A Word From Wildman - March 2018

A friend of mine was talking with me about the Monza Spyder that he is rebuilding from the ground up. Now, I knew from the conversation that this was a car, but had to rely on a Google search to tell me more. His first car was a Monza Spyder and he has loved them ever since. He even belongs to a couple Monza Spyder car clubs. Like many who decide to rebuild a vehicle, he has the one he is rebuilding, but he also has one that he purchased as a parts car.
He has slowly been working on this project as money was available to cash flow it. Since there is a niche market of Monza fans he has even been able to see some of the parts from his parts car to help fund the project.
My friend has taken this as an opportunity to spend time with his 14 year old son as well, having him help in the garage, even taking him to some car club rallies. Through the process his son has gotten to meet many people and seen his fair share of Monzas. One day as he was helping his dad in the shop he said, “Dad, would it be ok for us to build a Monza for me from the parts car.”

My friend was excited that he had passed on this passion to his son, but also realized that with his son being 14 he was on a timeline. To make matters worse, most of the car had already been harvested, used, or sold. But the excitement of his son catching his passion overshadowed all the downfalls.
In his excitement, my friend began to share with his car club buddies that his son now wanted to build a Monza for himself. My friend’s son had been to several car shows with his dad, so the car club buddies knew his son and were excited that this passion was being passed on.
As my friend began to search online and formulate a plan for repurchasing the parts he had sold, including some hard to find parts, a package arrived with his son’s name on it. When his son opened the box it was one of the missing parts. This continued to happen, as the car club guys were shipping parts to my friend’s son. They too wanted to foster this passion that they shared.

As I talked with my friend, I couldn’t help but think that this is what the Church is supposed to look like. This is what it looks like to Make Disciples. I know that we have passions, like my friend and his buddies, that we get excited to pass mo. My prayer and my hope is that we would begin to have an even greater excitement and passion about passing on our faith to the next generation.
Will we be willing to sacrifice time and money and preferences in order to reach others with the most import ant passion? Who are you discipling? Who can you begin to disciple? Who is discipling you?
 
Kevin