Disciple

I have to write a strategy for a disciple-making group. Already three versions have been torn up and thrown away. There are so many ways that discipleship comes into my life, both for me as a person and me – making disciples.

This week it seemed that every phone, text and email pointed out how I had failed to meet people in the last six months. Would it be fair to tell them this was an intentional, God directed, minister endorsed move? Did anyone need to know outside this circle of three? Was I selling “my” people short with pithy texts and Bible verse devotions by email?

Yes, of course, is the answer and yet I need to back off and back away for a season. The season ends today as I line up three meetings before some V.I.M stuff. Looking at these people now as opposed to when they first were laid across my path I am amazed at how God can work in the unlikeliest of places (me) and how humans love to put up barriers to that change.

I was again reading “The Radical Disciple” last night. A book that moved me along the road some time back. In that time when inanimate objects like books could speak to me more effectively than humans. There has to be change, there has to be real, lasting change. If we agree to repent, there is no turning back. It is a complete 180 ° turn away from the things of old and turning to the new thing, the things of God.

I epically failed in my V.I.M. stuff yesterday, I gave up and I gave in. Or did I? I still have a very, real peace about what I said, did and prayed. It was an acceptance that some things cannot change and therefore it is much better to let go of the whole situation.

Today begins a new chapter and the paper will be written tonight. As I sit here, preparing for that situation my prayer is of hope and surprise and the pure unadulterated wonder of love.

In Japan, when a vase or pottery is cracked, there is a process which binds the broken pieces together again. It is called Kintsugi: Kintsugi (金継ぎ?) (Japanese: golden joinery) or Kintsukuroi (金繕い?) (Japanese: golden repair) is the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with lacquer resin dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum a method similar to the maki-e technique.[1][2][3] As a philosophy it speaks to breakage and repair becoming part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.
[2][3] As a philosophy it speaks to breakage and repair becoming part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.” height=”254″] In Japan, when a vase or pottery is cracked, there is a process which binds the broken pieces together again. It is called Kintsugi: Kintsugi (golden joinery) or Kintsukuroi (golden repair.)  As a philosophy it speaks to breakage and repair becoming part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.