Discipleship: How to Best Pass On a Way of Life

The scent of spring is rich and layered, like perfume that takes you to a place. March in Kentucky means fresh-mowed grass and blossoms on Bradbury Pears. Green pushing through mulch. Yellows, pinks, whites there overnight. Leftover leaves swirling on the driveway. Everything sleepy coming alive.

It’s palpable. Hints of laughter. Bike wheels turning. Windows open. Front doors swung wide. Meandering conversation.

This is the place I call home, with a creek running past our back fence and grown-up trees and a lot of neighbors we know by name. I smell spring and think of the way of life here, where lives collide.

I smell spring and think of the way of life here, where lives collide (Twyla Franz quote).

I wish could bottle it up and send it to your address. Wish you could experience car pools. tag-alongs, extra plates at dinner. Neighbor group texts, chili cook offs, white elephant exchanges, and pop-over meals. Conversations by flowerbeds, in driveways, on back porches, around islands, and in living rooms. Kids never home but always together.

Wish you felt less alone, wherever it is that you live. Wish you had a place that was safe to share your tears and honest prayers. Ask for help. Lend vanilla, availability, a steadying hug, your van.

Paul’s Way of Life

The apostle Paul felt an urgent tug to pass on his way of life, I read in Acts 20:18. I’m nearing the end of Mary Demuth’s 90-day Bible reading challenge, taking in the New Testament in big chunks. We followed Paul from his obsessive persecution of Christians to being targeted himself. Yet for all the suffering he faced, the joy he tasted far outweighed. The legacy Paul most longed to gift was his lifestyle. Here’s what he says:

We will have many memories of our time together in Ephesus; but of all the memories, most of all I want you to remember my way of life.
The Voice

Paul boils it down for us further on in the chapter with this line:

This is my last gift to you, this example of a way of life: a life of hard work, a life of helping the weak, a life that echos every day those words of Jesus our King, who said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.”
Acts 20:35, The Voice

Why, more than wisdom, more than a farewell or blessing, did Paul want to pass on the way he lived? The rhythms. The nuances and consistency. The heartbeat and nature.

What’s inside shows, Paul’s telling us. What matters most is belief and belonging that lead us to love and live in such a way that Christ is always exalted. But in order to replicate this inside-out overflow, we need an example. A skin-on role model who walks among us. Like Jesus. Like Paul.

Also like you and I.

Our Call to Discipleship

It’s high call, and if we’re honest, it scares us. We’re not Paul. Don’t have years of experience preaching. Wisdom to write epistles that will be handed down for many generations. We haven’t had shipwrecks and imprisonments chisel away our selfish impulses.

But you know what we do have?

Shoes that walk our neighborhoods.

Cars that drive familiar streets.

Tables where meals are eaten.

Parks where we play.

Carpool lines, bleachers, classrooms, and pews with the same people we see every week.

We underestimate it because that’s just the stuff of everyday life.

It is, but it’s more. It’s opportunity in a million tiny ways for us to pass on a way of kingdom living that roots in Christ as our source and seeks to copy Him in practical ways.

Toddler tantrums in front of your house. A misunderstanding you work out while neighbor kids are playing. A disappointment you process out loud. That knowing hug you give a neighbor. They offer others a taste of what it means to navigate the complexities of daily life in light of who we are in Christ.

We build people up. Give generously and freely forgive. Talk through hard questions with God and each other. Seek to serve. Choose vulnerability so we can highlight how we need grace too. Keep copying Him even after we fail.

Our entirely normal lives become full of purpose when we embrace our mission to honor Christ and make Him known.

We think we’re unfit.

Argue there’s someone better.

He says, “That’s how I work best.”

With our mess and mistakes and self-doubt. Very human us imperfectly following a gloriously perfect Jesus. That’s where He shines brightest—if we’ll get out of the way. Stop making it about us. Claiming perfection and rightness. Curating our lives to erase the ways we need picked back up, reminded, corrected, comforted.

God will take your stumble-forward efforts to copy Him to reach into the pain and pretense in someone else. Open up your life to the people around you and watch Him!

God will take your stumble-forward efforts to copy Him to reach into the pain and pretense in someone else (Twyla Franz quote).

Discipleship Simplified

In another book, Paul will state the famous line, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1, NKJV). In The Voice translation, the verse reads,

So imitate me, watch my ways, follow my example, just as I, too, always seek to imitate the Anointed One.

Kingdom living translated through lived-in experiences. It’s an age-old model of discipleship. Copy Christ so others may follow. Open up your life to God and other people. Nurture faith, truth, hope, and love on the inside so it spills out everywhere.

Around here we call it ripple-effect living because that’s the simplest picture of our personal walks of faith touching those around us, turning others towards Jesus.

More than words, we need in-the-flesh examples of what faith grounded in truth and overflowing into action looks like. We want to see human interaction, with God and each other.

Your neighbors, co-workers, and classmates. They need you. You following Christ. You giving them access to your life.

Here’s my prayer for both of us.

Jesus, we’re weak. We don’t know all the references or always make the right choice. We battle insecurity, anxiety, and pride. We’re humanly flawed. But we love You, and we’re learning to follow Your lead. You urge us to keep copying You so the people around us can know You better through imitating us.

May we stay humble. Know how dearly we’re loved. May we be courageous in our pursuit of You and vulnerable in our conversations. May the ways we reflect You and what we say and do when we don’t both help point others to You.

May we walk in grace as we follow Your footsteps through the places we frequent.

May Your presence linger everywhere we go because You are always with us.

In Your name, Jesus, we give grateful thanks. Amen.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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