A CALL TO TRUE DISCIPLESHIP

Bishop Adrian L. Varlack, Sr. became a committed follower of Jesus Christ at age 14 in an island-wide revival in his native Anegada, British Virgin Islands. He has been an ordained bishop since 1972 and has spent 48 years in international missions promotions, church administration, preaching, teaching, and writing for The Church of God of Prophecy, including three years as overseer of Canada, where he supervised 40 pastors. He has traveled and ministered in over 90 nations and territories. September 1999, Varlack joined International Leadership Development and Discipleship Ministries as a member of the faculty of the Center for Biblical Leadership and served as an instructor for 19 years. At the 2006 International Assembly, he was also appointed church historian, and in September 2018, consultant to the general overseer. He lives in Cleveland, Tennessee, with his wife of 54 years, Janice Smith Varlack, also of the British Virgin Islands. They have seven children, 25 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

- ADRIAN L. VARLACK, SR.

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it (Matthew 16:24, 25).

That there is a disconnect between Christian belief and Christian practice in nearly all of today's churches is rather obvious to all serious-minded observers. Among those who have addressed this dichotomy effectively, the late Dallas Willard seems the most perceptive, and his seminal work, The Divine Conspiracy is challenging, very instructive, and helpful. Under the heading, “Gospels of Sin Management,” Willard notes:

The current situation in which faith professed has little impact on the whole of life, is not unique to our times, nor is it a recent development. But it is currently at an acute stage.¹

The Church of God of Prophecy has experienced the same divide between belief and practice in terms of Christlikeness. It is all the more obvious because we profess a belief in Wesleyan-type sanctification that claims to have the effect of eradicating the old man, the sin nature of the old life, or what we call the Adamic nature.² Honesty compels us, however, to acknowledge that as a people, we are no nearer the biblical model of true discipleship—a life growing in obedience to Christ and of fulfillment with him, a life of separation from the world’s philosophies and ambitions—than others.3 It must be admitted and realized that we who are teachers and leaders at all levels of the Church need to adjust and reform our own personal approaches to Christian living so that we ourselves become true students and learners (disciples) of Jesus. Joseph Stowell wrote: