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The Pando of Discipleship

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Pando Forest

There is this incredible aspen forest down in Utah, which encompasses 106 acres. The leaves cover branch to branch, and fall gracefully to the ground when the wind blows. Each year they experience a colour change, and the creatures build and rebuild a home amongst them. The coolest thing about this forest though, is not that the leaves change colour, or that animals call it home, but that it is all one tree! Is your mind blown yet!?  This aspen forest, also known as Pando, which is Latin for ‘I spread’, is a group of single, identical quaking aspen trees making one living organism – all attached to the same root system. The Pando weighs about 13,000,000 pounds, making it the heaviest known organism, and has about 40 000 stems, or trunks, that die individually and are replaced by new stems.

There is also another kind of Pando tree. Some 2,000 years ago, a special seed was planted on earth. His name was Jesus. God planted His only Son here to take root, and change the meaning of life. The moment He was put in the tomb, and the stone was rolled in front, was the moment the dirt covered the seed in the ground to let it prepare itself for the life it was going to create. Three days later, life is already exposed – penetrating through the darkness of the underground. This new life produces the best fruit around. Jesus didn’t keep this fruit to Himself though. It was ‘spread’ among everyone – but specifically, at that time, the 12 disciples.

Jesus started with 12 ordinary men – who were not so ordinary in God’s eyes. He poured His entire self into them, loving them, teaching them, and simply doing life with them. He shattered their categories, and exposed sin. He loved with a greater love than man can understand, and taught them how to care for those who felt utterly hopeless. He brought light into darkness, guiding others along the way.

But then Jesus left them, sending them on their way and telling them to do the same.

It all started with a seed, who grew 12 beautiful stems. Those stems in turn, gave life to a few more stems, then each of those new stems grew a few more stems. Now we have this beautiful forest of discipled people. Some stems die early, some stems are barely holding on to life, but there are others which radiate in the sun.

Pando.

I spread.

Although I’m only a rookie at discipleship, my branch has spread onto three more girls. I get to watch them grow into a beautiful new stem, producing the kind of fruit that only the Spirit can fertilize. The goal is that they, in time, will then spread to discipling a few girls themselves, who will then find a few more girls to disciple. The growth is exponential, and it all started with a seed – named Jesus.

Faithful to the process

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road fork

I have had a few conversations in the past few weeks with discipleship leaders who have had people remove themselves from their groups. And when you only have 3 people connecting, losing one person means that you are losing 33% – Yikes. The reasons have varied – some have given “legitimate” reasons, others just aren’t calling and showing up.

Some of the conversations I’ve had with these leaders have to do with their own self-worth – are they failing in what they believe they are called to do. Others have questioned whether they moved to quickly in inviting someone in, that perhaps they weren’t discerning enough. Others are wondering if there really are people “out there” that want to take their relationship with God seriously or not – is it worth their time to engage in such an intentional way.

I will offer some simple guidance on this from my experience:

1) It won’t always be smooth sailing. I have had discipling relationships that were amazing right through and I’ve had others that were cut short for many different reasons. I have had times when the guys I’m with didn’t want to commit, and I’ve had times when I wondered if I personally still wanted to commit. This is just the reality of relationships – messy and often confusing.

2) My role is obedience to the process, my role is not life change. I love 1 Corinthians 3 when Paul states: “It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow.” Believe me, I don’t always think this way. I want to control the life change, I want to determine what the person learns next, I want to control the rate of change. But I don’t and I can’t. My role is the planting, the cultivating, the watering. The mystery of the growth has nothing to do with me. This can be both comforting and frustrating all at the same time.

3) Know when to move on. To many times I have wanted to “save” someone.  I believed that I knew what they needed and I was going to drag them along whether they liked it or not. The reality is that sometimes I need to cut someone lose. They just aren’t at the place to receive what I believe I have to offer, for whatever reason. This is not for me to always understand. I do know however that at times I simply need to move on, and that there is nothing wrong with this. I didn’t fail, they aren’t bad people, but it just isn’t moving in the direction I believe it should be moving.

Faithfulness to the process, that is all I can control. May God grant us the strength to keep moving forward, and may we always be humble to keep learning as we continue.

For the kingdom.