Book Reviews

Mike Dente

Hard is Only Half the Story: Real Adventures From My Journey Into the Unknown is a poetical book exploring cross-cultural ministry’s deeper side. Beginning with the opening poem and with each chapter, Wendy Zahorjanski unveils her spiritual, emotional, and psychological journey. Yet it’s not a Mémoire or a Confession. She uses both first and second-person voices to bring us along with her while adding a well-crafted summary that adds an aspect of encouraging and instructing.

Honestly, I think this book would’ve been helpful for me as I made my way through the wilds of missionary life. Her inviting style made me want to read with a cup of coffee. But the subject matter never let me get too comfortable; the lessons are subtle and profound amid prose that draws us in, like talking to a friend.

I enjoyed Wendy’s transparency. She lets us see the reality of her heart and the very human struggles of being a cross-cultural minister. She doesn’t allow us to get off the hook easily; she invites us to look into our hearts and see what lies in the dark corners. In this way, she paints an accurate picture of the most challenging yet rewarding parts of missionary life. Although she shows hope in Jesus, this book is not afraid to look into the darkness and doesn’t shy away from the real pain of ministry.

Elaine O’Connor

Editor’s Note: I also read Wendy’s latest book and can’t keep quiet about its potential to inspire and encourage solo readers and groups alike. Here goes. –Elaine O’Connor

As someone who wants to remember what I’ve read, to have it impact my life, I was thrilled to discover Wendy included a list of key takeaways at the end of each chapter—as well as Discussion Questions and a Verse for Meditation for each chapter (located at the end of the book). They serve as bookends of sorts, increasing the possibility that Wendy’s goal of “attempt[ing] to expand your perception of the unknown” is met.

I read this book three times and have been thinking about it quite a bit. As a result, the way I look at the unknown has morphed from one of fear to one of anticipation. I’m an extremely grateful reader.

To give you a sense of what I’ve been experiencing, here’s a peek at the “Things Worth Remembering” from chapter four:

• Strange people and strange places = spike in humility
• You will, at some point, be embarrassed
• Open yourself to the idea that it can be the source of growth
• Don’t run
• Allow yourself to be rebuilt

Suffice it to say this book has earned a spot on my books-I’ll-read-again-and-again bookshelf.

Of note, Wendy dedicated this book to her fellow cross-cultural workers. She wanted to encourage them to keep following and to keep looking … “no matter how dark the shadows grow.” Although not a cross-cultural worker myself (in the strictest sense of the term), I benefitted greatly—as have those I’ve engaged with. I sense the same will happen to anyone who contemplates the wisdom Wendy’s latest book has to offer.

I could go on, but I think I’ll let the book speak for itself.

From the back cover of Hard Is Only Half the Story: Real Adventures From My Journey Into the Unknown by Wendy Zahorjanski:

“Do you ever feel that if life was just a little bit easier, it would be a hundred times better?

In this faith-filled, open-hearted memoir, author Wendy Zahorjanski proves that the opposite is true. When we go through difficult times and trials in life, hard is only half the story. As Zahorjanski explores the journey into grief, doubt, and struggle, she admits that she was surprised to find joy, faith, and friendship on the other side.

In a culture that both intrigued and confronted all of her expectations, Zahorjanski was forced to embrace imperfection, look past seeming dichotomies, and be willing to let her well-laid plans for her life look as if they had turned to mush.

Take a walk into the woods with this raw, real account of one Christian missionary’s hike into the unknown where you’ll learn how to:

• Embrace vulnerability to find some of the most precious moments in life.
• Experience that even when things are far from perfect, God still is.
• Laugh at the failures and absurdities that happen with authentic joy.
• Honestly look at your past and present hours of grief and embrace the person they’ve helped you become.
• Take a look at who God is making you into, one persistent action at a time.

This book is an invitation to step beyond the veil of fear to enrich your existence with the rawness of life by looking to God: the bringer of life and healer of sorrows.

Are you ready to embrace the hard moments in your life so that you can finally see what the other half of hard can really bring? It’s time to lean into the transformation that awaits you. Grab your copy of Hard Is Only Half the Story: Real Adventures From My Journey Into the Unknown today.

Wendy Zahorjanski is a nonfiction writer whose life has been an incredible journey guided by faith. Her writing goal is to unveil the amazing moments of opportunity and spiritual growth concealed within seemingly unsurmountable moments.“

This past spring, several friends and I started a community garden. Some of us had experience gardening, and some of us did not. I was in the latter group, but enthusiasm had me counting down the days until the soil would be warm enough to begin planting.

Finally, by the end of April, the conditions were right, and one of the first things we stuck in the prepared ground were potatoes. We were committed to avoiding harmful chemicals in our garden but were also aware that potatoes have an infamous arch nemesis: Leptinotarsa decemlineata, aka the potato beetle. If left alone, these insects can completely defoliate an entire plant, destroying it and significantly decreasing crop yields. They multiply quickly and are ruthless eaters. One way to prevent them is to spray pesticides, but since we had decided to go organic, we were left to find another alternative.

