Model Year Disciplines

About Model Year Disciplines

Abstract

Our lives as disciples and disciple-makers have striking similarities to the so-called engineering design process. Observe that in the retrospective both our faith journeys and our engineering successes are often highlighted by a small number of breakthrough moments. But when looking towards the future, both are marked by careful observance of defined routines and disciplines that suggest the venture is nearly formulaic. This leads me to the mantra – “must be present to win.” Of course, neither our faith journey nor our engineering design pursuits can be truly fruitful if we approach them as if careful adherence to established process steps will suffice. But being present in those processes, and in those disciplines, creates more opportunity for breakthrough events. In fact, the parallels between discipleship and engineering design run quite deep with helpful metaphors at various levels. We learn more about ourselves as disciples by applying the engineering design process, and we better appreciate the engineering design process when viewed through the lens of discipleship. For example, we could view ourselves as something of a prototype, constantly being refined by God for His purposes. But we would be wrong to see ourselves simply as a prototype, as if not yet ready for service. If that were our perspective, our impact for the Kingdom would be limited. Instead, it is helpful to adopt a “model year” mentality, much like many industries that release a product but continually work to engineer and improve future model years of that product. This and other examples are detailed in the paper to help the Christian engineer learn from the metaphor between engineering design and discipleship.