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I wrote yesterday that Jesus seemed to be more into kairos time (opportune, appropriate) than chronos time (clock time) and illustrated the concept with a story from secondary education.

Let’s take a closer look at kairos versus chronos in discipleship training.

Way back in the 1920s, Bishop Roland Allen of the Anglican Church wrote a provocative book Missionary Methods, St Paul’s or Ours? One of the methods he decried was his tradition’s around-the-calendar schedule for teaching major concepts over a 3-year period. The problem, as he saw it, was that a concept would be introduced, and a couple weeks later, the church would be on to something else with no regard as to whether the people understood anything. Bishop Allen said something like, “You wouldn’t experience that too many times before you conclude that if church leadership had wanted us to understand that concept, they would have spent more time on it. Since they don’t, people conclude that they’re not supposed to understand.” Again, it’s the inadequacy of chronos-based training. 

By contrast, Tom Bourke, a Navigator, just posted an article for disciple-makers encouraging just-in-time training–kairos-based training, to use our new word. (As an aside, Mike Breen has also written about this approach in Building a Discipling Culture, which he calls a “kairos moment.”)

Tom tells the story of someone he’s training, someone who is already a disciple-maker who needs to share the gospel with someone he’s working with and doesn’t know the famous Navigator Bridge in either version!

Tom writes:

So why did Jeff ask me to help him learn how to share the gospel only after reading the Bible with his friend for a year? Traditionally, a good Navigator would have trained Jeff on The Bridge (and many other things) on the front end. But this Insiders Group is different. They learned how to join Jesus in His work first. This missional living had turbo-charged their relationship with Jesus as they realized they were “in the game” with Him.

Tom goes on to explain industry’s just-in-time inventory concept. Then he concludes:

I’m beginning to think just-in-time training would be a great idea for us. When we front-load discipleship training, we inadvertently send the message that folks aren’t ready to be used of God—yet. Plus, the training we offer comes to life when it can be applied immediately, rather than remaining a theory on a bookshelf or in a computer folder.

I don’t know all the implications of a kairos versus chronos approach, but I agree that too often we communicate that people will be ready after “one more course.” Jesus sent the disciples out before they were ready!

Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.” And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease…These twelve Jesus sent out… (Matthew 9.37, 38, 10.1, 5, NKJV)

He taught them to pray when they were ready:

Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” (Luke 11.1, ESV)