Find Them and Squish Them

We decided to pick them off one by one as they appeared. This is just as tedious as it is gross. The picking-off part is fine. Gloves and a jar keep tiny crawling legs from coming into contact with skin, but after being collected, the bugs must be destroyed. Fingers or rocks, it doesn’t matter the tool of choice; the pop sound of their shell being crushed is the same. So is the sight of little beetle guts oozing out everywhere. Not one of us looked forward to that part of the task, but knowing the damage they would do if not destroyed gave us enough motivation to stick with it until it was finished. Potato beetles lay their eggs on the underside of leaves, so finding those required us to slow way down and inspect each leaf. One cluster of eggs missed would result in a horde of adult beetles.

As a novice gardener, my first priority was to learn what these beetles looked like because I didn’t want, in my ignorance, to kill a beneficial garden bug. I needed to recognize this pest in all its stages of life: eggs, larva, pupa, and adult. Then, armed with my new knowledge, gloves, and a glass jar, I’d be ready to take up my vigil. The plants needed to be checked every time we went out to the garden, and sometimes I didn’t feel like doing it. It seemed to take forever to do, and it was boring. I would rather have done other things in the garden, even weed. At least when weeding, you have visible evidence of your work. A nicely weeded garden row is very satisfying and pretty to look at.

De-beetling the potatoes, however, is invisible work. Standing back, you wouldn’t notice the bugs, unless there were an infestation of them, and that means that the ‘before’ and ‘after’ picture of beetles vs. no beetles look just about the same. No Instagram picture opportunity there. What is noticeable are the effects of not taking the time to destroy the pest. Avoiding or ignoring this mundane task leads to death. Death of the plant above ground and death of the potato it feeds underground. Talk about noticeable.

So, pull off the bugs we did. Even though we were diligent, it would have been an unrealistic goal to try to keep every beetle from ever stepping foot into our garden. These insects will come and inevitably will eat some of the leaves they find, but a complete takeover can be prevented. If kept under control, the leaves they eat will not adversely affect an otherwise healthy potato plant. The plant can produce new leaves to replace the nibbled ones, and the potatoes will turn out just fine.

Notice that I said an otherwise healthy plant. What would happen if we had decided to spend all our time going after the beetles? The weeds would choke the plant out because we didn’t take time to clear the dirt around the roots. The sun would burn the leaves because we didn’t take time to water. And, the soil would fail to nourish the plant because we didn’t take time to replenish it. The reason would be different, but the result would be the same: no potatoes.

It was not enough just to kill the pest. We also had to set aside time and energy to nurture the plant. We had to become experts in cultivation as well as extermination. The ultimate goal is to do both in tandem, maximizing growth and minimizing harm.

Potato Bugs in My Heart

This goal of feeding the good and starving the bad is the same in my life as it is in my garden, just more subtle. Unlike the beetles and potato plants, the battle between life and death wages under the surface. My potato beetles are the invisible thoughts and lustful passions found in my heart. The Apostle Paul calls them the earthly things, and while he didn’t write an exhaustive list of what they are, he did give us quite a few examples, including covetousness, impurity, anger, wrath, and malice: universal pests that we all fight or have fought against. Paul warns us to put them to death, and for good reason. If left to their own, they’ll destroy us as they tear through our lives with their insatiable ardour in order to rule over us.

The first step in the battle against these foes is the same as it is with the beetles. We must be able to recognize them in all of their nasty forms. Thankfully, we have help. The Holy Spirit and the Holy Scripture are our main guides, but the church is also indispensable in helping us to recognize, pluck out, and remove these menaces.

It does no good to recognize and find them, just to put them in our jars for analyzing and self-sabotaging guilt-tripping. Paul’s call is to get rid of them by killing them, not to save them and be condemned by them. It is interesting to note that not once does Paul tell us to be ashamed of those worldly things that pester our lives, but he is straightforward in his exhortation: put them to death, put them off, crucify them. This is the language of extermination, and Paul employs it because he knows that these things have no place in our new identity in Christ. They are sin and they lead to one place: death.

Help!

How do you kill invisible heart issues? Do you punish yourself by always putting yourself down in your thoughts and your words? Should you deny yourself all pleasure? Maybe physically beating the sin out of you is the way? While creative, all these methods have been tried, and they failed. The truth is we can’t do it on our own. We need someone to save us and that’s just what Jesus did.

He came to save us from being overrun. In fact, we were already overrun. We were dead. We had no hope. The infestation was already in full force. No amount of picking and removing could clear our hearts of the sin with which it was inundated. We needed someone to come despite the mess and free us. And Jesus did. On the cross, He saved us from the power and dominion of sin and resurrected us. He didn’t just give us a new garden-heart completely separate from the old one. Nope. He resurrected the dead one right where it was, drowning in beetles, igniting life where there was none. His death and resurrection squashed the power of sin, making way for the power of life to be released. He exterminated one in order to cultivate the other.

Extermination of sin isn’t an end in and of itself. It clears the way for what is to follow, but we can easily become so obsessed with finding each and every beetle that we neglect the other elements essential to overall spiritual health. This, too, is the lesson of the potato bug. Killing them, although important, doesn’t guarantee that you will harvest potatoes, and as shocking as it might seem, putting to death the works of the flesh does not automatically ensure that we will live an empowered, fruitful Christian life.

When we decide to follow Jesus, we are freed from the overwhelming force of sin in our lives and are filled with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit in us produces fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The potential is there from the moment we believe, just like the potential for the potato plant to flourish is there from the moment the tuber is planted in good soil, but in both cases, health has to be maintained for fruit to mature.

