{"id":2612,"date":"2012-06-29T13:08:38","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T13:08:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/projectconversion\/?p=2612"},"modified":"2012-06-29T13:08:38","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T13:08:38","slug":"the-disciple-a-year-living-as-a-1st-century-follower-of-jesus-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2012\/06\/the-disciple-a-year-living-as-a-1st-century-follower-of-jesus-2.html","title":{"rendered":"The Disciple: A Year Living as a 1st Century Follower of Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oh no, not another immersion project!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dramatic Look\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/y8Kyi0WNg40?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s what she said. No really, that&#8217;s what Heather said when the idea hit me like a punch in the gut on the way home from our family vacation earlier this month.<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">Backstory&#8230;<\/span><\/h2>\n<p>It&#8217;s early June and we just wrapped up our annual week-long vacation with my in-laws at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. This was the first official piece of R &amp; R we&#8217;d had since the end of Project Conversion, so we left the beach fresh and purged of all the stress pent up from 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Heather is fan of contemporary Christian music, so she indulged while the kids and I took a nap on the drive home. Just as I emerged from the nap, a radio host comes on and starts talking about some <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2012\/06\/11\/junior-garcia-carrying-cross-from-texas-to-washington_n_1587972.html\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">19-year-old kid dragging a 12-foot cross<\/span><\/a><\/span> from Texas to Washington, D.C.\u00a0 Heather wants to change stations, but I start geeking out over this kid and soon I&#8217;m completely enthralled in the program.<\/p>\n<p>The radio host, <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wstsfm.com\/default.asp?pid=3188\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">Marty Minto<\/span><\/a><\/span>, is asking his audience a fair question: <strong>Is this kid just showing off, or is this a bona fide expression of faith?<\/strong> Should Christians take Jesus literally when he commanded his followers in the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 16: 24 to &#8220;deny himself and take up his cross and follow me [Jesus].&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2613\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2613\" style=\"width: 239px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/291\/2012\/06\/cross.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2613\" title=\"cross\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/291\/2012\/06\/cross.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"239\" height=\"211\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2613\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Scene from Mel Gibson&#8217;s &#8220;The Passion&#8221;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>No thanks, I&#8217;ll pass.<\/p>\n<p>But Mr. Minto goes farther. He suggests in no uncertain terms that the teachings of Jesus&#8211;how his followers were to live and interact with others&#8211;<strong>were so much more radical than modern Christians live up to<\/strong>. Marty really pushed buttons when he suggested that if Christians today truly realized what Jesus was asking of them, that most would throw in the towel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It&#8217;s apparently <em>that<\/em> revolutionary&#8211;and subversive, to our comfort levels.<\/strong><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>So I thought out loud, &#8220;Well, what was a 1st century disciple of Jesus like? How did he live? How did he carry out his teacher&#8217;s commands?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Deep in thought, I glanced at Heather. That&#8217;s when I got the feeling, that same pit in my stomach that set me on course for 2011&#8217;s Project Conversion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Damn,&#8221; I said. &#8220;I just asked a question I can actually answer&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What?&#8221; Heather said, trying not to swerve off the road.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The question I just asked&#8230;I can answer it. But it would take, uh, it would take another year of immersion.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You mean, you&#8217;d have to live like a Christian?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It took me a second to process that, and then I nodded slowly. &#8220;Yeah, like one of the first ones&#8211;when they were still Jews.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Heather slouched in the seat. &#8220;Just tell me there&#8217;s no beard involved and I&#8217;m all for it.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2614\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2614\" style=\"width: 240px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/projectconversion\/files\/2012\/06\/Sikh-Andrew.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-2614\" title=\"Sikh Andrew\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/291\/2012\/06\/Sikh-Andrew-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2614\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Come on Heather, you know you were hot for Sikhi Andrew.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Let me just say this: <strong>I don&#8217;t want to do this<\/strong>. I have a nasty history with Christianity. I once used it as a cruel weapon against unbelievers, and then when I lost the faith, became a staunch enemy of the entire system. There is some major baggage here that I haven&#8217;t faced entirely that will likely rear its ugly head during this process, but I cannot ignore the summons to do this. <strong>Let&#8217;s face it, I&#8217;m an Immersionist<\/strong> (yeah, I just coined that), maybe being an Immersionist is my proverbial cross.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">But make no mistake, this isn&#8217;t about promoting\/proving\/spreading or disproving Christianity.<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t about me looking into the faith for myself. This new immersion experience is for one purpose only: to answer the question of what Jesus&#8217; first followers were like in their thoughts and actions, and then juxtapose that figure with modern Christianity.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>So how am I pulling this off? What&#8217;s involved? Will I have mentors? Has Andrew lost his freaking mind?<\/em> <em>Will Heather break bad on him again?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Well, you&#8217;ll have to stick around for the next post on Monday, July 2nd. This should be interesting, folks&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>And now, I think I need a drink.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh no, not another immersion project! That&#8217;s what she said. No really, that&#8217;s what Heather said when the idea hit me like a punch in the gut on the way home from our family vacation earlier this month. Backstory&#8230; It&#8217;s early June and we just wrapped up our annual week-long vacation with my in-laws at&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[16,52,769,771,770,152,789,233,768],"class_list":["post-2612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-andrew-bowen","tag-christianity","tag-early-christianity","tag-follower-of-jesus","tag-immersion","tag-jesus","tag-judaism","tag-project-conversion","tag-the-disciple"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Disciple: A Year Living as a 1st Century Follower of Jesus - Project Conversion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/projectconversion\/2012\/06\/the-disciple-a-year-living-as-a-1st-century-follower-of-jesus-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Disciple: A Year Living as a 1st Century Follower of Jesus - Project Conversion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Oh no, not another immersion project! That&#8217;s what she said. No really, that&#8217;s what Heather said when the idea hit me like a punch in the gut on the way home from our family vacation earlier this month. 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