I have a cousin who enjoys rebuilding classic motorcycles in his garage. He\u2019s been at this hobby for as long as I can remember, and he\u2019s really good at it. He\u2019ll buy a piece-of-junk Indian knucklehead softail from 1943 for a few hundred dollars and turn it into a work of motorized art worth several thousand. Honestly, I don\u2019t know what all those words mean, but I do know that when he glides down the block, you\u2019ll turn your head to look. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His dad, on the other hand, is a car guy. He, his brother (my dad), and a couple of close friends of theirs built their first car when they were in high school. They took turns driving their hand-built race car at the local track on the weekends, alternating between pit jobs and driving. Consequently, I learned how to drift long before Lightning McQueen<\/a>, but that\u2019s beside the point. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019re all pushing eighty years old now. Although they don\u2019t do their own work anymore, they don\u2019t mind paying other people to work on the car projects they are forever picking up together. They all bought Studebakers a few years back, and they still like to drive to car shows together just for fun. That\u2019s commitment!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there\u2019s me. I am not a car guy. I drive a 2004 Toyota Sequoia I affectionately call Shirley, or \u201cShirl\u201d for short. I am terrible with a wrench. My toolbox is Google<\/a>, and if I\u2019m really in a tight spot, YouTube<\/a>. My car was assembled in a large factory by hundreds of workers who worked together to produce one of the finest SUVs ever to grace the earth (I have to say that in case Shirley reads this. She really is a great car!). Amazingly, most of those people on the assembly line did very little to make my car. Maybe they installed a few bolts or inspected some welds, but no one individual had all that much to do. The old maxim, \u201cMany hands make light work,\u201d comes to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I say all this because it reminds me of discipleship. Some of us are called to work one-on-one with people, and most of the time we pour ourselves deeply into a few. Like my cousin, we don\u2019t produce a lot, but what comes out of our efforts will, hopefully, turn heads. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Others of us work best in small groups. We love the camaraderie and fellowship. Our goals are achieved in unison as we work together, but each one of us knows a bit about everything, and we work well as a team. Our workmanship is reflected in one another as we work intentionally to make each other better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then there\u2019s the rest of us, factory workers. Maybe all we do is put the same three bolts in the same three holes on three hundred cars a day, and maybe that\u2019s all we know how to do, but together we produce amazing results. We\u2019re mass producers, each one contributing his or her own little piece to the puzzle that will turn out just fine in the end as long as the line keeps moving. Most of us will never see the finished product, but that\u2019s okay, because we know the system works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n How does this translate into the life of a college ministry or local church? There are two key takeaways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n People who don\u2019t know their role in the disciple making process of their church or ministry wind up doing one of three things: <\/p>\n\n\n\n None of these things is good, and none of these things is helpful to developing mature disciples. People need to know their role. That much is clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a leader, you need to know your \u201cproduct\u201d. <\/em>My cousin knows exactly what he\u2019s trying to roll out when he\u2019s up to his elbows in grease working on a Harley-Davidson. Ditto our dads and their little Studebaker club. Every one of those guys knows exactly what he wants the car to look like, how it should sound, the feel of the steering and brakes in relation to the road as they drive. They are experts. And whether they\u2019re doing the work themselves or paying another mechanic, they know what they want to produce in the end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019re a ministry leader, that is a crucial and often overlooked piece of the puzzle. Part of your<\/em> role is making sure everyone else knows theirs, and you can\u2019t do that if you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re trying to make. What is a disciple? What does your church, your ministry, produce if someone sticks around and contributes for a couple of years? If you want people to grow, you need to know what they\u2019re growing into\u2014and so do they. The difference is that they\u2019re trusting you to tell them.<\/p>\n\n\n"Part of your role as a ministry leader is making sure everyone else knows theirs, and you can\u2019t do that if you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re trying to make." \u2014Jon Smith #collegiatedisciplemaker Discipleship in the Garage of Life <\/a><\/span>Click To Tweet<\/a><\/span>\n\n\n Whether as an individual, part of a small group or in a large factory, building cars and making disciples requires you to know your role and fulfill it. Cars, like disciples, don\u2019t make themselves, and they work a lot better when the people working on them understand what they\u2019re doing. Seeing a finished project roll off the lot is a pretty awesome experience when all the right work has been done, especially when you know what you did to make it happen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As a ministry leader it\u2019s your job to make sure that\u2019s the case in your \u2018garage.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Discipleship is a lot like building a car. In order to do it well, ministry leaders must help each person know their role and have a clear vision for what they are producing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":845,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[127,35,128],"nelio_content":{"isAutoShareEnabled":true,"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"followers":[2,4],"suggestedReferences":[],"efiUrl":"","efiAlt":"","highlights":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[]},"yoast_head":"\nWhat Do Cars Have to Do With Discipleship?<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Know Your Role in DiscipleMaking<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Know Your End Goal in DiscipleMaking<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Discipleship in the Garage of Life<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n