Disciple

Add-on fees are driving consumers crazy. From restaurants and hotels to concerts and food delivery, we are increasingly shown a low price online, only to click through and find a range of fees that yield a much higher price at checkout.

The term drip pricing was popularized by a 2012 Federal Trade Commission conference. Its spread is associated with the proliferation of airline fees after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Yet an example of the phenomenon that long predates 2001 is stores’ practice of listing goods without the sales tax, which gets added at checkout.

Why not include the sales tax with the sticker price? One study from 2019 showed consumers punish that sort of transparency. A grocery store let the authors tag some products with the familiar pretax price and some with the total price including tax. For example, a hair brush’s price tag showed $5.79 before tax, and beneath that $6.22 with the tax. Sales volume dropped for products with price tags that included the tax than a control group without the tax.

This isn’t because shoppers didn’t know the tax rate or which items were taxable. In fact, 75% of shoppers surveyed knew the sales tax within 0.5 percentage point, and most knew what goods were taxable. So, the tax-inclusive price tag didn’t give them new information; it was just that transparent reminders turned some people off.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus never practiced “drip pricing.” He never hid the total costs for following him. It may turn some people off, but he always put the full cost upfront.

In August 2019, Marnus Labuschagne was drafted into the Australian Cricket Team unexpectedly as the first-ever concussion substitute in the history of international test cricket, replacing the injured Steve Smith. Labuschagne soon showed that he was no stop-gap sportsman as he quickly established his batting skills in international cricket. To date, he has scored 3767 test runs from 42 matches at the exceptional average of 54.59, placing him at number 20 on the all-time test average rankings. At present, he is the number five batsman in test cricket.

In spite of the unprecedented success, Labuschagne has earned a reputation for being a man who takes faith in Christ and prayer seriously. He has a sticker of an eagle on his bat, to highlight his favorite Bible verse, Isaiah 40:31.

In an interview for Season 2 of the documentary “The Test,” Marnus said, "Everyone knows cricket is a major part of my life, but the value of me as a person isn't in cricket - it's in my faith. I grew up with Christianity going back to when I was a kid, laying in my bed, praying every night."

He is also quoted as saying, "When I pray, I don't pray to win, just that I could perform at my best, and that all the glory will go to God, for whatever happens … win or lose." He further adds, "In the big scheme of things, what you're worth ... isn't out there on the pitch; It's internal and in Christ … Cricket is always going to be up and down. If you have (Jesus Christ as) a constant in your life, it makes life a lot easier."

Possible Preaching Angle:

Testimony; Witness - Marnus Labuschagne has clearly built his life and career on the words of Jesus - "But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matt. 6:33).

In his memoir, Everything Sad Is Untrue, Daniel Nayeri tells the gripping story of his mother’s conversion from a devout Muslim background to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. She gave up wealth and social status, eventually being forced to flee from Iran under a death threat. But she was willing to pay the price. Nayeri writes about one example of her costly faith:

One time she hung a little cross necklace from the rearview mirror of her car, which was probably a reckless thing to do. ... My mom was like that. One day after work, she went to her car, and there was a note stuck to the windshield. It said, “Madame Doctor, if we see this cross again, we will kill you.”

To my dad, [who is not a Christian], this is the kind of story that proves his point. That my mom was picking a fight. That she could’ve lived quietly and saved everyone the heartaches that would come. If she had kept her head down. If she stopped telling people. If she pretended just a few holidays a year, that nothing had changed. She could still have everything.

My mom took the cross down that day. Then she got a cross so big it blocked half the windshield, and she put it up. Why would anybody live with their head down? Besides, the only way to stop believing something is to deny it yourself. To hide it. To act as if it hasn’t changed your life.

Another way to say it is that everybody is dying and going to die of something. And if you’re not spending your life on the stuff you believe, then what are you even doing? What is the point of the whole thing? It’s a tough question, because most people haven’t picked anything worthwhile.

David Ayres was just sitting in the stands with his wife, enjoying a hockey game, when he saw the goalie go down. At 42 years old, and 15 years removed from a kidney transplant, his dreams of playing professional hockey were long gone. The closest he came to professional ice was driving the Zamboni on the practice rink and serving as an on-call emergency goaltender, in the extremely rare event that both goalies were injured during the game. Usually, that just means a free ticket to the game and dinner for David and his wife.

