{"id":4807,"date":"2013-11-21T07:09:38","date_gmt":"2013-11-21T07:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/?p=4807"},"modified":"2014-09-23T11:15:57","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T11:15:57","slug":"fans-or-followers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/50plus\/fans-or-followers\/","title":{"rendered":"Fans or Followers?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have been a fan of Nottingham forest for many years now. In the past, the glory days, I saw them (under the management of Brian Clough) win two European cups and a league championship. I bought the team strip and wore it proudly, sang the team songs on the terraces and for many years I was a committed fan. However, I never put on the team jersey and played for them. (That could have been fun though!)<\/p>\n<p>It is one thing to be a fan of Jesus it is another to be a follower. It is not a bad thing that we are a fan of Jesus. To appreciate his example, his profound teaching and to marvel at the signs and wonders that he performed. No bad thing to be special fan of Jesus especially as he secured salvation for those who live in a covenant relationship with him.<\/p>\n<div>Yet Jesus did not call fans but apprentices or followers. At the end of Matthew&#8217;s gospel he effectively says <em>&#8220;now you have experienced this good news you pick up the baton and you go to represent me faithfully to those you come across&#8221;<\/em>. This means (for followers) to be apprenticed to a place where we love as he loved, do as he did and be as he was. Fans of course can settle for being appreciative but that won&#8217;t change a world in chaos will it?<\/div>\n<div class=\"linkwithin_hook\" id=\"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/50plus\/fans-or-followers\/\"><\/div><script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 897245;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png?w=750\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been a fan of Nottingham forest for many years now. In the past, the glory days, I saw them (under the management of Brian Clough) win two European cups and a league championship. I bought the team strip and wore it proudly, sang the team songs on the terraces and for many years [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<script>\n<!-- \/\/LinkWithinCodeStart\nvar linkwithin_site_id = 897245;\nvar linkwithin_div_class = \"linkwithin_hook\";\n\/\/LinkWithinCodeEnd -->\n<\/script>\n<script src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/widget.js\"><\/script>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.linkwithin.com\/pixel.png\" alt=\"Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...\" style=\"border: 0\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[319],"tags":[836,834,82,835,110],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PoLK-1fx","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4646,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/50plus\/the-tuesday-club\/","url_meta":{"origin":4807,"position":0},"title":"The Tuesday Club","date":"26 September 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Finding names for things is a real challenge. Take Gardening as an example \u2013 there seems to be an infinite variety in plants and most of them have names. I struggle to identify what is a weed and what is a proper plant, never mind their names, especially when they\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;50 Plus&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4943,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/50plus\/the-works-of-the-apostle-paul\/","url_meta":{"origin":4807,"position":1},"title":"The \u201cworks\u201d of the Apostle Paul","date":"9 January 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Col 1 :29 'It is he (Jesus ) whom we proclaim, warning and teaching everyone in all wisdom , so that we might present everyone mature in Christ.' Many of us would be quick to say an 'amen' to this as it reflects Jesus own words in the great commission\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;50 Plus&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/CVM-50plus-blog-640x360.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8608,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/50plus\/leave-my-club\/","url_meta":{"origin":4807,"position":2},"title":"Leave my club!","date":"25 September 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I was intrigued when a fan of a Premier Football Club posted the following tweet: \u2018Leave my club.\u2019 It was a three letter comment to the owner of a Premier football club. My intrigue was sparked by a number of thoughts, Did the fan own the club? Did he think\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;50 Plus&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/football-club.jpg?fit=1000%2C563&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4124,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/carls-thoughts\/the-problem-with-dave-part-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":4807,"position":3},"title":"The problem with Dave &#8211; Part 1","date":"22 April 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve been thinking a great deal over the years about the way we communicate the \u201cgood news\u201d about Jesus to men.\u00a0 We wonder why we see so few men becoming followers of Jesus but fail to effectively and analytically look at the message we are communicating, the way we are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Carl Beech&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6000,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/50plus\/no-soft-option\/","url_meta":{"origin":4807,"position":4},"title":"No Soft Option","date":"2 March 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Jesus said,\u201dUnless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies it produces many seeds.\u201d He said this a few days before he died. Crucifixion was no soft option. Nor does he offer us an easy path. Jesus challenges\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;50 Plus&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8409,"url":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/thoughts-from-the-cvm-team\/getting-distracted\/","url_meta":{"origin":4807,"position":5},"title":"Getting Distracted","date":"26 March 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I grew up a massive fan of the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. When most of my mates were into \u2018Morecambe and Wise\u2019, the Two Ronnies or Little and Large, I would be watching and laughing out loud as Stan and Ollie got themselves into one \u2018fine mess\u2019 after another.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Team CVM&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/hans-peter-gauster-252751-unsplash.jpg?fit=1000%2C668&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4807"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5544,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4807\/revisions\/5544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cvm.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}