Cultivating Love

So, how do we unleash the potential and reap the biggest harvest possible? This is an important question when gardening and even more important when cultivating our spirits. The answer that Scripture gives is so simple that it is frustrating. Love God. What? That’s it? Yes, loving God looks very similar to loving my garden and potato plants.

An onlooker can see that I love my garden because I set aside time and energy to be in it. It is obvious that I enjoy working in it. It is not a duty most of the time, but I did make a commitment to it, so discipline and consistency are a must. More often than now, I am sad to leave it and want to stay just a little bit longer. Love for my garden evidences itself in my fascination with it. I walk through it, carefully examining vegetables and plants, wanting to learn more about them. What do the leaves look like? How and where does the fruit form? How does the plant grow? Tall and skinny, bushy and wide?

I want to know my garden better and better. I read about gardening when I’m not in it. I talk to experienced gardeners to get their advice and suggestions. I inspect other’s gardens to learn tricks and get inspiration. I work in my garden alone and with others, recognizing that both have advantages. I also protect my garden. I put a fence around it to protect it, mostly from my dog Sven, but also from other animals. I water it to protect it from drought and pick off those pesky potato bugs to protect it from harm.

Loving God looks like setting aside time and energy to be with Him: to experience and enjoy Him. This can be in prayer, meditating on scripture, walking in His creation, spending time with His people, singing praise to Him through songs, etc.

Allow yourself to be fascinated by Him. Dig deep into the Scriptures and other books holding to the same truth. Learning more about who He is, what He is like, and what He is not like is a good way to nurture your love for Him.

Talk with other experienced lovers of God. Learn from their example. Observing how they love God will enrich your love for Him.

Pray. It is the water that brings vitality to our inner lives and love for God.

Last but not least, protect your love for Him. Make boundaries to keep the enemy out and get rid of those beetles.

Scriptures for Meditation:

Ephesians 4:22-24: “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Colossians 3:5-10: “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.”

Hebrews 12:1: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,”

This article was supposed to be about John Chrysostom and the historical roots of expositional preaching. It is not.

It did not take me long to realize that I had seriously underestimated the time and effort it would take to really understand John as a preacher. I was in over my head as I thought that I could do a couple of days of research and then write a stellar article about him being the first expositional preacher. Ha! As a little boy I know always says, “silly me.” John wrote volumes and volumes and the number of his sermons that are preserved are staggering. And that is only what he wrote! Countless people also wrote about him.

I have seen icons depicting him holding a Bible or a scroll, looking solemn and stoic in churches and on peoples walls, but never knew why he was holding them, and then I learned that he taught verse-by-verse through books of the Bible in the late 300’s B.C. in the High Church, which intrigued me. Before this, I had thought that expositional teaching was the brain-child of the protestant church. There are biblical examples of this style of teaching, which I was aware of, going all the way back to Moses. But outside of the biblical narrative, I thought it was a protestant thing. John’s hundreds and hundreds of preserved sermons proves that wrong.

Expositional Teaching in the Late 300’s B.C.

He loved teaching the Word of God and used it as a tool to help people move closer to God. He explained the scriptures in a plain way so that his congregation could understand the Gospel. He did this until his death, and eventually his extraordinary preaching and living out what he preached was recognized by the church and he was made a saint both in the Catholic and Orthodox churches and given the name Chrysostom, which means, “golden mouth.”

In the part of the world that I live in, saints play a major role in the Orthodox Church, one of them being that each family has a patron saint who has one calendar day each year dedicated to his remembrance. On this day, people take work off, prepare an elaborate feast, and invite friends over to eat and drink. Some of these celebrations have many guests and some only a few close friends, some are celebrated over several days and others just on the day of that saint.

But no matter the details, the celebration always happens. Each patron saint is passed down from father to son, and so in that sense it continues as long as the family line does. There are specific traditions to be followed on this day, both by guests and hosts. I have had the opportunity to attend many of them, including the celebration of John “Golden Mouth.” Each of these celebrations are very similar, the biggest difference being the person depicted in the icon on the wall.

While I like attending most of these kinds of celebrations because of the social aspect, they have very little to do with the actual saint. When I was invited to and attended the celebration of John Chrysostom, I left with exactly the same amount of knowledge of him as I came with. He was not talked about nor was anything about him called to remembrance in a concrete way.

The event was just a tradition, not a teaching moment, and was devoid of anything truly spiritual. John loved scripture and teaching it. So to be remembered, but in no connection with what he loved and what he stood for, was and is disappointing. Something was missing. We were celebrating something that we knew nothing about. At least I was.

Aversion to Keeping Traditions

The overwhelming emphasis the Orthodox Church puts on keeping traditions in general has led many born-again believers I know to have a strong aversion to anything that even resembles tradition. I am also in that group, but for the opposite reason. I have never been a part of a church with lots of traditions and do not see the need for them in my life.

This aversion was never challenged until a couple of months ago when someone shifted my perspective about the role that tradition and liturgy has played in church history. This person shared this analogy. The gospel is like a beautiful diamond and over time it had to be protected, so a box was made to put it in to keep it safe. That box was tradition and liturgy. They were meant to preserve the diamond that is the Gospel from outside forces, such as the Ottoman Empire which sought to stomp it out by the sword.