After the first goalie went down, David left his seat to get half-dressed in his hockey gear. Then his phone started blowing up with text messages: another collision had occurred and the backup goalie was injured too. It was David’s turn to step into the spotlight. He said later, “I’ve been on this ice many times without fans. Put fans in the mix and it’s a whole different game, obviously. But hey, once in a lifetime, I’ll take it.”

Things didn’t start well when the first two shots he faced went right into the back of the net, but a teammate encouraged him: “Just have fun. We don’t care if you let ten goals in.” David said that was a turning point. He stopped the next eight shots to secure the win. The Hurricanes’ coach said, “He just gave us an incredible memory.” David goes down in history as the oldest goalie in NHL history to win his debut. David said, “I’d love to see somebody else in the league get the same opportunity. So would every fan.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Jesus says to his followers, "Be ready for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect" (Matt. 24:44). It's not our job to know how the Lord is going to use us, but it is our job to be ready at all times to answer his call. He doesn't ask you to be the right age or have the right skills, but simply to be ready to serve. He'll take care of the rest.

In June 2017, 33-year-old rock climber Alex Honnold, scaled El Capitan. That’s a 3,000 foot granite rock in Yosemite national park, widely considered the most challenging wall in the world. He was the first person to make the climb “free solo"--with no equipment or ropes--at one point hanging from just his thumbs 1,000 feet above the ground. He lives most of the year out of a van, a lifestyle known as “dirtbagging," which he calls “an intentional choice to prioritize your vocation."

Honnold says, “I want to climb in the best places in the world, and that’s my focus. So I’m willing to give up having stability, having a shower, having whatever in order to climb the way that I want." He goes on to say, “I am probably more intentional with the way I live my life than virtually anybody. I have made clear choices about what I find value in, what risks I am willing to take. I am doing exactly what I love to do. It’s very easy for someone sitting on the couch at home to condemn it as crazy and stupid. But I can justify all my choices--can you say the same about your life?”

Possible Preaching Angles: Honnold's commitment, especially his searching question, should challenge every follower of Jesus. Are we serving the greatest quest and the greatest Lord in the universe with the same amount of tenacity and devotion?

In 1960, two men made a bet. There was only $50 on the line, but millions of people would feel the impact of this little wager. The first man was Bennett Cerf, the founder of Random House. The second man was named Theo Geisel, but you probably know him as Dr. Seuss. Cerf proposed the bet and challenged that Dr. Seuss would not be able to write an entertaining children’s book using only 50 different words.

Dr. Seuss took the bet and won. The result was a little book called Green Eggs and Ham. Since publication, it has sold more than 200 million copies, making it the most popular of Seuss’s works and one of the best-selling children’s books in history.

At first glance, you might think this was a lucky fluke. A talented author plays a fun game with 50 words and ends up producing a hit. But there is actually more to this story and the lessons in it can help us become more creative and stick to better habits over the long-run.

What Dr. Seuss discovered through this little bet was the power of setting constraints. Con­straints are not the enemy. Every artist has a limited set of tools to work with. Every athlete has a limited set of skills to train with. Every entrepreneur has a limited amount of resources to build with. Once you know your constraints, you can creatively figure out how to work with them.

There are a lot of authors who would complain about writing a book with only 50 words. But there was one author who decided to take the tools he had available and make a work of art instead.

Possible Preaching Angles:

God has also given us constraints, such as, lack of education, lack of resources, a painful past, a besetting sin, or physical disabilities. But as we rely on God to overcome, we showcase his power and bring glory to him (2 Cor. 12:7-9).

Because of a peculiarity in professional hockey, the fate of the Chicago Blackhawks in their scrum against the Winnipeg Jets was decided by a fan who was called into emergency goalie service.

Scott Foster, a 36-year-old accountant, hadn't played a hockey game against serious competition in over a decade, but because of his background as a goalie for Western Michigan University, he'd been designated as an "emergency goalie," an honor that usually just results in free food in the press box. It wasn't Foster's first time in the role, but when rookie goalie Collin Delia- himself substituting for regular injured goalie Anton Forsburg-was injured in the 3rd period, Foster was called into service. He literally walked down from the stands, put on his gear, and took to the ice.

"The initial shock happened when I had to dress and then I think you just kind of black out after that," Foster said. "I don't think I heard anything other than 'Put your helmet on.'"

