What can we learn about Discipleship from CNA training?

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Today on Run With Horses, Susan shares a little about her CNA training and a few lessons we can apply to the spiritual life.

Welcome to Run With Horses, My name is Norman and my goal is to help you Thrive as a Follower of Jesus. I don't believe that there is anything more thrilling or fulfilling than joining Jesus on His mission to the world. Thanks for including me in your
journey.

Yesterday I was talking to Susan about her CNA training as we took our evening walk and we came up with some areas that overlap with the goal of being a disciple of Jesus in community with others.
She mentioned that they are learning skills that they need to be able to apply to get their certification as a CNA and you use dummies and practice with each other to learn the details of what to do in class, but then you don't always think about it when you show up at the nursing home. The nurses have to remind you, hey, you actually need to do this stuff you learned in class here. The different context throws you off somehow, you know the skill but don't have it connected to a practical situation yet.

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So, there's a simile between learning a skill and practicing it in a certain context versus being able to use it in real life, under real circumstances.

Being in this CNA class, I'm learning educational stuff like knowledge of this is what we do, this is why we do it, and then we get a chance to actually practice it in the classroom, on each other, feeding each other, doing certain skills, and trying to remember all the steps.

But then when we go to clinicals, and we actually are in a nursing home, I've found that all my training just kind of goes out the window because that's not how they do it in real life. Or I'm not used to that setting so then I kind of forget. And after we come together and we have sort of a debriefing, I realize oh I'm still supposed to do those same steps in the real world as I've learned in my class. Just trying to figure out what that's like. And I kind of see that as a similarity between the Christian walk and being a disciple.

I mean because there's a lot of things we learn from the Bible -- truths, doctrines, what you're supposed to do, what you're supposed to look like -- and you can practice some of those things or watch other people do it and learn all these kinds of skills. But then in real life when you're in a situation, a lot of those things get left in the dust. You don't even think about how that training and how those truths are supposed to relate now here in this context

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We have small groups or a discipleship relationship with other people to fill in the gaps between understanding theory and application. These relationships give a context where you can discuss these things in a low pressure environment.
Part of the purpose is debriefing. "Hey, I was in this situation and I totally didn't think about God. How can I bring God into my thinking, into my practice, in everyday life?"

It's like that as we grow spiritually. We learn the theory in sermons, books and reading the Bible, but small groups really help us to make it concrete. We learn that we need to live out those things and we get our questions answered. We have other people who are walking along doing it too.

Thanks for joining us today! Write us at [email protected] for questions or comments we can read on the show. Life is an adventure of faith and following Jesus. It is a marathon not a sprint, so keep running!