As Christians we are followers of Jesus. Not just the Jesus we call Lord, Saviour, Redeemer, Messiah (feel free to add any titles I have missed here...). We also follow Jesus of Nazareth, he who walked the earth as we do.
We can be followers in a variety of ways - whether we walk the Jesus Trail in Israel or walk the streets of a small town in Ontario; whether we serve with MCC internationally or serve our community locally. Regardless of where and how we choose to follow (or perhaps a better way of saying it is regardless of where we are led), we can look to Jesus and the disciples to see how they learned. And how DID they learn? They walked! They got out of their comfort zones and moved and met people and they learned along the way.
I wrote a section of an article called "Walking to Learn with Jesus" for the Nazareth Village publication, The Word on the Street, that is all about this. Click here to see the full article which includes sections by David Landis (the creator of the Jesus Trail) and Linford Stutzman (author of Sailing Acts).
~Allan
J
esus walked and walked! He was on the move. Jesus took risks on the road and did things that others wouldn’t do. He interacted with people whom he was supposed to ignore and hate. As he walked he explored the world around him and related to all kinds of people. Jesus learned as he walked.
Jesus called his disciples to walk with him. “Come, follow me. “Come, learn with me.” The disciples learned many of the lessons of the kingdom on the way through the fields, along the path, on the slopes of mountains. By answering Jesus’ call to “come and follow” we commit to walking with Him, to learn as his disciples did. We commit to move to explore and relate with the world around us.
Many of the interactions that Jesus had only happened because he was on the move, walking and talking with people he met—the Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus, the Roman Centurion, the blind, lepers, the unclean. Like Jesus we need to move in ways that allow for unexpected experiences and encounters to occur in our lives. We need to move in ways that are not always the most comfortable, the most direct route to where we are going. By moving in life we allow for the Holy Spirit to move in our lives.
While you don’t need to go far, you can take journeys alone or in a group that will change the way you understand Jesus, the world, the kingdom, the good news, and yourself. For the participants in Yella 2008, a program organized by Mennonite Church Eastern Canada and Mennonite Central Committee Ontario for a group of 22 young adults, moving meant interacting with Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the midst of conflict in Israel/Palestine. It also meant volunteering and learning through First-Century Nazareth Village. And it meant walking The Jesus Trail to explore the political, cultural, and religious context that Jesus grew up and ministered in.
Jesus called his disciples to walk with him. “Come, follow me. “Come, learn with me.” The disciples learned many of the lessons of the kingdom on the way through the fields, along the path, on the slopes of mountains. By answering Jesus’ call to “come and follow” we commit to walking with Him, to learn as his disciples did. We commit to move to explore and relate with the world around us.
“Like Jesus we need to move in ways that allow for
unexpected experiences and encounters to occur in our lives.”
unexpected experiences and encounters to occur in our lives.”
Many of the interactions that Jesus had only happened because he was on the move, walking and talking with people he met—the Samaritan woman, Zacchaeus, the Roman Centurion, the blind, lepers, the unclean. Like Jesus we need to move in ways that allow for unexpected experiences and encounters to occur in our lives. We need to move in ways that are not always the most comfortable, the most direct route to where we are going. By moving in life we allow for the Holy Spirit to move in our lives.
While you don’t need to go far, you can take journeys alone or in a group that will change the way you understand Jesus, the world, the kingdom, the good news, and yourself. For the participants in Yella 2008, a program organized by Mennonite Church Eastern Canada and Mennonite Central Committee Ontario for a group of 22 young adults, moving meant interacting with Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the midst of conflict in Israel/Palestine. It also meant volunteering and learning through First-Century Nazareth Village. And it meant walking The Jesus Trail to explore the political, cultural, and religious context that Jesus grew up and ministered in.
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