In this it succeeded, but slowly over time things changed until eventually the unthinkable happened. The box was closed, hiding the treasure inside. What remained visible was only the secondary things: tradition and liturgy. This tragedy is clearly seen today as most who hold the box have no idea what is inside. They do not know the beauty and life-changing truth of the Gospel, only the burden of carrying the box. The box becomes heavier and heavier as the traditions multiply and with it the guilt of falling short until finally they throw the entire box away, never having opened it.

Our task, he challenged, then becomes to compel them to open the box because once they realize what is inside by seeing it (the diamond), the box will be put in its place automatically. It will fade away in the beauty of the sparkling jewel.

The Analogy of a Closed Box

I suggest that this analogy also applies to John Chrysostom and the saints as they have suffered a similar fate. They have also become a shut box, hiding the very thing they sought to make known. John preached, persuaded, and pleaded with his congregation to be in right relationship with God and to live a life worthy of the name Christian. He spent himself trying to point people to the truth of the Gospel by explaining the written scriptures in a way that every person could understand, and he was skilled in doing this.

He held the Gospel out to others and defended it when attacked. But slowly over time, he and the others like him were used for a purpose that they were never intended to be used for. He was hailed a saint and a preacher without equal. But over time, most forgot what it was that he preached. The box was closed, a fancy dinner becoming the main thing, leaving the Gospel he so dearly loved locked away out of sight.

Opening the Box

This is not just a bummer. It needs to change, but in the process of realigning I am not sure that we have to throw the box away. Maybe it can be restored to its rightful place, just as the Gospel is returning to hers. As the box is opened, the diamond will shine and it will mesmerize. It will capture the searching heart, even if it is in a box. The only thing that matters is that it is opened.

That box makes me uncomfortable, if I am honest, and would go as far as to say that in my own life it is not needed. But not everyone is like me. They have been holding that closed box for generations, and it has become precious to them. To pry it from their hands would feel just the same as it felt when the Ottoman Empire tried, even if our motives are different. Force is not the way of wisdom.

What that man was trying to share is that wisdom is to recognize the honorable role that the box has played in history and then to gently open it, even if just a crack. The glory of the diamond will do the rest. It will sparkle even if that box has been closed for centuries. It has not changed. It was cut to perfection already. All it needs is a little light for its splendor to be revealed.

The obvious questions follows, how do we go about opening the box? This is a good and difficult question. I have some ideas, not a fix-all, end-all answer. I doubt there is only one right way to do it. Each person’s box might look a little different after all. Is their box made up of the traditions of saints being mediator to God, instead of Jesus? Or is it that being baptized as a baby into the church guarantees salvation? Maybe it is that the work of keeping traditions ensures salvation?

Each of these require a different approach, a different way of opening if you will, which means that we need wisdom: heavenly wisdom to boldly and gently open each box in the most appropriate way. It might be best done slowly over time, but then again sometimes it should be flung open, if the opportunity arises. One thing is for sure, we cannot muster up this kind of wisdom on our own, but we can ask for it.

Asking for Wisdom

That is what James tells us in his epistle. If we need wisdom, ask. It is that simple! Ask and then patiently wait for Him to answer. He will, and even if we are unsure about the exact science of how to get the lid open, we can be confident that Jesus is a good place to start.

The beauty of the life and work of Jesus is the Gospel. He is the diamond. Talking about Jesus, digging into His life through study of the scriptures, assimilating His paradigm through prayer and allowing it to shape your decisions and desires, openly, bravely following Him with all the failures and imperfections that will inevitably come and humbly admitting when we get it wrong, leaning into a loving community that will spur us on through encouragement and rebuke are all ways to crack open someone’s box.

Even when cracked open, embrace of the diamond will not always happen. It may be closed again and in that way the diamond rejected. That is a choice each heart makes for itself, but at least they will see the options clearly. At least they will see the diamond in all its glory and choose for themselves. Also, by giving this choice, by cracking that lid open, we can preserve the integrity of the saints like John Chrysostom by fighting for the same thing they fought for: to keep the magnificent Gospel visible for all to see; to keep the diamond in the light.

Click here for part 2

We’ve already looked at two ways that we can easily make people into projects, and today we tackle the third and final way. We make people into projects when discipling them becomes a task to be completed instead of a relationship to be nourished.

Too Close for Comfort

This one hits uncomfortably close to home for me. As a task-oriented person, I naturally tend to put the thing to be done above everything or everyone else. For me, success is accomplishing what I set out to do: finishing the job. This means that I’m usually focused, determined, and committed, which are great things.

I love a challenge, and difficult doesn’t intimidate me, but hidden among these strengths is a huge weakness that I must be aware of and counterbalance. Because of my strong drive to put my full attention on completing the task, I try to do the same thing in my relationships. I make friendship an assignment and push discipleship into a line on my “to do” list. When I do this, I miss the entire point of what discipleship is, and I don’t think I’m the only one missing the mark.

More Than a Program

I fear that we’ve sucked all the life out of making disciples by modeling it as a curriculum to be followed. It’s become little more than another meeting on our weekly calendar. A timeframe of several months or a year is set in which “discipling” someone is to be achieved and a specific goal met, e.g., to read a book together or to complete a bible study. Neither books nor studies are intrinsically harmful, but we must be aware of the tendency these organizational tools have of taking over.

A tool is meant to be used to aid in the process of something. It’s not an end in and of itself. Instead of a tool to guide us and our conversations, these things can quickly morph into a task to be completed. Finishing the book or the study becomes the benchmark of success.

