What does it mean to be a disciple of God? How is God asking you to live your discipleship?In middle and high school, I participated in a club my mom started in my homeschool group. The group’s purpose was to teach young children about God. Under my mom’s direction, a group of my friends and I made puppets and wrote plays to teach children about Jesus. We called ourselves the 11th Commandment Puppeteers, inspired by Jesus’s final command to his disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (Mt 28:19). We wanted to do what Jesus said and spread God’s message of love in a creative way.
After a year of making the puppets, writing and editing scripts, memorizing lines, and collecting props, our small group was ready to visit a local preschool. Armed with a PVC pipe theater, plastic bins full of puppets, and wearing black t-shirts to blend with the backdrop, we faced a room of about twenty preschoolers. We were ready to share God’s Good News with them. The shows had themes such as obedience, generosity, trust in the Lord, and using our talents for God. At first we performed them for preschoolers in religious education classes. Later we also performed for the elderly in nursing homes and senior citizen centers.
Though the plays were written in a simple style with young children in mind, I learned from them as well. Repeating the messages every few weeks in the shows truly ingrained them into my mind, so I not only knew Jesus’s teachings—I also lived them. Even the preschool songs that were stuck in my head echoed God’s word. I grew in my own faith by teaching it in a simple manner. Much can be learned from simplicity. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux said that our Lord needs from us neither great deeds, nor profound thoughts. Neither intelligence nor talents. He cherishes simplicity.
—Kathleen
What does it mean to be a disciple of God? How is God asking you to live your discipleship?
Simplicity can bring greater clarity to situations. Is there some tangible way you can simplify at least one thing in your life today? How can you bring this about and what do you think the result will be?