Missional Discipleship Practices, 1: Live Small

Discipleship, ultimately, is about Jesus. But it starts with me.

Those two great truths of discipleship about who I can trust and what I can control mean that the path to discipleship has to begin with me. And that means taking a hard look at how I understand myself and choices I’m making about how I live.

First, because I don’t live in a vacuum, I need to be aware of what the culture of which I’m part tells me about who I am and how I should live.

What contemporary American culture tells me is that I am what I do, where I live, and what I own; that my happiness, my sense of self-worth and, ultimately, my security, are in material wealth. So it follows: the more I have, the more I am. And because I should always want to be more, I should always strive to have more. It makes the economic world go ‘round.

It also tells me that I should live for me (my own desires should define my life) and, if I have one, my family. Others live for themselves and their families. Each person, each family—autonomous. I don’t need to be concerned with how my life choices might impact anyone else.

Collectively, this helps explain why I live trusting myself first and foremost and why I believe that through my own efforts and material success, I can control most of what happens to me.

Yet Jesus says something rather different.

• My identity and security are not in what I own so that the more I have, the better I am. I can lose all of that tomorrow. My identity and security are in my relationship with Jesus. 
• Choices I make about my life don’t impact only my life or the life of my family. Depending upon the choice, it can impact my neighbor, my employees, my community, people across the state, across the country, across the ocean. My responsibility as a human being doesn’t begin and end with me.

Consequently, the first discipleship practice: live small. We’ve all heard about “living large.” It’s the profile of a successful life: a lot of stuff, a lot of space, a lot of energy. But as disciples of Jesus Christ, we’re called to live small.

Living small is not just about the size of my consumption footprint. It’s about recognizing that my life is not about me. It’s the kind of life Jesus modeled during his earthly ministry: life lived mindful of our obligation to others.

I can think of it as striving for low maintenance living. That doesn't mean asceticism. It means mindfulness: knowing how much is enough, sensitivity to how my life impacts others, awareness of my responsibility to help others. The less energy I require to maintain my life, the more energy I have for living. For Jesus, for my family, for others, for me.

 Some Scripture: Luke 9:46-48; 12:13-21

                            Matthew 20:20-28