Chasing Hope: How Ordinary People Make Extraordinary Disciples

These days, we normally think of Christians as people who go to church two or three times a month. Christians are people serve the poor a few times a year, and donate a small percentage of their income to their church and other charities. Other than this, it can be hard to distinguish most Christians from people of any other religion - or people of no religion at all. But there was a time when being a Christian meant something more radical. The first Christians left behind their ordinary lives to follow a Jewish rabbi named Jesus. These men and women freely surrendered their status quo for the movement Jesus started, even though it often led them to struggle and suffer for what they believed. What do the lives of some of Jesus’ first disciples teach us about authentic Christianity? What inspiration can we glean from those women and men who gave it all to follow him? Each week we’ll take an up-close, between-the-lines look at some of the everyday people who chose to follow Jesus, and we’ll find ourselves in each story.