When Being A Sheep Is OK

This past week at church the sermon focused on Andrew. The context of the sermon was more along the lines of how Andrew shared his faith, not with rhetoric or apologetics but simply by having so much excitement over having found Messiah, he physically took people to meet Jesus.  It's interesting to think about and if you want to check out the sermon you can do so here, but it got me thinking about Andrew in that he was one of the very first disciples. And thanks to his excitement he dragged his brother Cephas (better known as Simon-Peter) out to meet and listen to Jesus.

So when I watched this TED talk a few days later, you can see how my mind instantly thought of Andrew.



A leader is only a leader when he has a follower, and as Derek quickly points out in the video, the first follower is really a leader in their own right.

This point is truly a great jumping off point for so many other related discussions, but one area I want to expound upon more ties back to something that has been making the rounds these days on several social media sites, an article titled Why Generation Y Yuppies Are Unhappy.

I'm a part of Generation Y and my guess is that you reader are or at least know someone who is also apart of this generation.  And it's true, we were all told that we are each special and destined for greatness.  But here's the thing. That's not really possible (well, it depends on how you define greatness, but you get the gist of it).

I will admit, I am very fuzzy on it these days, but I remember watching Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead in high school and it left a big impression on me.  It left me wondering, "What's wrong with being a supporting character?"  You see, I grew up being told I was the star, the lead character.  My story was the one worth reading or watching. But what did that mean for others in my life?  That they simply are supporting characters?  Or was it that I was a simply a supporting character in their story?

Simply put, we can't all be the President.  It doesn't mean that we can't aspire to these things, but we need to keep expectations in a healthy check.

So, how does an early disciple of Christ, a basic model for starting a movement, and the disillusionment of a generation tie together?

I have the radical notion that I want to teach my son to be a follower.

Perhaps to make this less inflammatory I should add that I want him to be a discerning follower.

I hold a certain disdain and contempt for sheeple, but there's a world of difference in weighing the truth from several angles and deciding a course of action than just doing what everyone else is doing.

So the question is how do I teach that balance of knowing when to forge ahead as that first lone nut and when it is better to yield and support someone else in an endeavor turning a lone nut into a leader?