Messy Business!

      I am slowly working through a wonderful book by Alan Fadling entitled, An Unhurried Life. My appreciation for the book went up a great deal the other night as I read through chapter 2, "An Unhurried Apprentice" and read the reminders that "making disciples" of Jesus is a slow (cannot-be-hurried) and often messy process. I remember thinking, "No wonder so many Christian 'leaders' settle for trying to disciple crowds! It's much neater and cleaner and costs so much less!"
     So today, I reflect for a moment on the messy but wonderfully fruitful art of developing apprentices of Jesus. But first, if you want to catch more of the weight of what I write here you will need to look at three earlier entries I have written about "crowds." You can find these articles here, here and here. 
     How really do we "make disciples"? Alan Fadling describes it quite well, I think in the following paragraph: "The practices of solitude, silence and listening to God started to slow me down and enabled me to focus my attention more and more on coming to Jesus and following him rather than talking about Jesus and slaving away for him. In that context and over time, ministry became a matter of simply inviting students to join me in this journey. We were learning to follow Jesus together. The focus was less and less on our activities for him and more on our attentiveness to him, on walking with him, and on working with him."   (page 23).
     Sounds beautiful, right? And it is! But Alan goes on to say what many of us who have undergone the shift from gathering a crowd to discipling the few have experienced--it's messy business! "We were learning together how to follow him—and it was one of the hardest years of my life and ministry. In many ways, my previous focus on planning more events and giving more talks was easier. Staying busy seemed easier than becoming unhurried, at least at the time. And it was a lot less messy." (pp. 23-24)
     And this "business" is not only messy, it requires patience. Living life one-on-one or few-on-few to the point of transformation is a much slower and less "spectacular" process. It's easier to notice and increase in the size of a crowd, of course, than it is to see the slow transformation of a life and/or family, especially when that transformation is often 3 steps forward, two steps back!
     But we cannot choose the lesser path of settling for trying to "disciple" a crowd (which cannot be done!). Consider the following rather sobering observations by Mr. Fadling: "When I think about the crowds that followed Jesus, I realize that they came to Jesus not to listen to his teaching or to know him better. They came for what they wanted from him. They didn’t come interested in what he wanted for them, and this reality sparked conflict between Jesus and the crowds. Crowds tend to be self-interested. Crowds come and go. Crowds are fickle and unpredictable. What collects a crowd one day may well disperse it the next. Crowds that love us today may hate us tomorrow. Yet we can quickly gather a crowd when we attract them on the basis of what they want—or at least what they think they want." (page 27) and: "The crowd traveled with Jesus, but they weren’t following him." (page 29)
     So here we are, face to face once again with the inescapable truth that the commission Jesus left means we are called to the very messy "business" of pouring our lives out, living life together with, learning in community with, a few others who are willing to take the longer, harder road. Will you join me and many others in doing so? It's already happening, of course, as Jesus awakens His Bride, but I sensed a need to issue the call again. It's not a call to what is easy, but rather to something hard that is also enabled and empowered--there's a big difference. It's a call to patient joy rather than instant happiness. It's a call to humility and transparency and dependency not only upon God but also upon those we disciple. And It's a personal call to you to reconsider how you spend your time and effort, especially if you are a "leader" in God's Kingdom. I conclude with one more quote: "Helping others learn to walk with Jesus and not stop at just believing things about him requires intentionality and focused effort. We never find time to do this patient work. We must make time. Unhurried time." (pages 36-37)

Taking the slower, longer road,

Tom, one of Abba's children