Discipleship: It's not sexy

I'm a pastor, church planter, and a voice in the lives of others seeking to follow Christ. I'm also a guy who wrestles with what it means to be a disciple of Christ and how to help others in their path of discipleship.

In my last post, I shared about my faith journey to this point. If you've not read it, please take a moment to do so, because it sets the stage for this post.

I've been following Christ for 18 years now and I think I'm just starting to get a picture of what discipleship looks like, and it's not sexy!

I think the biggest obstacle to discipleship (whether it's being one, or making them) is the fact that it takes TIME. Our culture is constantly running and we have this distorted understanding of time. We want everything to happen immediately. I remember my first computer and modem back in the around 1991-92. It was a 1200bps modem! I thought this was so fast. I was able to access my message boards at blazing speed. I think the computer had something like 8mb of ram. Today, my iPhone 3G (no, I've not upgraded yet) blows the doors of that. Technology is the easiest area in our lives to see our perception of time. We have this crazy notion that faster is sexier!

Yet, the Kingdom of God doesn't seem to be concerned with speed. Consider this, the Bible covers some 5,000 years of history (give or take a millennium). In those stories, there is not a rush on God's part to fix everything right away. Sure, he wipes out humanity with Noah, which is only 4 chapters after Adam & Eve mess it all up, but it was more than a 1,000 years between the stories (if you trust the Bible's record of ages). Then we find the Hebrews live in Egypt for 400 years, plus 40 years of roaming around in the wilderness before experiencing the promised land. From then it moves through hundreds of years of the chosen people messing it up, followed by 70 years in captivity, and another couple hundred in a mixed up time of "free" and "occupied". Then Jesus comes onto the scene to fix everything, nearly 1,000 years after the righteous King David. Since Jesus, we've had nearly 2,000 years of life and we still don't have it right. Clearly, the Kingdom of God does not seem to be concerned about speed or efficiency (major values in the US).

As a matter of fact, much of creation (nature) seems to fly in the face of speed & efficiency.

For the past four years or more, Christy and I have planted tomato plants in the backyard, hoping for some fresh grown tomatoes for salsa, sandwiches, salads, and more. Each year, we seem to be pretty focused on caring for them for the first two weeks to a month. Then our attention begins to wane as we have a hard time holding out for the time when the plant is mature enough to produce fruit. By the time our plants produce fruit, we've failed to nurture them properly, and so the fruit that is produced is small and sporadic. But we love when someone else brings homegrown tomatoes by! We see a healthy vine of tomatoes and begin to fantasize about what it would be like to have our own full bush. So we go home and try again, but we don't stick with it, because it doesn't happen fast enough. You see we want the sexiness of homegrown tomatoes but we don't want to put in the work required because that takes time.

Discipleship is the same way. It takes time! Disciple formation sounds sexy when someone else is doing it. We long for the same things in our lives, but we won't invest the time.

Best-selling author and columnist Malcolm Gladwell (he's got a great first name and some awesome hair), identifies a powerful rule of development in his book Outliers. In looking at the Beatles, hockey players, computer programers, and more, he uncovers what is known as the 10,000 hour rule. Simply put, this rule states that it takes 10,000 hours devoted to working in a field in order to become an expert. If you've not read the book, go, do so immediately!

Gladwell's premise of 10,000 hours got me thinking about my vocation (preaching/public speaking). A few years ago, a fellow pastor and friend and I wondered when preachers reach their prime? NFL Quarterbacks seem to reach their prime around 30. So what was the range for pastors. We figured 45. Do the math and add up how many hours a preacher would have preached by 45 if he preached "every" week beginning around 27.

Since then, I've wondered how long until we reach "expert" as a follow of Christ? I use the term "expert" loosely. But how long does it take for a person to be, in the words of many church mission statements, a fully-devoted follower of Christ? If Gladwell is right and it's 10,000 hours, how long is that?

Is it possible in one year's time? 168x52= 8,732 Close but not quite. This also requires us to be devoted to the formation 24hours a day, seven days a week, without sleep.

So let's remove the time we sleep... 5,824 hours in a year. So it would take just short of two years, if we did nothing else.

Let's say we took one day a week (16 hours, if you take out 8 hours to sleep), how long would that take? 12 years

Let's propose we spend an average of 3 hours a week completely focused on our faith. At that rate, if my math is correct (3x52= 156 then 10,000/156) it would take 64 years!
64 years to be a fully devoted follower? I guess so, I mean if you made a decision to follow Christ in your early teens, as most do, and you gave yourself 3 hours a week to follow Christ, and you did so for 64 years, you would have spent your whole life following Christ, right? Is that what we mean by fully-devoted followers of Christ?

Certainly there's a better way! Isn't there something sexier and more efficient?

Using Gladwell's 10,000 hour rule as a metric for discipleship formation I believe there is a path we can develop, but it won't be sexy, nor will it be fast.

In my next post, I'll share my thoughts on a formation track and how church, devotional time, and even Christian Colleges and seminaries can play a role.

What stands out to you? How long has it taken you to develop? What are the obstacles to developing faith in your own life or in the lives of your disciples have you noticed?