I worked for a community college for 11 years. I worked in the Workforce Development Department, where we offered non-credit professional development courses. A part of our department specialized in apprenticeships. You would receive classroom training, but even more importantly, you would get real-world experience by working side-by-side with an experienced professional in the Trades. It is a lot of work. But there are always apprenticeships available.
Becoming an Apprentice
This has two sides to it. One is the actual Apprentice. The other is whom the Apprentice learns from. This would be the Journeyman / Journeyworker, or in other words, Mentor.
First, as an Apprentice, you don’t want to be under just anyone. You want to be under the apprenticeship of the best of the best. Being trained by the best means being trained by one with great knowledge and experience. This means a person with great wisdom.
In being under such a mentor, your growth, understanding, knowledge, and experience bring great confidence.
Becoming Jesus’s Apprentice
Can I say this? I think Jesus invites us to be an apprentice more than inviting us to “become a Christian.” This is to be unpacked in another post.
But even more, Jesus invites us to be an apprentice. An apprentice of Jesus is, and get this,
- To be WITH Jesus
- To become like Him
- To do as He did
I’m not sure most even progress to fulfill the first step. I often wonder about my journey, where I even see myself in this. I sometimes feel I am teetering between the second and third step, and other times feel I am still struggling with the first step.
If you study the journey of becoming a Rabbi, this is the path to do so. If you are honored enough to be chosen by the Rabbi, you would be so excited that you immediately go and follow the Rabbi. It’s like being invited to the highest degree of an Ivy League school. You don’t give it a second thought to drop everything and go. And then you follow them everywhere they go. You sleep everywhere they sleep. You watch and study their every move.
This is no instant process. It is, in fact, a journey. The goal of the journey is to become like the Rabbi. And eventually, to be able to do as the Rabbi does.
Most Never Get the Chance
Most people, most students, never get the opportunity to be a disciple of a Rabbi. It is a great honor, and one puts in a lot of hard work to be noticed with hopes to even become an apprentice. Even fewer, if chosen as an apprentice, ever get to hear the Rabbi say, “You are ready now, go do as I have done.”
But with Jesus, he doesn’t call you to “become” a Christian as we know it in the Western civilization in which we live in. He calls us to come and follow Him:
- To be with Him
- To become like Him
- And to do as He has done
Apprenticeships available is an invitation to anyone from all walks of life – rich or poor, educated or not, no matter what your past was like.
To Be Like You (Jesus) is the goal of an apprentice. To be with Him, to be like Him, and to do as we see Him do. Here is a great song to meditate on…
Challenge of the Week
This challenge comes to you and me both. As I walk through, with a team of others from where I attend, the book by John Mark Comer, Practicing the Way, is the challenge and currently a great influence on me. My challenge to you is to grade yourself and see how you are doing at “being with” Jesus and “being like” Jesus in your everyday-walking-around-kind-of-life this week. Check John Mark Comer’s book this week. So be it.
Related Posts:
From “Ministering Like Jesus” series:
