Christian tradition

It was this lifelong journey of apprenticeship to Jesus that would slowly transform me more and more into Christlikeness.

And so Richard and Dallas were like bridge builders for me because they introduced me, going back to your question, to the broader Christian tradition that was behind me that I didn't know that was actually my inheritance.

It was part of it, but I didn't know how to access it.

And, like, I thought my non-denom-non-denominational experience was what Christianity, you know, was all about, and I didn't realize that there was this great, Richard Foster will call it the great conversation of the growth of the soul in Christlikeness that's been going on for the last two thousand years.

... union.

Um, where did those stages come from?

Well, they emerged-- you could find them all throughout the Christian tradition, and sometimes people use different words to describe them.

I think ultimately they have their roots in scripture when we hear Jesus talking about, um, pruning us so that we grow more.

I should have, I should have asked this question first.

So you two come from two different African-American Christian traditions, African Methodist Episcopal tradition, and Vernon comes from the Baptist tradition.

And I know there's a finer gradation of Baptist that we could talk about in a minute, but, but can you speak about your tradition? We should have started with this a little bit, describe it, describe its history.

And, and you were talking about how it, has been engaged in this conversation for a long time.