Looking at the Christian "Evangelical Covenant" Church'sLog In, I see it lists Ten Healthy Missional Markers ("'healthy' meaning 'pursuing Christ'; 'missional' meaning 'pursuing Christ's priorities in the world'") ... before I get into the marker I'm asking about, we could start discussion(s) on 'what it means to pursue Christ (not to mention why we should or shouldn't)' and 'what Christ's priorities in the world are (and--if they're any different from what His priorities in the world were during His life--who DARES make such speculation?)' But the discussion I meant to get into was over the 'healthy, missional marker' ...I was raised in the Christian "Holy Roman Catholic Church," so I see 'walking with Jesus' as something more like "skipping ahead of our forefathers on The Path of Jesus" (as all Catholics are subliminally indoctrinated with the idea that 'mindlessly following tradition IS The Path of Jesus' ... of course, the only difference between 'following with the knowledge of exactly what the ritual teaches' & 'following without knowing' is---the steadiness that comes from knowing you're standing on solid ground?) I guess what I'm saying is: we don't want to "change our walk" so much as we want to "be more-aware of 'what we're walking on,' 'why we're walking on that/those' and (a possible part of that reason) 'where we're headed.'" Of course, this is coming from Oklahoma---a U.S. State whose motto (unofficially & originally) is Labor Omnia Vincit (Latin for "Labor Conquers All Things"). We're taught that men (& women too, I guess) have to work to earn a living ... sort of like God said to Adam after the Fall of Man, "You will sweat to manifest a living from the ground until the day that you die, when to the ground you will return."---I might start a discussion about that later--'If Jesus paid for all our sinss, why must we still work for a living?'--but that's not the point here. The point is: Oklahomans (and others around the country/world/undiscovered-universe) are fine with 'serving as slaves to people-with-money until we die.' (It gives us something to do until 'The Return of the [SMALLCAPS]Lord[/SMALLCAPS]'---people-with-money being more like 'stewards' of the Kingdom ... 'stewards' who want permanent kingship the way Brad Dourif's character did in Lord of the Rings: THE TWO TOWERS) And Jesus--during His life--didn't seem to want to change that so-much as He wanted to change our focus: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God & His righteousness." How much does that shift-in-focus transform one's life?