Whatever mental zone Foster entered as he took the ice, it was effective. He stopped all seven shots attempted, earned the team belt (an honor reserved for the game's best player), and set social media ablaze with tweets and posts from fans and analysts who could not believe he had never played professionally before.

"This is something that no one can ever take away from me," Foster said. "It's something that I can go home and tell my kids."

Potential Preaching Angles: Even if others overlook you, God has a mission in mind—even for unlikely disciples. God uses everything to prepare us, even when we don't feel ready.

It's the sound no relay runner wants to hear: Ping. Ping. Ping. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the United States men's and women's 4x100-meter relay teams dropped batons—and heard the pings of them hitting the track—during a disastrous performance that prompted the chief executive of USA Track & Field to promise a "comprehensive review" of the entire relay program. Four years earlier in Athens, shoddy baton passing by the American men had allowed a British relay team to pull off an upset, while the United States women were disqualified after a botched exchange. There have been similar troubles at the world championships.

On the surface, relay batons do not seem hard. They are about 12 inches long, smoothly cylindrical, free from adornments, and they go by a simple nickname: the Stick. Yet every runner fears the ping that can make years of hope come tumbling down the track. One sprinter compared the challenge of the baton exchange to a harried traveler's trying to catch up to (and hold hands with) his wife as he maneuvered on a moving walkway in a crowded airport.

But if you want to win, you have to pass the baton. Before the 2012 London Olympics, one of the men on the USA's relay team said, "We've got the history, and we've got the talent right now. No one can deny that. We just need to get the stick around. That's it. We just need to get the stick all the way around and win."

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Legacy; Leaders; Leadership; Mentors—are you passing the baton on to others behind you? (2) Parenting; Children; Youth ministry—are we passing the baton to the next generation"

Os Guinness writes in “Impossible People”:

I grew up in a China that had been ravaged by two centuries of European and American adventuring, and then by World War II and a brutal civil war. We lived in Nanjing, which was then the nation's capital, but there were few good schools to go to, so at the age of five I found myself setting off by plane to a boarding school in Shanghai.

Obviously, the conditions behind the decision to send me out at that age were extreme, and I was not the only one launched on that path so young. But it was the first time in my life that I had been away from my parents and on my own. So, to give me a constant reminder of the North Star of the faith at the center of our family life, my father had searched for two small, smooth, flat stones and painted on them his life motto and that of my mother. For many years those two little stones were tangible memos in the pockets of my gray flannel shorts that were the uniform of most English schoolboys in those days. In my right-hand pocket was my father's motto, "Found Faithful," and in my left-hand pocket was my mother's, "Please Him."

Many years have passed since then, and both of those little painted stones were lost in the chaos of escaping from China when Mao Zedong and the People's Army eventually overran Nanjing, returned the capital to Beijing and began their iron and bloody rule of the entire country. But I have never forgotten the lesson of the little stones. Followers of Jesus are called to be "found faithful" and to "please him," always, everywhere and in spite of everyone and everything.

The small island of Igloolik, in northern Canada is a bewildering place in the winter. The average temperature hovers at about 20 degrees below zero, thick sheets of sea ice cover the surrounding waters, and the sun is rarely seen. Despite the brutal conditions, Inuit hunters have for some 4,000 years ventured out from their homes on the island and traveled across miles of ice and tundra to search for game. The hunters' ability to navigate vast stretches of the barren Arctic terrain, where landmarks are few, snow formations are in constant flux, and trails disappear overnight, has amazed explorers and scientists for centuries. The Inuit's extraordinary way-finding skills are born not of technological prowess—they never used maps and compasses—but of a profound understanding of winds, snowdrift patterns, animal behavior, stars, and tides.

Inuit culture is changing now. The Igloolik hunters have begun to rely on computer-generated maps to get around, especially younger Inuit members. The ease and convenience of a GPS makes the traditional Inuit techniques seem archaic and cumbersome.

But as GPS devices have proliferated on Igloolik, reports of serious accidents during hunts have spread. A hunter who hasn't developed way-finding skills can easily become lost, particularly if his GPS receiver fails. The routes plotted on satellite maps can also give hunters tunnel vision, leading them onto thin ice or into other hazards a skilled navigator would avoid. A local anthropologist, who has been studying Inuit hunters for more than 15 years, notes that while satellite navigation has some advantages, its use also leads to a deterioration in way-finding abilities and a weakened feel for the land. An Inuit on a GPS-equipped snowmobile is not so different from a suburban commuter in a GPS-equipped SUV: as they devote their attention to the instructions coming from the computer, they lose sight of their surroundings. They travel "blindfolded." A unique talent that has distinguished a people for centuries may evaporate in a generation.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Spiritual formation; parenting; youth—In the same way, without spiritual disciplines and without Christian community a "unique talent" (faith in Christ) can "evaporate in a generation." (2) Distractions; spiritual perception—This also shows how distractions can blunt our spiritual perception.

