This Is Not That: Discipleship
Human beings have a long history of not knowing what to do with the freedom Jesus shares with us.
The urge for spiritual accomplishment always sneaks back in. We find ways to attach expectations, steps, and ladders to almost everything.
So we talk about freedom. We sing about it. We preach about it.
But how often do we actually experience it?
After years of planting churches, preaching sermons, leading programs, I realized the problem wasn’t a lack of activity or accountability. The greatest barrier was this: most people had never experienced freedom inside the very frameworks they defended with a vengeance.
From Platitudes to Plates
Which brings me to Dario Cecchini.
Dario grew up in a long line of Italian butchers, but he wanted nothing to do with the family trade. He left to study veterinary medicine—his dream was to save animals, not cut them up.
But when his father died, the dream ended. Dario came home to take over the shop, overwhelmed by grief and the weight of responsibility. He told Orlando, his father’s longtime meat selector, “When I cut meat, I feel great pain.”
Orlando looked at him and said, “It’s not about cutting meat.”
Then he showed him what he meant—taking him out to the farms, introducing him to the farmers, the animals, the life connected to the meat. And suddenly Dario saw: this wasn’t about death. It was about honoring life.
But there was a problem. His customers only wanted steak. And to Dario, killing an animal just for steak felt wrong.
So he tried to explain. But people didn’t listen. Until one day it hit him: the only way to change their minds was to feed them.
So he opened a restaurant: Solociccia—“Just Meat.” One long communal table. Meals made from all the parts of the cow nobody wanted. Snout to tail. Everything except steak.
And when people sat down to eat, they discovered flavors and textures they had never considered before. What they once rejected turned out to be better than what they thought they wanted.
International chef Samin Nosrat put it like this:
“At Solociccia, you sit down to partake in things you would never consider eating. But when you taste it, your fears dissolve, and you’re deliciously surprised. People leave there—and they’re changed.”
Dario knew what I came to realize in ministry: people don’t change because you explain something better. They change when they taste something new.
Discipleship isn’t handing out formulas. It’s inviting people to a table where they can taste freedom for themselves.
If Jesus Wanted an Empire…
He picked the wrong team.
Think about it: Jesus is standing there post-resurrection, handing off the keys to a crew of misfits that had just abandoned Him. No business plan. No brand. No strategy.
Just this: “Go. Make disciples. Baptize them. And teach them to observe everything I’ve commanded.” (Matt. 28:19–20)
Religion turned that into a checklist. It’s why those words come with a weight. But Jesus meant it as an invitation that brings life.
Let’s break it down:
“Go.”
The Greek word poreuthentes isn’t a command. It’s a participle. It means “as you are going about your day.”
Not a drill sergeant barking orders.
A Friend saying, “Wherever life takes you, be a friend—like Me.”
“Make disciples.”
The word mathēteuō doesn’t mean “recruit converts” to build a brand. It means “help others see what is good.”
You can’t manufacture faith. You can’t mass-produce trust.
Discipleship is not a classroom. It’s introducing a friend to the world’s best taco truck. You found something worth savoring—you just had to share it.
“Baptize.”
Not ceremony. Not control. Just water and awakening.
Someone discovers the God who’s always loved them.
It could be a river. A bathtub. A hotel hot tub. Water is water.
“Teach them to observe.”
Here’s the line religion twisted.
Most translations read “obey.” But the word tēreō means treasure.
To hold close. To keep safe.
Like a letter you reread until the paper softens.
Jesus wasn’t saying, “Teach them to obey the rules.”
He was saying, “Help them hold onto this treasure—because it’s a value worth keeping close.”
So What Does Discipleship Look Like?
Not leading services.
Not launching programs.
Not managing outcomes.
It’s tasting freedom. And then helping someone else taste it too.
Not as an expert.
Not as the one with all the answers.
But as a fellow mess wrecked by grace.
Because that kind of grace has nothing to lose and nothing to prove. No image to protect. No stars to chase.
It makes honesty feel safe.
And that honesty opens rooms.
It starts conversations.
It pulls in the curious.
Freedom is hard to ignore when it walks in wearing love.
No clipboard. No steps. No strategy. Just stories. Meals. Questions. And sometimes a baptism in a weird place.
How Do I Do That?
This world is starving for relief. And you’ve tasted it.
Here’s how you pass it on as a friend:
Be Present. Show up like it matters—because it does.
Listen. Every story is sacred ground. Take off your shoes.
Share. Not sermons. Just your honest story of grace.
Invite. Don’t push. Just point out the treasure you’ve found in light of what others need—and invite them to trust it.
That’s discipleship.
Right where you are.