![]() I have seen too many pastors adopt a corporate CEO mindset. My above the fold statement about this book is: if you are a church leader, seminary student, or wanna be church leader, get this book and mark it up. I read the new book by Leonard Sweet called I am a Follower the week it came out, but I have had a lot going on and I am just now getting up a review. This post has been way too long in coming. May we all, like Len, become followers.”―MARK BATTERSON, lead pastor, National Community Church “If there was ever a leader who could convince me that it’s really never been about leading, that would have to be Len Sweet. This is a much needed and long overdue book.”―BOB ROBERTS, senior pastor, Northwood Church “At times I felt like I was reading Jeremiah, challenging the shepherds of Israel. Discover for yourself the way, the truth, and the abundantlife of following Jesus Christ and what it truly means to “Follow Me”! Join Sweet on an exciting and intentional journey from leadership cult to followership culture. Through a colorful mélange of practical applications, imaginative metaphors, and probing biblical exposition based in gospel truth, Sweet reveals that the summons of Jesus and the message of the New Testament point clearly to an emphasis not on imitation but on incarnation, not on leading but on following. In I Am a Follower, author Leonard Sweet explains how Christians in a twenty-first-century corporate-obsessed culture have shifted away from a Jesus art of following toward a popularized form of leading. Immersed in a society that worships success, we have succumbed to a trendyfixation with leadership. Sadly, this life-changing invitation has lost much of its original meaning. What's essential is the universal spiritual truth itself the path we choose to follow to reach that essential awareness is up to us.These two words echo the heart-defining call of our Lord Jesus Christ to his disciples. There are many paths to discovering and embracing that Oneness Jesus offers one clear path, Buddha another, Muhammad another, etc. Our innate and eternal Oneness with all that God is constitutes a universal spiritual truth. And the only path to God is through believing in, embracing and fully expressing our own unique and eternal spiritual energy. ![]() It is the Christ that is the way, and the truth, and the life. His great "I am" statements in the Gospel of John are descriptions of the Christ-the indwelling Presence we will find in ourselves when we surrender our resistance and turn within. He calls us to find, and surrender to, that same Christ energy within ourselves-to follow his example. He has become that Word in expression by completely surrendering to the Christ-his true spiritual nature, the Presence of God expressing through him. ![]() It's essential to remember, anytime we find ourselves in the Gospel of John, that Jesus is almost always speaking, not as the human being Jesus of Nazareth, but as Jesus Christ-the full embodiment of the Presence and Power of God, the creative and eternal Word of God, with which imagery the Gospel opens. The most popular interpretation is an exclusive one, and that is the part which I have the hardest time with, being of a universal brotherhood and equality mentality. Yes, I am curious to know what the Unity Church, especially Unity Hartford, thinks about this passage. ![]() No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). ![]() "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. ![]()
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