The DNA of the message

I am going to dedicate the blogspot for at least the next week to meanderings about the characteristics of the followers of Jesus that I found to be outstanding in the account from Mark. I found 9 characteristics. Today's discussion is on characteristic # 7.

Characteristic 7: (S)He trusts that Jesus delivered the message of God that spawns a life that never ends.

Representative sample from Mark: After this, Jesus himself sent out through his disciples from the east to the west the sacred and everliving message of eternal salvation.
(Mark 16.9-10) The shortest ending

It would stand to reason that if the other 6 characteristics of Jesus' followers are true, then Jesus would send out his message through his disciples from the east to the west. Jesus would have wanted his message to have been perpetuated. I don't think that perpetuation is in the form that most churches say that it is to be accomplished. But, Jesus had in mind that his message would last through the ages.

Many churches want to have everybody "doing evangelism." Thus, a number of phases have been passed through. In the 1950s there was the "Go ye means me" movement. Door-to-door evangelism was tried. In the 1960s people set up film strip studies and home Bible studies. In the 1970s buses rolled out of a great number of church buildings to pick up the kids of the slackards who weren't coming so that they could be reached through their kids. Vacation Bible Schools existed for the same purpose. In the 1980s "reaching the unchurched" became a popular phrase for the aim of evangelism. So, churches tried different social events to invite the community to. In the 1990s "friendship evangelism" was the watchword of the day. Christians were to be a light to and talk openly with everyone in their sphere of influence. 2/3 of the way through the first decade of the 2000s, the emphasis so far has been on reaching out through a combination of 1980s and 1990s methods and a few attempts at using internet methods, although those are still in their infancy, and attempts at joining forces with other denominations, such as church planting.

But, Jesus may have meant that he wanted his message to simply be the trademark of a person. So, the plumber acknowledges the reign of God in his life through his words and actions, as does the school teacher, the electrician, the entrepreneur, the attorney, the medical doctor, the supremely educated, the carpet layer, the roofer, the accountant, the oil investor, the landmen, geologists, and geophysicists, etc. When each person on the earth claims Jesus as the Son of God, (s)he is saying that the message is other-worldly (the meaning of "holy" or "sacred") and that it has embedded in its teachings the claim a follower's life never ends.

And so, a mother teaches that to her children, people marry and teach it to their children; those children marry and pass on the good word—ad infinitum.

One might call this the DNA characteristic. A follower will every day of his or her life transmit the message in some form to someone else. The reign of God is forever.