What happens when this switch is made is that the relationship between the disciple maker and the disciple becomes secondary, or even worse, a mere imitation of a relationship instead of a genuine one. The real objective when this happens is to complete something, instead of walking alongside someone in relationship.

This becomes painfully clear after the “discipleship” program is completed. Are the two parties involved friends by the end? Not best friends, but do they have some kind of relationship with each other that doesn’t focus on the subject they studied together? Do they know about the victories and challenges in each other’s lives (not all of them, but at least some)?

While it’s unrealistic to assume that friendship will always be the natural result of discipleship, I do think it should be the norm. Time spent reading a book or studying scripture should open the door to real conversations that connect real life to real truth and nourish real friendship.

Lessons Learned

I’m passionate about this because I’ve been both the disciple and discipled others, within the context of a genuine friendship and also outside of it. I’ve seen and experienced the difference. One mentor of mine (can I use that as a substitute word for disciple maker?) was very faithful to meet with me and read through a book with me. We met at a restaurant, ate food, and talked about the book.

It was fine, but we didn’t have an authentic friendship. In fact, we had no contact outside of our meetings. Even though we went to the same small church and her son was a friend of mine, if the book wasn’t in my hand, we didn’t talk. She wasn’t involved in my life in any capacity nor was I in hers. I didn’t learn anything from her life because I had no access to it.

She was an active member of our church and a mature believer, so don’t get the idea that she didn’t love Jesus because she did. She was just following the pattern of discipleship that she’d been taught. She was prepared for our meetings and faithfully read the book with me, but after we completed the book, we stopped talking all together.

I don’t know if she felt the same way, but I remember feeling like reading that book and meeting with her were things I was supposed to do as a good Christian. For me, they were boxes to check, and once I did that, I was free to move on to the next thing.

There was another mentor however that left me with a completely difference experience. First of all, she invited me over to her house. I met her dog. I spent time with her and her husband. I wasn’t there every week or every month; it was only a couple of times. But it was enough to help fold laundry and eat snacks from her cupboard.

When she had their first baby, I babysat for her. Just once, but still our lives were connected outside of the confines of our “discipleship” in a very natural way. Shortly after having her baby, she moved away and we lost contact for many years. But this past year we exchanged a few emails and the depth found in them attests to the authenticity of our friendship all those years before.

Even though she’s older than me, she was always honest about how she was doing. She didn’t share every detail about the things she was going through, nor should she have, but I felt like we were real friends. I still do, and if I needed advice and the two of them were my only choices of people to call, I’d call the second lady, my friend.

The funny thing is, I don’t think she was any more spiritual than my first mentor, nor that she loved Jesus more. She just treated me more like a person to know instead of part of a program to be completed. Notice that, at least for a season, my interactions with both ladies ceased.

Sometimes there’s a beginning and an end in the process of discipling, so I’m not suggesting that time frames aren’t helpful or that discipleship is never-ending. But I challenge you not to make the end coincide with the last page of a book. Allow the Lord to move you or the other person on in his timing and in his way and allow him to define what discipleship looks like in between.

The Heart of It All

As I read about the life of Jesus in the gospels, I can’t find one single interaction that would lead me to believe that his disciples ever felt like they were a box for Jesus to check off of his ministry to-do list. From what I see, they had a very typical rabbi/disciple relationship: Jesus didn’t hide when exhausted, even sleeping in their presence.

They knew when he was hungry. They saw his dependence on the Father when he took time away from his hectic schedule to pray. He shared meals. They discussed an endless variety of topics, and they felt free to ask him questions about his teachings and about spirituality in general.

One thing that I personally find extremely difficult to imitate is the amount of time Jesus gave to his disciples. He was available to them daily for a period of three years, pouring endless time and energy into them. I find this impossible and long for clarity in this area.

What does it mean to disciple someone in my context? This is a question I’m currently wrestling with. So I don’t consider myself an expert disciple maker, nor have I found THE way to do it. Maybe more than one way exists.

One thing I’m sure of though: each time we’re honored with the opportunity to disciple someone, we should fall on our faces before our Father and ask for wisdom in humility realizing that we’re not Jesus.

While he did leave us an example perfect in every way, we may not be able to replicate his specific methods of discipleship, like spending every day with the disciples. But we can imitate his heart. His heart was first and foremost burning to do the will of the Father. He sought this will and then set his face like flint to follow it. He yielded every desire and life-choice to the loving guidance of his Father and as he moved along in this journey, invited others to join him.

He modeled and taught them how to completely and utterly trust in the love and faithfulness of God and his life testified to the joy and the power that trust brings. Trust to the death. Trust beyond death, to resurrection.

This is what discipleship should be. A heart struggling to trust on display. A life willing for the layers to be peeled back by another to reveal the inner workings of a prayer life filled with praises and laments, trust and honest questions. It should be a sharing in the sacred fellowship of his sufferings as well as the power of his resurrection.

If you can do that by reading a book, then read it, but don’t limit a potential friendship to the questions at the end of each chapter. Don’t believe the lie that discipling is something to be done.

Follow Jesus with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and when you notice someone trying to do the same, invite them in: into your heart and into your relationship with Jesus.

