Go ahead ... picture that scene. Then continue reading...
For quite some time, the scene that would pop into my head would be two people of the same gender at a table, with Bibles, pens, and a notebook or workbook. Maybe an extra book. Definitely coffee. So, we're either at coffee shop or in someone's home. We meet at a certain time on the same day of the week, and we end at a certain time, because we've got other things to do. It may be the only 90 minutes or so that I see that person during that week.
My first experience of "being discipled" took place in a dorm room. My friend and I would play racquetball for an hour, then go back to the dorms, sit at a desk with our Bibles, pens, and notebooks. It was an extremely formative time. But we also hung out together several times during the week. We didn't have a workbook, so the first time I saw discipleship workbooks, I wondered if perhaps we had been doing discipleship the wrong way.
As formative as that time was, I can tell you only two things in particular that I learned during that time. One was a historical fact, and the other was a piece of advice that applies only to relatively rare situations. It was formative, and I learned some great habits, but what I learned largely has become part of my swirl of Christian knowledge without any ability to attribute who taught me what.
I remember another situation that I never would have called "discipleship" (until recently), but was as impacting to my Christian life as was the time spent with my racquetball friend. In Austin, I used to help take food donated by groceries stores, make sandwiches, and then hand them out to the homeless downtown. Week after week, I worked side by side with a guy about 10 years my senior. Like me, he had a job during the day and family at home. As we made sandwiches and handed them out, we talked. And he discipled me - without a table, a pen, a book, or even a Bible. I remember specific things that he said that have stayed with me. Practical, daily, fully Christian ways of looking at life and doing life.
Both were examples of discipleship, neither had a prepared curriculum, and together they help illustrate the seventh of 17 Truths of Discipleship ("D17"):
Discipleship needs to be frequent and long-term.*
Not just once in a while, and ideally, not just once a week. Not just for 12 weeks, finish the workbook, and then you're done, but month after month, and year after year. That's how these guys discipled me - as we were doing life, more than just a formal "discipleship time," related to real life. Sometimes, I learned specific lessons that I still remember. Other times, the lessons just became part of who I am. Both were formative.
When we picture "discipleship," the image that should come to mind should somehow resemble how Jesus discipled His disciples. Frequent contact, not just formal "discipleship" settings. As they were doing life, busy with the rhythms of life. And long-term - Jesus spent three years in near-constant contact with them. If you add up all the hours Jesus spent with them, and then tried to accumulate that many hours at just one hour per week, it would take over 3 decades!
In John 15:26-27, Jesus emphasizes the importance of all the number of hours the disciples spent with Him, and how that impacts them as His disciples:
26 “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me,
27 and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
When you think discipleship, think less about workbooks and coffee shops, and think more about racquetball and making sandwiches with someone who's traveled the journey longer than you.
* This aspect of discipleship comes from the teachings of Caesar Kalinowski.
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