Yesterday during discipleship, it was a bit rainy, so we shoved 10 people in my office. The way the chairs had to be configured, one of the girls was in danger of being shoved into a corner, and I said, ” ‘Nobody puts Baby in a corner!’ Who knows what movie that’s from?” I thought that since this group is mainly from Kampala, they’d know. Nope. And as the words “it’s from ‘Dirty Dancing’ ” popped out of my mouth, it occurred to me that perhaps that’s not a title one wants to throw around with a group of African clergy and ordinands. If I was keeping score, that would probably be faux pas number 437. Just for this year.
Of course, I remember my AP Government teacher telling us that she had seen a fascinating movie over the summer that highlighted the socio-economic differences among various people-yep-she meant “Dirty Dancing.” I don’t think that’s why we watched it. Of course, my senior year of high school was forever ago, so boy did I feel old.
But then we started our discussion on Article 10, “Of Free Will.” Part of me was a bit concerned that a rainy afternoon might not be the most conducive time to discuss such a weighty topic, but that concern was for naught. The Lord truly blessed our time, and we had a fabulous discussion ranging from whether we can work our way back to God on our own (nope), to the role of grace in our lives (huge), to how do we handle sin in the church, how do we handle sin among church leaders, and how to we simultaneously handle discipline in the church with pastoral care and healing. It was fabulous.
Our initial plan for the semester was to cover six Articles a week so that we could finish them by August, but we spent our entire time yesterday on Article 10, and I couldn’t be happier. Finishing the Articles isn’t the goal of discipleship; spiritual growth and maturity is.
Leave a Reply