This article is part two of a series of three, so if you missed the first part or would like to refresh your memory, click here

Today, we shift our focus to a more subtle way that we can reduce people to projects because the truth is, we don’t always treat one another as an argument to be won. More often, we actually care about that person and want to help them. We enter the conversation with a heart that longs to fill in what the other is lacking. In other words, to serve, and this desire reflects the heart of Jesus. But as we will see in our next story, good intentions alone don’t guarantee that others are being served well.

Preaching to the Choir

Excited wouldn’t have been a fitting word to describe me in that moment. Nervous maybe, or even apprehensive, would have better correlated with my inner state as I sat and waited. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be there: I did. It was just that, well, usually I don’t enjoy women’s events or women’s Bible studies. There, I said it. It’s out for the world to read and know. I love being around women, and I love studying the Bible. Yet somehow, when those two things combine, I often feel out of place and awkward. That’s a story for another day. Needless to say, I was just as unsure about this women’s event as I had been about any other.

My friend was hosting it though, and I liked her, so my logic was that maybe I would like the study too. She wasn’t teaching though, a stranger was, so I still had a little cavern of insecurity within me. We sat in a circle, and I looked around. Almost all of the faces were familiar. I knew these women: loved and respected them deeply. The newcomers might be just as amazing, I thought. I should give them a chance.

The study started, and about ten minutes in, I started thinking, oh no, not this. This poor lady has no idea who she’s talking to. She’s not just preaching to the choir; she’s preaching to the soloists who often lead the choir.

It wasn’t that her teaching was unclear. She was a good communicator. Her chosen subject was also a good one. She was exploring the topic of how to make disciples. Very applicable to every believer, no matter their geographical location or background. Making disciples is a universal call made by Jesus Himself, and therefore a great thing to talk about at a women’s Bible study, but the content she was sharing was so basic that it was almost insulting. She was explaining the theology behind disciple-making and what the practice might look like, but through the lens of an unfortunate assumption: that we knew very little about the topic.

I groaned inwardly. Sitting across from me was a lady who was, at that time, on the leadership team of an online platform for disciple-making. She responded to online inquiries from people seeking answers to spiritual questions and then slowly, through back and forth texts, unfolded the possibility of a relationship with their Creator. She was, sometimes daily, in contact with people leading them toward Jesus and toward becoming a disciple of Jesus. She is a practiced disciple-maker and has even trained others to become the same.

The lady sitting next to her co-leads a home group and disciples ladies long distance. She has a special ability to lead group discussions with all the particular challenges and dynamics which that involves. She was at that time, and is still, also using her gifts on a regular basis to make disciples.

A couple ladies down from her was a lady who serves on the board of her well-known Christian organization. She’s part of the leadership team for the entire region: a region that includes multiple countries. Her passion is Member Care, and she has been making disciples for over 30 years.

Two other ladies present are missionaries who reach out to students through the platform of a Culture Center. Their entire mission is to provide opportunities to cultivate relationships with people, and then if they are interested, to walk with them as they unpack together what it means to follow Jesus a.k.a. be His disciple.

There were also full-time children’s workers (a big part of their job being discipling children). The only person in the room who might have been hearing the concepts being taught for the first time was the translator, and while it’s good and useful to be reminded of truths already known, this bible study was geared toward an audience who had never made disciples. It was an Intro to Disciple-Making and these ladies had already taken that course.

She closed by teaching us how to pray. Literally. She taught us the ACTS of prayer. Have you heard of them? For those unfamiliar, it’s a tool which uses the acronym ACTS to teach different aspects of prayer. For example, A stands for adoration, C for confession, and so on. It’s a very basic tool that can be a helpful framework for someone who doesn’t know how to pray or is learning to pray, but it was completely incongruous with that group of ladies. It didn’t match the knowledge, ability or spiritual maturity of the group. She was bottle-feeding heavyweight champions and she had no idea.

The teacher, as I discovered through conversation with her later than evening, was a deep, thoughtful lady. I enjoyed my conversation with her immensely more than her teaching. The depth came out, her life opened up before me. She shared about her child with special needs and the struggle to find church programs that are inclusive and child care workers that are equipped to work with him.

I was screaming inside because one lady present had a child who was recently diagnosed with Autism and many of her struggles were the same, but neither of them knew it. Here was a lady from across the globe whose struggles and deepest pain echoed that of a lady from a small town an hour away. They didn’t speak the same language and their children were different ages and genders, but their journey as a mother had a lot in common. Oh how I wish that they had talked and cried with each other and encouraged each other in the unique way that only mothers with children with special needs can, but instead that local mother was taught the ACTS of prayer: again.

The study was so basic and generic that I left feeling a little bit like a project; a thing to be checked off a list even though I know that wasn’t the intention. While talking to the lady, I got the sense that she was a wonderful lady who loves Jesus, but her message was unsuitable for us. Ignorance regarding who she was addressing, led her to be ineffective in her service to us. Her good intentions weren’t enough.

It’s extremely difficult to show up and teach a group of strangers, so that needs to be acknowledged. It’s also brave to teach in a context outside of our own, but we live in a time when it’s possible to learn about a context before entering into it. There’s an overwhelming amount of information to help prepare for circumstances like that. My friend, who hosted the event, would have been a great resource to utilize because she knew most of us attending personally. She could’ve given a clear picture of who the group was and where we were at spiritually, and the assumptions made could have been avoided. Unfortunately, she wasn’t asked and as a result, the message that night didn’t strengthen or equip us. The teacher puttered around in the shallows as we sat there in scuba gear ready, longing for depth.

