Disciple Making And The Idea Of Importance

Stop and think for a moment about how the information-saturated, media-driven world we live in affects the concept of “importance.”

For example, think of the biggest news stories from the last few years.

Think of the BP oil spill in the Gulf . . .
Think of the tsunami that hit Japan . . .
Think of the Egyptian riots . . .
I’d even include the Occupy movement . . .

Now, ask yourself: when was the last time you thought about three out of four of those?

The most important issues of any given day are yesterday’s news. And, as opposed to the natural flow of news that has sort of always contributed to this effect, it’s not simply that something else takes their place. It’s not merely because they’re forgotten. In many ways, the 24-hour, top headline, megaphone treatment the “important” topics of the day are given contributes to their minimization.

Saturation begets apathy. Or if not apathy, at least numbness. If everything is important, and unprecedented, and larger than life, then nothing is. This reality has contributed to a redefinition of what is seen as “important,” or of value.

Importance just doesn’t have the shelf life it used to.

In an article written a couple of days ago on Grantland.com, Charles Pierce was applying this concept to the hype surrounding Knick’s point guard, Jeremy Lynn. Here’s what Peirce said about the frenzy surrounding Lin’s sudden ascension to fame:

The Accelerated Age has taken the phenomenon out of the phenomenon of being a phenomenon. It used to have some build to it. It used to take a while . . . Now, anything great that happens suddenly becomes so freighted with instant significance that the essential parts of it that are not crushed entirely are simply buried.

For those of us leading anyone in their discipleship journey, this “Accelerated Age” has a big impact on how actually go about doing discipleship. As I said, when every seemingly “important” issue in the world is given the “open up the floodgates” treatment, the effect on students (and the rest of us) is often that nothing is important.

And if the “important” things in our students’ worlds are like this, what is the effect on their faith development? What is the effect on the truly important things of God and of His ways? I think this concept may affect discipleship in two main ways:

It may affect the impact of our message. When we tell students that their relationship with Christ is important, are we merely another voice in the noise? Does our message break through?
It certainly affects our methodology. With the fast-paced, multi-platformed, quickly-changing manner in which “important” information is delivered, the long term, slow moving work of faith development must feel like hitting a brick wall. If we’re transparent, it does for us sometimes, doesn’t it?

The big question for us is how we adapt our disciple making.

How do we deliver our message in a way that takes into account the noise of culture yet still retains its Truth?

How do we adapt our methodology, still effectively leading students in spiritual formation, but accounting for the effect that culture has had on information intake and learning processes?