Slow Drip Discipleship

She came and found me at our community meal—people milling around, eating, talking. I saw her, across a table from me, head down. I shouted hello but got only a token response. 

A few minutes later, food in hand, she came and found me. I asked how she was, and, as often is the case with her, just got an “ok”. Uninterested in talking more. Her life a long struggle of poverty, addiction, and street work. “I’m ok.”

She asked for a prayer. Sensing she didn’t want anything big, I put an arm around her and prayed briefly, asking Jesus to be with her. Sweet and simple.

Apparently, my brief prayer wasn’t enough. When I said amen she asked for another prayer, a real prayer I guess. So I slowed down, entered more deeply into her story and prayed more deeply, more specifically. Prayed for Jesus to meet her in the middle of her chaos. 

I guess this one was good enough because she took her food, head down, and walked back to the room she shares with others, all hanging by a thread. 

I wondered, as I have a thousand times, about the value of that brief interaction. Wondered, in fact, about the value of all the work we do. It seems so small, endless small gestures in a sea of brokenness, pain, and need. A drop in the bucket. Do they matter? All those small acts in Jesus’ name?

A couple of months ago, Todd, a member of our board, dropped a phrase into a strategic planning session that captures how we do ministry. He called it “Slow Drip Discipleship.”  The phrase has haunted me since.  

Break that down with me. We care about discipleship, about our friends coming to know Jesus and growing as disciples of His, a discipleship that leads not just to spiritual growth but to increasing health and stability in all of the cracked, dry and barren parts of their lives—Jesus at work in every part of their being.  

There is a Hebrew word for this, the word shalom. It means a life of well-being that penetrates every aspect of one’s life with the grace and goodness of God.  As Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.”

I long to see that happen and, honestly, long to see it happen quickly and dramatically, a big jump from chaos and pain to order and shalom. But Colfax has taught me this: Nothing here is fast and nothing easy. Especially in the lives of our friends. 

Or, to say it in the affirmative, here, everything is hard, everything is slow. If true, we need a strategy that suits that reality. We need slow drip discipleship, a thousand small, loving and thoughtful gestures, pointing to Jesus, pointing to hope, pointing to well-being. Water for a parched and cracked soul. 

Does God, at times, do radical transformations? Yes, He does, and I long and pray for more. But here magical jumps towards shalom rarely happen. The brokenness of our friends lives, with all the complexity that comes with it, is rarely healed overnight. In a more “normal” world, it can happen faster—people who are basically functional meet Jesus and make quicker progress. 

Here, not so much. Many of our friends have a faith in Jesus that is real if fledgling. That by itself doesn’t radically change them. The depth of brokenness and dysfunction leaves them damaged at more levels than you can imagine. They need small drips of love, delivered to their dry, cracked,  and parched lives. Over time that brings life and nourishment. Many have a faith that will, ultimately, bring them to glory. But they also need small drips of discipleship that lead to Jesus and shalom. 

Slow drip discipleship is simple. We show up and love people, where they are and as they are, a sustaining and constant love that never gives up on them. That is the first and best drip that they need. Simple, unconditional love. And then, ongoing acts that help them slowly find shalom. Most acts small, some acts large, but a persistent drizzle—food, friendship, help with documents, Bible Studies, job help, addiction and trauma help, community, shelter, much now centered around our Family Rooms. Slow drip discipleship.

Over time, we see the power of this. People here do change. Slowly, yes, but often dramatically.  In my last post I told you of our friend Sheri, her life radically reorientated by those small drips of love. Recently, we helped a friend of ours move in with her son, daughter-in-law and two grandkids in another state. Her life was hard when we met her. I remember stretches where that same son was stealing from her and threatening her. A picture haunts me, her in the corner of her motel room, clearly frightened. From a chaotic corner of a motel room, into stable housing, surrounded by loving friends from the JOC team, she changed dramatically. Now she will live with that same son. Slow drip discipleship.

But to see fruit, you need to be patient. Things take a long time. Which brings me back to my friend. Talk about needing to be patient!

I have known her for years. The night I met her, sitting with her at a bbq,  she ate, sat awhile, and then, matter-of-factly, informed me that she had to get to “work”. 

She comes and goes but always re-emerges. We love her as best we can. A team member tells the story of stopping by her motel. She grabbed him and pulled him into her room, ostensibly to talk. Once there she offered him drugs, then sex. Obviously, he said no. But even in that moment he showed her love. Another small drip.  

We often note water’s power. Think of the Colorado River creating the Grand Canyon. Here the image is less that and more the drips of water that bring small bits of nourishment and life. Big buckets of water don’t work here; small drips do. Tonight one small drip prayer wasn’t big enough for the thirstiness of her soul. She needed a bigger prayer, a larger drip which I gladly gave. She looks to JOC for that. And, inside that encounter, I simply loved her, as she was, where she was. Probably the most important thing we do. 

One loving drip at a time. Slow Drip Discipleship. All a part of the journey here, ministering in the name of Jesus.