To serve another is both a privilege and a responsibility. It requires right desire and right action. One without the other is incomplete and possibly dangerous. Good intentions inappropriately applied can damage the one being served. It’s not enough just to want to serve. How we go about serving is just as important as our motivation for doing it. If the way we serve people looks more like accomplishing something instead of empowering someone, then we aren’t serving well. We must know the difference between serving a person and managing a project, and that’s a skill developed over time.

Serving Like a Sailor

Every ancient sailor had developed this skill of serving. It’s just instead of people, they served ropes. To serve a rope is the last step in the process of protecting it from the elements and from fray. First, the rope is smoothed out by wrapping spun yarn into the grooves (first step) and after that, strips of old canvas (step two). When that’s done, it’s ready to be served. Using a wooden mallet, made especially for this purpose, twine is firmly wrapped around the prepared area, the ball of twine often being held by another person wrapping it in the same direction, as the mallet circles the rope to keep it from tangling. Tension in the twine must be consistent as it’s wrapped and the mallet the right size for the rope. Once tied off in the proper way, it’s ready to do its job: hold things together, even during the fierce winds of a storm.

Sailors would never have served every rope in the same way. First, they had to see where it was worn out or frayed. They had to observe the rope. Then, they had to gather their tools; tools were chosen based on their initial observations. The size of the rope dictated the size of the mallet used. The length of the damage correlated to the length of the yarn, twine, and cloth strips. Next, with tools in hand, they had to worm and parcel the rope, which are the official terms for the first two steps of the process described above. Then, and only then, was the rope ready to be served.

A rope appropriately served was strengthened by the process, and in the end, more able to achieve its intended purpose. If it was served carelessly, the entire ship would be in danger, and in this way, a sailor’s skill and care to serve the ropes he was responsible for well was directly linked to the welfare of everyone on board. He knew how important each rope was and took his job seriously.

To evaluate if he had done his job well, he might have asked things like, what was the initial condition of the rope? Where exactly did it need to be served? Were the tools I used appropriate for that particular rope? Did I work with my team to make sure the rope was served in the best way possible? In what condition did I leave the rope? Is it stronger than before? Are the frayed areas covered and restored to function? Can it now be used for its intended purpose?

We might never serve ropes on a ship, but we’re all called, by God’s grace, to serve those around us, and as we serve, may we become skilled in holding projects and people in separate hands.

Taking Inventory

Questions for Reflection—Moving from Ropes to People:

What is the current condition of the person?

Where exactly does he/she need to be served?

Are the tools I’m using appropriate for this particular person?

Am I working with my team to make sure the person is served in the best way possible?

In what condition am I leaving the person?

Is he/she stronger than before?

Are the frayed areas covered and restored to function?

Can he/she now be used for his/her intended purpose (purposed by God)?

References

@Alford, Nikki. “Bessie-Ellen.” How to service (serve) a rope. November 25, 2015. https://bessie-ellen.com/how-to-service-serve-a-rope/#:~:text=The%20serving%20is%20always%20laid,hauled%20taught%20before%20cutting%20off.

Social History Curators Group. “Tools of the Trade: rope working and rigging.” YouTube, March 8, 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBFNsbV_Bvs

This is the first part of three on the ease of making people into projects. Of course, the title is a little tongue-in-cheek. No one wants to reduce a person, a potential friend, down to a project, but it happens. A lot. Since I’ve seen and done this, I wanted to share my thoughts on the subject. I’ve chosen three ways, but there are more, I’m sure, so use these articles as inspiration to get your brain fired up to explore this topic.

For those who like to know where we’re going, here are the three points that will be discussed in the series:

1. We make people into projects when we reduce them to an argument to be won. Genuine friendship isn’t a debate class.

2. We make people into projects when we teach them in an inappropriate, uninformed way. Good intentions aren’t always enough.

3. We make people into projects when discipling them if it becomes a task to be completed instead of a relationship to be nourished.

Now, let’s slow down and dive in.

How Do Others Experience, or Perceive, Me?

I was sitting at a conference as the next speaker got up from his seat and moved up toward the podium. He stood behind the microphone, looking out at us, and gave his lecture. I don’t have a clue what he said. I don’t remember any of his main points and not one illustration he used. I can’t even recall the theme of the conference in general. The crazy part? That speaker told us that we’d forget everything! As he opened his notes and readied himself to dive into the topic at hand, whatever it was, he looked up and told us that we’d most likely forget everything that he said that day. I did.

“But,” he continued, “you won’t forget the way that you felt during this session and this conference.” Again, he was right. I don’t remember hardly any of the information that was shared, but I do remember the way I felt those three days … and the days that followed.

The speaker’s observation has stuck with me. Is this principle the same in my life? Do people remember how I make them feel even if they forget what I said? I think so. When I think about certain people, I either get a positive or negative feeling, even though I’m not thinking about specific things that they’ve said. They do make me feel a certain way, and I’m sure that I make people feel a certain way as well.

How people experience me is important, and it has a deep impact on my testimony as a believer. I’m not talking about people liking me necessarily; sometimes they won’t, and that’s ok. I’m also not talking about “clicking” with someone. That happens sometimes, and friendships are fast-tracked to BFF status.

