Discipleship, Community, and Running

This post is especially dedicated to my runner friends. So I'm back home in CT, and I was taking a walk with my dad through the woods around a lake near my house, and it made me think of my high school years when I used to run through the Eastern CT woods every day. I was thinking about the Griswold High School cross country team, an epic story in our own minds (our shirts said "GXC: The Tradition Continues"). I miss my running years a lot, but I know that season of my life had a profound effect on the rest of it beyond, and it will continue influence me.

I remember writing a short piece on running and Christianity when I was in high school. I don't have it anymore unfortunately, but here's an extension of it nonetheless. Many are aware of the running metaphor of "running the race" because the NT writers use it a few times. The Christian walk (or in this case, run) is a journey to a goal, and we are called to drop our weights, to press on and strive toward that goal without stopping. This is an encouragement when we face distractions or trials - the metaphor of a race moves us to keep going and keep our eyes on the goal rather than our pain or the big hill in front of us.

I had a couple more thoughts along the lines of this metaphor. How does one begin running the race? And is there support or are we running alone? As the woods made me nostalgic about my years of running, I remembered two aspects of running that help me to understand the Christian race I'm on. The first has to do with beginning to run - or the call to join the team. There are two kinds of recruitment strategies - one says "Hey running is fun, and if you join the team, you're going to have a great time." And the other one says "Are you sure you have what it takes to run for this team?" My coach recruited with the latter approach. He said "Run for me and you'll feel more pain than you've ever felt before!" As a result we only had seven runners - enough to make a team. But all of us took what we did very seriously, and our team was one of the most meaningful and memorable experiences of my life.

The call to run cross country at Griswold High School was like the call to Christian discipleship. We have many messages telling us that Christianity will make us healthy, wealthy, and wise, but that's not the gospel that Jesus preached. Jesus said "If anyone wishes to follow me, he must take up his cross and die to himself." True discipleship is not easy. To follow Jesus is to follow Jesus to the cross where he was crucified. But it is only in the cross where we find resurrection. And in the same way that cross country gave me some of the most life and excitement of anything I've done, a cruciform life in pursuit of Christ brings abundant life in the present that ultimately ends in eternal life. A life seeking the kingdom of God gives much more life than the passing pleasures of this life.

The other thing I remembered about cross country in high school is the community I was a part of. Although there is an individual aspect to running, the team was what made it fulfilling. My closest relationships were with my teammates. And although we took our goals, our training, and our races seriously, we didn't take ourselves seriously. We were a goofy bunch. We loved being around each other. And our shared mission unified us. And our unity was one of the greatest strengths in our mission. When one of us felt like throwing in the towel during a race, we would keep going because we didn't want to let our team down.

This made me think of the importance for community in the Christian walk. We don't run our race as individuals, we run it as a team. We have a mission of being the agents of Christ's kingdom of justice, peace, and wholeness, and our unity enhances that mission. Christ said that the world will know us by the love that we have for one another. And in the same way that runners have to practice together constantly to be successful in a race, we need to fellowship, worship, and serve each other to be successful in our mission. When we're struggling, we're lifted up by our brothers and sisters, and when they're struggling, we lift them up.

All these memories and writing about this makes me want to run again. I think I might eventually (or at least more than once every 2 months, which is my rate right now). Nonetheless, it's good to see how the regular activities of life are pictures of our greatest goal in life.