Conversion or Transformation (Part 3)

In his book Transformation Bob Roberts argues that the church needs to redefine both evangelism and discipleship.

• When it comes to evangelism, we need to be after people’s hearts and not their behavior.
• Regarding discipleship, the focus needs to shift from information to transformation.

He writes, “The only way we will ever be different is if the practice of Christianity is more important than the instruction. The gauge is not how much a person knows but how that person lives.” (Pg. 68, emphasis mine)

He says that the secret to this is not more information, but more imitation. In his church, they integrate the Sunday morning teaching with both small groups and people’s personal worship. He doesn’t say it specifically, but my guess is that reducing the content of instruction to just one thing per week almost automatically shifts the focus to application.

He closes this chapter with a strong focus on the role of the Holy Spirit in real transformation, and suggests that we settle for conversion because we don’t really expect that much from Jesus — that we’re content with what Dallas Willard calls the “gospel of sin-management.”

This chapter closes the introductory material of the book. The rest of the book focuses on the how of transformation, both for individuals and the world.

The Conversion or Transformation (Part 3) by Church Planting Journey, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.