Would Jesus have used a surfboard to make disciples had He walked the earth as a man in 2012? It sounds so unorthodox — so unspiritual almost. Isn’t discipleship supposed to be about studies and meetings and accountability and the like? Surfing may be fun, but how does it constitute part of disciple-making?

Our problem with such questions is that we have formed an unnatural dichotomy between that which we consider “spiritual” and that which we consider “secular” or “non-spiritual.” 

We need to understand that the stuff of life — whether it is surfing, working or otherwise — is not peripheral to disciple-making. It is critically important. Why else would the Son of God have spent so much time hanging out with sinners that His critics accused Him of being a sinner too? It’s because He understood that there is more to making disciples than transmitting truth.   

While God’s truth is the essential content needed for making disciples, content alone does not constitute effective disciple-making. It is when truth is shared in the context of relationship and life that truth really sticks. The content needed is God’s truth. The context needed is an authentic relationship with another human being. And the classroom is life! That can be a surfboard, a sidewalk cafe, a sofa or any other number of places where life happens.

In the case of Mike and Dalmacio whose story is told in “Catch the Wave,” sand and surfboard were an integral part of the disciple-making process.

That word “integral” is itself a very telling descriptive of the disciple-making process. It comes from the same root from which we get the words “integer” and “integrity.” An integer is the mathematical term for a “whole number.” And integrity, the opposite of duplicity, is “the state of being whole, entire or consistent.”

Applied to the matter of disciple-making, that means that the communication of truth must not be separated from life and relationship. It is a whole — an integrated process of imparting God’s truth through authentic relationship wherever life happens, even on a surfboard.