reach out.

Whether you have a comment, a question, or just want to say hello, I'd love to hear from you. Click the button below to send me an email.

If you'd like to get in touch with Carl, you can use the orange button on the right to send him an email. We'll also use this page to periodically answer questions that some of you have posed recently. My answers may not be complete, may not be what you were looking for and hey, who knows, may not even be correct. But I’ll do my best….

So let’s start this off with a question I was asked just last week by a friend here in Denver, and one I get asked a lot:

“You talk a lot about ‘following Jesus’ but I’m not always sure what you mean by that. I know you don’t like the word “Christian” and have sort of replaced it with ‘following Jesus’ and I like that, but not sure how far it goes. And when you refer to a Muslim who’s ‘following Jesus’ I really don’t know what it means. Can you help me out a bit?”

This is a great question. It’s possibly the one I get asked the most and the one that’s the most necessary to answer. There are several ways to answer and several levels to the answer. I’ll make it as simple as possible without losing its power.

First and possibly most important is the very simple observation that Jesus’ most common form of invitation to his disciples were the words “follow me.” From the Matthew 4:19 when he called the first disciples to “come follow me” until his last words to Peter at the end of John in chapter 21 verse 22 when he basically said, “don’t worry about John, you come and follow me.”

It was the consistent message of Christ throughout the gospels – to follow Jesus. To be with him. To learn from him. He’s in charge and we are the followers.

So I think you’d at least agree that the words to “follow Jesus” are good ones to use. So….what do they mean?

You will quickly notice that lots of people “followed Jesus.” The Pharisees and religious people “followed” him keep an eye on him.

The crowds followed him because he offered hope and he healed the sick and cast out demons.

And the disciples followed him. The “fishers of men.” The “believers.” Those who noticed there was something more about Jesus and that he may even be the Christ who was spoken of.

When I say that we need to be “followers of Jesus” are that I think so and so is “following Jesus” this is what I’m referring to. There’s really nothing more we could do then follow him. I’m sometimes asked, “Yeah but what else?” As if there were something better or something more than following him.

Finally, the more you follow Jesus and the closer you get to him the more you become like him. You’re changed by his presence. Healed. Fixed. Transformed. Sin goes, purity comes. Wholeness and health. All that’s good. Wisdom and a rightly-oriented life. That’s what happens when we “follow him.”