Forge Intensive Sunday - Alan Hirsch

I thought I'd post up my raw notes from the intensive ... totally unedited I'm afraid, so please excuse anything wrong, offensive or unintelligible.

Alan Hirsch

All vices are virtues misdirected. We must direct our life toward the One.

Christology.
- understanding that we have Jesus and his work on our behalf.
- Christology determines Missiology determines Ecclesiology.
- Christology lies at the heart of the renewal of the church.
- if the church wants to renew itself then it has to go back to its founder.
- Show me your Jesus and I'll show you who you are.
- Jesus doesn't go well with religion.
- Jesus is divine, but he is hidden, he invites us to discover him through his humanity.
- Christianity - Christ = Religion
- What is good about the Pharisees?
- they were bible people
- missionary minded
- holiness and purity were serious issues
- zeal, passion, put bodies on the line
- disciplined
- prayer life
- tithe
- feed poor - social justice - custodians of Israel
- believed in miracles
- We do these things as evangelicals, but the Pharisees are the people who put Jesus on the cross ...

- the great commission is actually about making disciples, not believers, it is not seeker sensitive.
- so the early church was actually obsessed with making disciples, it wasn't so focussed on making believers, it wanted people who would love and follow Jesus.
- raised the bar on discipleship, lowered the bar on church - Neil Cole.

- the Church is like a dandelion, we all are seeds, we have ecclesia within us. If God blew us and we were spread out over the earth, we would still be the Church.

- the connection between Jesus and the disciple is the critical connection. discipleship is about becoming like Jesus - becoming little Jesus'.
- the conspiracy that God has is that he wants little Jesus' on every corner.
- Christlikeness.
- it's about embodiment. we live it out. Jesus takes up residence in us.
- spiritual authority - this is directly related to our ability to embody our messages, which is directly related to Christlikeness.
- leadership - it is an extension of discipleship that is based on Christlikeness.