-pity and self-justification. I know more than I have at any other point in my life but my life looks worst then it did at any other point in my life. Now that I know so much, there’s something wrong with my heart. I’m using this knowledge I have to justify the disobedience.”

All this right truth becomes ammunition and a sinful heart to justify disobeying the things that God has very clearly outlined.

Church as a Greenhouse Analogy

The church kinda feels like a greenhouse for plants. So plants can grow outside of a greenhouse. But what a greenhouse does is it intensifies things that a plant would get out there on their own. But it guards them from things that would harm them outside on their own. Now a greenhouse still has bugs that come in, but it’s fewer. Same way a plant can still have sunshine hit it but its not as intensified. So God’s church is a greenhouse that intensifies the things that are good and mitigate that things that are bad.

Education has always been about identity formation. We know we are shaped by those around us.