Our Portrait of Jesus

Excerpt from Dan Kimball post: Hope University: speaking on the organized church, types of Jesuses and emerging history

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I'll be teaching a class which I will be presenting something I never have taught before. It is based on how often I have heard said "We just need to follow Jesus" in terms of being Christian and leading churches. But my point will be that we all have versions of Jesus that we think of when we say that.And depending on what version of Jesus we lean towards, we will then create churches who reflect this.

Now I know that there is but one Jesus. So I am not saying that there are multiple Jesuses. BUT.... it is fascinating when you ask an extrovert what Jesus is like, they will say Jesus is extroverted. If we are introverted, we often think of Jesus more introverted. Taking it beyond that, if our primary portrait of Jesus is the defender of truth, then we will have a church that is likely to be one that points out the wrongs in things a lot. If we primarily think of Jesus as feeding the poor, then that is what our churches will likely be like. I just want to bring up how we need to think holistically about Jesus, not just on our own temperaments, backgrounds, experiences with church or Christians etc. and end up focusing on one thing. It does show up in church personalities.

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