"God met me where I was at—baggy jeans and earrings." With those words, the celebrated hip-hop artist Lecrae Moore begins his story. Growing up without a father, he experienced a childhood of abuse and neglect. He filled his life with drugs, theft, alcohol, sex, and gang activity. He was so wild that his friends nicknamed him "Crazy Crae." What it took to bring him to Christianity was someone who was not afraid of that subculture—who knew that the real problem for Lecrae was not his culture but his sin and brokenness. A white man named Joe loved the black teenager enough to enter into his culture and speak his language.

Today Lecrae is the president and co-founder of Reach Records, and is the winner of several Dove Awards and a Grammy Award. His album Anomaly was the first album ever to top both the Gospel Albums and the Billboard 200 chart.

Lecrae said a key turning point in his life was when he grasped what comes after conversion—when he understood that "Christianity is not just religious truth, it is Total Truth." In other words, the real transformation came when he realized that Christians are called to roll up their sleeves and work out the implications of a biblical worldview for justice and politics, for science and scholarship, for art and music—and all the rest of life. "We've limited Christianity to salvation and sanctification," he said. But "Christianity is the truth about everything. If you say you have a Christian worldview, that means you see the world through that lens—not just how people get saved and what to stay away from."

Writer Ralph B. Smith once made an observation that children ask roughly 125 questions per day and adults ask about six questions per day, so somewhere between childhood and adulthood, we lose 119 questions per day. A child's innate curiosity about life is instilled in them at birth by the One who longs to be discovered. The more questions they ask, the more they discover about the world around them. The more they discover about the world around them, the more they discover about the One who made them.

Possible Preaching Angle: Disciple; Discipleship; Sanctification—Disciples are called to be lifelong learners about the way of following and knowing Jesus, being conformed to his image.

Tim Keller uses the following scenario to illustrate how we can sometimes love God just for the good stuff he's "supposed" to give us (based on our terms, of course), rather than loving God for God's sake. Keller writes:

Imagine being in a situation where you were dating somebody and you seemed to be falling in love. As part of getting to know one another, you let it be known that when you got married you were coming into a significant trust fund. The person who you're falling in love with said, "Oh, really? Well, it doesn't make any difference to me whether you're rich or poor. I love you for who you are."

Suppose, just before the wedding you learned that you weren't going to get that trust fund? When you relayed that to your spouse-to-be, he or she got so disappointed that they called off the wedding. How would you feel? What would that tell you about this person's love for you? What would you say? You would start to say, "You never loved me for me. You were using me. You loved me because I was going to get you somewhere or get you something. You didn't love me. You were using me."

Possible Preaching Angles: Instead of loving the Lord for who he is, we love him for what we believe he should give us right now (instead of waiting for our the promised "eternal weight of glory"). But when we realize we're not getting the trust fund that we think should come right now, we're ready to walk away. Sometimes the trials of life reveal the true nature of our faith. Sometimes we see that we are not serving God, we are using him!

One of the most unique sporting events in the world did not begin as a sporting event. Each year riders and their dogs race more than 1,000 miles for several days through the Alaskan snow from Anchorage to Nome for Iditarod, the famous dogsled race. But the genesis of Iditarod was something very serious. In 1925, hundreds of children in Nome had been exposed to diphtheria. At this point in history, children around the world died from the highly contagious disease because widespread vaccinations had not yet been introduced. The only serum to combat the disease was far away in Anchorage. To get the serum to Nome quickly, it was first carried by train to Nenana. Then teams of riders (known as mushers) and their dogs, strategically placed along the path, carried the serum to Nome via a relay. More than 150 dogs and 20 mushers were involved in the heroic efforts, which became called "The Great Race of Mercy." With passion and intensity, the mushers hurtled the 300,000 units of life-saving serum across the Alaskan countryside, arriving in Nome in only 127 hours— a record that has yet to be broken. By combining the right medicine with radical effort, hundreds of lives were saved.

