“A long apprenticeship is the most logical way to success.”
Apprenticeship is the path to spiritual strength. An apprentice receives impartation more than information:
The willing gain a perspective the watchers don’t.
A trainee learns to lift the same weight the trainer does.
Pupils share power while admirers share detached principles.
I have been more apprenticed by Jesus while fighting cancer than at any other time in my story. Desperation is a powerful motivator: “I need to hear. I need to sense. I need to trust!” I don’t want to be broken by this anymore. When there’s something at stake, admirers become apprentices.
Simply agreeing with Jesus isn’t the same as aligning our movements with him. Much of the church is stuck in believism—applauding Jesus and getting our convictions “right”—without being tutored in the things he actually did.
Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing.
—John 14:12
principles without power
Just one example where believism and detached assent have weakened the Body:
Bible study: Yes.
Praying: Sure.
Healing the sick: “Not in these parts.”
Rhetoric and right teaching might raise the roof, but it doesn’t raise the dead. It reframes but can’t resurrect. We love to teach but forget to train. Teaching is to training as hope is to habit: It’s the right foundation but needs “legs.”
Apprenticing into Uniqueness
Copying a master isn’t copy-catting your identity: You can still be a unicorn and follow Jesus. In fact, you’re likely to become more rare and individuated as an apprentice. Jesus imparts values, practices and power; while allowing our unique expression of those values, practices and power.
Increasing resilience
Jesus is interested in imparting capacity and agency. We observe, then do. We become more resilient and rebound more quickly; increasingly unbroken by the things that used to break us. Apprenticing is the way of his easy yoke.