Discipleship is progressive, not stationary. It’s dynamic, not static. Active, not passive. The path of discipleship is a continuous journey of moving progressively forward – from one point on the journey onto the next – not haphazardly, but purposefully – following the leadership of Jesus’ Spirit - step, by step, by step.
Now, following Jesus is not formulaic. We can’t reduce our lives in God down to some cosmic algebra equation, where if you can discern the correct variables, you can achieve the desired outcome. Yet, the steps along the journey of discipleship are not an unknowable mystery to us either.
Years ago, I got to be a part of an awesome middle school ministry called “Velocity”, and I loved that name. Velocity is a term from Physics, and it means “the rate of speed that an object in motion travels away from its starting position”.
At the start of each new school year, we played two games to help the students visualize the meaning of this word:
First, we would play Dizzy-Lizzy: this is a relay race where team members run up from their starting position, grab a plastic stick, hold it to their foreheads, run in 5 circles around it, then run back to their team. There’s a tremendous display of speed and motion, but by the end of the game, the entire team is standing right back where they had started.
Then, we would play Red Light, Green Light – a game where you begin at the starting line, and then race to the finish line, being careful to obey the “traffic signals” on your way! Start, stop, go slow, start again... but always making forward progress.
The life of the disciple is more like Red Light, Green Light than Dizzy Lizzy. The life of the disciple is marked by velocity. Not speed, but progressive forward motion. It doesn’t have to be fast; in fact, at times, it can be quite slow. Look at the sea turtle: as it slowly clunks its way toward the ocean from its nest on the beach, it is still achieving velocity with each new stride. Though it’s progress is slow, the turtle is gradually moving further away from its starting position – and closer towards its intended goal with every step.
