When Danny LaRusso was being bullied as the new kid in town, he needed to learn some karate. Well, lucky for him the building maintenance man for their apartment complex happened to be a karate master—although you would have never guessed it. It is funny how the influence we need in our life is often closer to us than we realize. The mom, neighbor, old guy at church—all with a wealth of wisdom and life experience, but they often go overlooked in our pursuit of “cooler” influencers. We are convinced our problems need people with their own fancy dojos, catchphrases, and fancy logos like in Cobra Kai: “Strike first, strike hard, no mercy.” But Mr. Miyagi only had Danny painting fences and waxing cars. How’s that going to help him?
When it comes to discipleship, sometimes we are looking for that class, or that really organized program. We want a clearly defined process. But I’ve found the most effective discipleship is in the everyday, life-on-life discipleship. The painting of fences and waxing of cars. It is in the 18 years of observing Mom and Dad. It is around the campfire. It is in fixing lawn mowers together, or taking kids to the park. It is in families in the church getting together with other families to hang out. It is in the observing and learning as everyday life unfolds. Besides, isn’t that where devotion gets lived out?
However, I bet a lot of us can feel like that’s not enough. We need more. More organized, programmed processes. I bet that’s how Danny felt while he was waxing on and waxing off. What good is this doing? How’s this going to help me deal with my very real problems? But then all of a sudden, you know how to block a punch.
We could use some more Mr. Miyagis—older Christians who invite younger people into their lives. Have them over for dinner. Or better yet, feed them dinner after they helped you all day in the yard painting fences. We need to learn from those who’ve spent more time learning life lessons at a pace that says they’ve lived enough of it to not be in such a hurry. There ought to be more hanging out and telling stories of marriage, parenting, budgeting, mistakes, and successes. And young people may wonder what good it’s all doing, but when the punches of life come, they’ll be surprised how ready they are.
We need more Danny LaRussos—young people who aren't joining the trendy Cobra Kai, but instead are willing to hang out with an old guy waxing cars all day. Young people who won't overlook the aged people already in their lives who may not look cool, but they got skills—decades of developed skills.
Discipleship takes time. Intentional time together. Lots of time, over a long period of time, doing everyday stuff. The real challenge for Christians is not finding the right discipleship program, it’s in having enough margin in our lives to actually invest in others. Time to give to this mission of making disciples. After all, even if we would like to, we tend to think we are too busy. We’ve got fences to paint and cars to wax. Exactly. Discipleship should not be seen as just another task, but a mission that all other tasks fall into.
What if pouring into someone else was a greater ambition for you in your life? What if you picked just a few people, maybe even just one person? One person over the next 10 years. One person over the next 10 years who you call, text, and connect with. One person to go to the park with, have over, help, include, challenge, and encourage. What if 100 people in our church picked just one person each? And what if we didn’t just share the Word of God with them, but also our lives (1 Thessalonians 2:8)?!
The real story of The Karate Kid is not Danny standing up to bullies. The real story is the unlikely, life-changing bond between an old guy and a kid, because an old guy was willing to help him and the kid was willing to listen. Isn’t that the context of discipleship? Didn’t that make for a good movie? Maybe you don’t have any karate skills to pass on, but a life invested in discipling someone else makes a pretty good story. A story some younger person might share at your funeral. A story some younger person might turn into a sequel with someone else. Isn’t that the story we find ourselves in?
When Christ formed his world-changing crew, wasn’t the invitation simply, “Come, follow me”? Think about it. God’s strategy for developing a batch of devoted disciples was, “Let’s just hang out.” I mean, hang out intentionally. This fence painting and village-to-village walking has a point to it all. But the best discipleship looked a lot like friendship, very intentional friendship. And then the instruction was, “Go and do this with others.” And they did! So, are you?