While the Iditarod had an amazing origin, it is now just another sporting event. The teams race a similar path, but the motivation is different. They still tie sleds behind dogs, but they are not racing to save lives anymore. The same is often true of our churches. If we are not intentional, what was once a life-saving mission can become much less. As a church we can gather people and go through the motions of Christian discipleship without a sense of the life-giving message and mission we have been given. The race is on, and the stakes are high.

Retired minister and author Bob Russell told the following account to illustrate how Christians today often go along with the moral pace of those around us, and that by comparison we feel safe since "Everyone is doing it," therefore, we're okay. Russell writes:

Two months ago my wife and I were visiting our son Rusty and his family. One day Rusty was test-driving a foreign-made car and was frustrated because he couldn't figure out how to change the speedometer reading from kilometers to miles.

That evening he suggested we take the kids and all go out for ice cream. "We'll need to take two cars," he insisted, "so you and mom just follow me." I followed him … and was surprised when a policeman whizzed up behind us with his lights flashing. I couldn't imagine he was after me because it didn't feel like I was speeding. And besides, I was going the exact same speed as the guy in front of me.

The officer came up to my window and said, "Sir, you were going 58 miles per hour in a 45 miles per hour zone. But wait right here, I'm going to deal with the car in front of you, and I'll be right back." When he went to my son's car, Rusty quivered, "Officer, I know this is going to sound like a line, but this is the first day I've driven this car, and I can't figure out how to change it from kilometers to miles, so I had no idea how fast I was going. The guy behind me is my dad, and he doesn't know what he's doing either!"

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Conformity; Disobedience; (2) Discipleship; Lordship of Christ—We're all following someone or something, even if we aren't thinking about it. Who are you following?

According to recent statistics, the median number of years a U.S. worker has been in his or her current job is just 4.1, down sharply since the 1970s. The average U.S. worker will have an average of ten to twelve jobs in a lifetime. This decline in average job tenure is bigger than any economic cycle, bigger than any particular industry, bigger than differences in education levels, and bigger than differences in gender.

Possible Preaching Angles: This not only applies to how we approach work and jobs; it also reflects how many of us treat our relationship to Christ, friends, a church community, a spouse, and so forth.

Editor’s Note: This illustration was updated to the latest statistics on 11/04/24

Kendall Schler of Columbia, Mo. was the first to cross the finish line at the GO! St. Louis Marathon. Schler had her photo taken with Jackie Joyner-Kersee and was expected to receive $1,500 in prize money along with a spot in the 2015 Boston Marathon.

However, Schler was disqualified after official discovered that she didn't actually run the race. Officials said it's believed that Schler somehow slipped onto the course after the final checkpoint without being discovered in an attempt to fool officials into thinking she ran the entire course. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Schler never registered times along the route, and she never showed up in any of the photographs taken along the route.

KSDK, a local television station, has a video of Schler crossing the finish line, but in the video she sure doesn't look like someone who has just won or even just completed a major race.

In a New York Times article titled "Faking Cultural Literacy," Karl Greenfield argues that today's social media lets us pretend to know something about almost everything—even if that "knowledge" is deplorably shallow. Greenfield writes:

We pick topical, relevant bits from Facebook, Twitter or emailed news alerts, and then regurgitate them. Instead of watching "Mad Men" or the Super Bowl or the Oscars or a presidential debate, you can simply scroll through someone else's live-tweeting of it, or read the recaps the next day. [What's really important] is becoming determined by whatever gets the most clicks.

As an example of our superficiality, Greenfield mentions a survey by the American Press Institute that revealed nearly six in 10 Americans acknowledge that they do nothing more than read news headlines. Greenfield adds:

[We all feel] the constant pressure to know enough, at all times, lest we be revealed as culturally illiterate. So that we can survive an elevator pitch, a business meeting, a visit to the office kitchenette … so that we can post, tweet, chat, comment, text as if we have seen, read, watched, listened. What matters to us, awash in [information], is not necessarily having actually consumed this content firsthand but simply knowing that it exists—and having a position on it, being able to engage in the chatter about it.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Bible Reading; Scripture; Meditation—Do we approach Scripture the same way? Do we feel that what matters is not having actually consumed the content first hand but simply knowing it exists? (2) Discipleship; Spiritual formation—In the same way, do we try to know just enough about Jesus so that we can chatter about him without really encountering him first-hand?