Most Christians Already Know More Than They Obey
You don’t build obedience through more information. You build it through reps.
Most Christians don’t have a knowledge problem. They have a reps problem.
I draw a three-legged stool when I’m talking with someone about discipleship. Then I ask which leg is longest in American Christianity.
Three legs of discipleship: knowledge, obedience, sharing.
Nobody hesitates… Knowledge.
And it’s not close.
The problem isn’t that knowledge is bad. The problem is that an uneven stool collapses.
So what do we usually do? Add more knowledge.
Another podcast.
Another sermon series.
Another conference.
Another workbook.
(Meanwhile the obedience and sharing muscles barely get used.)
Most Christians Already Know More Than They Obey
Get ready, this is the part that stings.
Ask most believers if they should forgive people. They’ll say yes. Including the coworker who took credit for their work in front of the whole team last Thursday.
Pray. Be generous. Love enemies. Share their faith with the neighbor they’ve lived next to for four years and never had a real conversation with.
They know. (They’ve known for years.)
The gap isn’t information. It’s the distance between knowing and actually doing it and that gap doesn’t close by adding more content.
American church culture defaults to knowledge transfer and there are real reasons for that. Knowledge scales. You can measure it, repeat it, put it on a slide. Clean. Low risk. Nobody gets surprised.
Obedience is messier and sharing can feel terrifying.
Because of this, another series gets announced. Another workbook. Another conference with breakout sessions. And people get smarter about what they’re not doing.
Reps Are What Build Confidence
In reality, nobody studies themselves into confidence.
You didn’t learn to swim by reading about buoyancy. You didn’t get good at basketball by watching games (watching does help, but that’s not what stops your hands from shaking at the free throw line).
You got comfortable by doing the uncomfortable thing until it wasn’t anymore.
That’s the whole game plan.
The first real spiritual conversation you try to have is awkward. You’re at lunch with someone from work, you say something honest, and immediately wonder if you went too far. You over-explain. You miss the question you should’ve asked. The whole thing replays in the car on the way home.
The tenth one is different. You’re still a little nervous but it’s not dread anymore. More like paying attention.
The fiftieth changes something in you.
Same thing with the first time you ask a coworker if you can pray for them before a hard meeting. Strange to say out loud. Maybe they give you a look. But you do it. Two weeks later you do it again and it’s less strange. Somewhere around the sixth time you stop bracing for the reaction.
That’s not a secret spiritual principle. That’s just how people work.
Jesus didn’t wait until the disciples were ready. He sent them while they were still figuring things out. That’s the only way they were going to figure things out.
Next Lab: “Rhythms of a Covo Multiplier” (Wednesday, June 17th at 3PM ET). What disciples do that see traction and new disciples made.
Why Churches Drift Toward Knowledge
Not a critique of churches. More like, this is the trajectory of instiutionalization.
Knowledge transfer is manageable. One teacher, a room full of people, predictable outcomes. It feels like progress because everyone leaves with something they didn’t know before.
Reps are harder to contain. A new believer starts telling their story at work and gets the wording a little off. Someone stops waiting to be discipled and starts trying to disciple their roommate. Badly. Imperfectly. With way more courage than polish.
Information creates consumers faster than reps create multipliers.
That kind of thing is harder to organize.
And if we’re honest, a congregation full of theologically informed people who aren’t practicing is easier to manage than a room full of imperfect practitioners who are.
One is neat. The other is alive.
Jesus picked the alive one.
Jesus Built Action Loops
Let’s look at what he actually did as He modeled, sent, debriefed, repeated.
Luke 10. Seventy-two people, sent ahead in pairs into towns he’s about to visit. No curriculum. They knock on doors, pray for sick people, eat whatever’s in front of them. Come back. He sits with them right there on the road and talks through what happened.
That’s the loop.
The Samaritan woman runs into Jesus at a well in the middle of the day. Unplanned. She goes straight back to her village and her whole case is: “Come see a man who told me everything I’ve ever done.” Not a polished testimony. Just a woman who had something happen to her and went and told people about it.
The whole village came out.
Peter fails. More than once. Gets corrected. Goes again.
Obedience wasn’t the graduation ceremony. It was the training environment.
The disciples didn’t get better by sitting in more sessions. They went, messed up, came back, went again. That’s what Jesus built. That loop is the whole thing.
What To Do Instead
This week. Not eventually.
At lunch, ask the person across from you how they’re really doing. Not as a nicety. Actually ask. Then don’t rush to fill the silence.
When a hard conversation wraps up, ask if you can pray right there. Doesn’t have to be long or polished. Just out loud, in front of them, actual words.
Text someone a verse that’s been stuck in your head. Say why. Ask what they make of it.
Tell someone your story. Not the version you’d give at a church event, the real one. What your life looked like before. What changed. Keep in the parts that aren’t flattering.
If you’re meeting with someone you’re trying to walk with, end on this: “What do you think Jesus is asking you to do before we talk again?” Then actually bring it up next time.
None of it will feel impressive. That’s fine. The goal isn’t to do it well. The goal is to do it.
Reps.
The Stool, Revisited
You don’t fix the stool by cutting the long leg. You grow the short ones.
Most people don’t need another conference or another book before they start. They need to have the one conversation they’ve been putting off. Pray out loud with someone. Open the Bible with a person who’s never read it.
Do it badly. Do it nervous. Do it on a Tuesday when nothing about the moment feels significant.
We keep looking for a version of discipleship that doesn’t require doing anything uncomfortable.
There isn’t.
You can agree with this article and still change nothing.
Our labs are for people who are ready to stop drifting and take one clear step.
Next Lab: Rhythms of a Covo Multiplier
Wednesday, June 17th at 3PM ET
I really appreciate this article. It’s very helpful.
Hi Mark, thanks for sharing, I agree that we have become knowledge-rich, but lacking in real living application.