I’m talking about the importance of honestly reflecting on the way in which others perceived us. If I asked five or six people how they experienced me and words like impatient, arrogant, or finicky come up more than once, it’s probably not a coincidence. There could be something there worth looking into. These observations and the feelings that they invoke, will affect my relationship with them.

Maybe an example would help.

Insights Gained While on the Receiving End

I met a man a couple of months ago, and after interacting with him, had such a negative feeling that I hope never to see him again. That sounds harsh, but it’s the way he left me feeling. Ironically, he didn’t “do” anything to make me feel bad, nor do I think that it was his intention. But in our hour-long conversation, he talked badly about neighbors, other regions of his country, and other nationalities beyond the borders of those regions. He went as far as to try to convince my friend, who was sitting next to me, that her region of the country was far inferior to his. It’ll be no surprise that this statement was the conclusion of a long monologue ripping into their mentality, customs, and local culture.

Needless to say, neither she nor I were impressed, and he did nothing to convince us that he was right. He did the opposite. He pushed us away. If I ever see him again, I have no doubt that a wave of dread will wash over me, and my mind will whirl in frantic search of any excuse not to interact with him. He lost my respect and my friendship. He could regain both of those things, but he’d have to work really hard to move me from that bad feeling to one of openness.

What were the specific things he said? I’ve no idea, but the feeling of wanting him to stop talking—and to leave—is still fresh in my mind. Whether he was aware of this or not is unclear, but of one thing, he left no doubt: He thought he was better and knew better than everyone else, including my friend and me. His knowledge was superior, his opinions more enlightened, his experiences infallible. There was no conversation. He was on a soapbox, and until he finished, we couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

I’m not that different from him, although that’s something I’d rather not admit. I love to win arguments. I love to be right and for others to know it. I love to correct others and convince them that my way is better—and just like that proud man—often forget something: Relationship is about more than winning.

You see, what the man missed was us. Even though we were sitting right in front of him, he was so busy talking about his few days spent up north that he missed the lifetime of experience that my friend had growing up there. He didn’t ask her for her opinion about his observations. He didn’t show any sign of wanting to learn from her. He knew better.

Sometimes I know better, too. I know better and that knowledge eclipses the person in front of me. I don’t think I’d ever fight to win an imaginary argument about which part of my country is better, but there are some “betters” that I’m in danger of stuffing down unwilling throats. For example, I know that life with Jesus is better than life without Him. I know that the gospel is the better power to restore and heal a soul. I know that God is better when compared to any other god.

I’m convinced of these things and want to tell others about the better way that I’ve found in Jesus, but sometimes in my passion, my attitude becomes about proving that their way of thinking isn’t as valid as mine. If I present my beliefs in rapid machine gun fashion, I shouldn’t be surprised to find a wounded person in front of me when I finish. It’s never ok to hurt someone just to prove a point, no matter how true the point is.

How Does This Understanding Impact My Witness?

If how we share the better story of Jesus is leaving people bleeding and feeling inferior, something needs to change. My words may sound over-the-top, but I encounter many people on the mission field who, because of “evangelism,” have been left scarred and alienated. They didn’t feel loved or valued. They were made to believe that their way of thinking was stupid or backward. They were told the story of amazing grace and then shown no grace during the messy process that choosing to follow Jesus can be. It was a “Jesus’ way or the highway” message. You reject Jesus and I will reject you is what was communicated, and it left deep wounds.

I have done this. Unintentionally, of course, but unintentional wounds hurt just the same as intentionally inflicted ones.

What I’m really doing when I interact this way is that I’m reducing a beautiful, complex human being, created in the image of God, to an argument to be won. I move in to change their opinion at any cost. In those moments, I’m not loving them with Jesus’ ever-patient, ever-present love. I’m pushing them around like a bully. I listen only to refute or to defend myself … I mean the gospel. The problem is the gospel doesn’t need defending. It breaks down every argument, every confusion, each time that it resurrects a soul, breathing new life into it. The new life in us is the best argument we have and, like a river, will flow out of us if given a channel.

The best channel is often a slow, steady example. Not perfection. Only Jesus has access to that. It’s a consistent pattern of seeking God, repenting when we get it wrong, and loving those around us. If we, if I, invested in those things with as much passion as I put into convincing someone that Jesus is the Savior, I think they’d see a much more powerful example of that Savior in action.

As they watch Him rescue me, reveal Himself to me, and change me, they’ll see the power and the hope of the Savior. They’ll feel the gospel: the power of God. Of course words are essential, but force-feeding them to someone will leave a bad taste in their mouth. In other words, a bad feeling.

If, on the other hand, we simply let the river of living water flow from a vibrant, inner spiritual life, I believe that they’ll taste that water and see that the Lord is good. Then, it’s up to them to choose whom they’ll follow.

Let the power of a changed, Jesus-saturated life do the arguing and save your breath for better things. A changed life is more convincing than even the best crafted debate rebuttal.

Changing our approach might even open the door for a new friendship, bringing the Jesus in us closer to the new friend next to us. Our goal, after all, is to make Jesus known, not to win an argument.

Take Aways

• Ask several people, believers and non-believers, how they experience you.

• Think of several words that describe the feeling the gospel leaves you with.

• Cultivate your inner-spiritual life alone and in community.

• Be bold with your life and with your words, but don’t argue!