The beginning of Ed Dobson’s unique year-long experience was a radio interview with A. J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Biblically. Jacobs had spent a year trying to apply the Bible as literally as possible. Jacobs was a secular Jew, and Dobson wondered how the experiment would be different for a Christian. So he committed to a year of living Jesus-ly. His new book, The Year of Living Like Jesus (Zondervan), records his journey of eating kosher, attending synagogue, observing the Sabbath, celebrating feasts and festivals, and trying to think and act like Jesus. Leadership‘s Brandon O’Brien spoke with Dobson about what his experience might mean for church leaders.
How does church life make it difficult for people to live like Jesus?
When I began the year of living like Jesus, a youth pastor in a large church in town decided he wanted to join me. He started the beard and began reading the Gospels every week. After a few weeks, he told me, “I can’t live like Jesus. I work full time in a church!” We both laughed.
But underneath the laughter was a serious point. Sometimes the church’s preoccupation with programs makes it hard to follow Jesus. In listening to the Gospels over and over, I was struck by how much time Jesus spent in relationship with his disciples. We talk a lot about relationships in church, but we don’t make time for them. When I pastored at Calvary Church (Grand Rapids, MI), we canceled all programs for a year—all youth activities, outreaches, Christmas and Easter programs, everything. We only had Sunday and Wednesday services. We read the Bible, shared the faith, and invested in relationships.
How did that go over?
We lost hundreds of members who were attached to the programs. But we learned that the less you do, the more spiritual you become. After my year of living like Jesus, I’d do it again.
How can pastors help their congregations live more like Jesus?
I believe that the degree to which a pastor is committed to the Bible is the degree to which their people will follow Jesus. So if I went back to pastoring, I would read one or two chapters from the Gospels in every worship service. This helps people keep the big story in mind. I would also preach more frequently from the Gospels. The Hebrew Scriptures point to Jesus, and the Epistles interpret Jesus. But I spent more time preaching the Hebrew Scriptures or the Epistles than I ever spent preaching the Gospels. I would also encourage my people to dwell in the text; maybe to read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) once a day for thirty days.
How did your experiment affect your understanding of pastoral care?
For most of my life in ministry, I felt like I had to defend God in the face of suffering. I’ve discovered that God doesn’t need my defense. He just needs me to be present and faithful. I have ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease), so I find great comfort in the fact that about a third of each of the Gospels is dedicated to the passion of Jesus. Evangelicals are proud of the empty tomb. But I’ve found encouragement in the fact that the Jesus we love also suffered—he is the suffering Messiah.
Are there aspects of our piety that can keep us from following Jesus?
The whole evangelical subculture—having our own colleges, conferences, publishing companies—everything mitigates against our being out in the real world. So you have to deliberately make the effort to build relationships with those who are outside the faith. I tried to find ways to associate with sinners, like Jesus did, during my year of living Jesus-ly. I found that people everywhere are really interested in Jesus—specifically in your personal journey with Jesus.
We should be encouraging people to build relationships where they live and work. Maybe not going to the bar, like I did. But we can’t be so concerned about appearances that we fail to take the gospel to the lost. When Jesus spoke with the Samarian woman at the well, he was breaking all sorts of cultural norms. But he wasn’t sinning. The key is to avoid sin, not to avoid the appearance of sin.
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