The Buzz About The Church

From the heart of creation comes a metaphor which reveals the divine process of maturing followers. We will raise the lid on a hive of honeybees to more deeply understand and experience the process of making disciples. You will be amazed at what you will discover about God and connection from exploring a beehive. Of all the great metaphors available for telling the story of God’s divine disclosure, honeybees fly to the top of the list.

What is recovered here is the methodology of discipleship Jesus modeled. However, this offering isn’t just another mechanical approach to discipleship where I lay out the strategies or nuts and bolts approach. Rather, it is an approach that marries Jesus’ template with beekeeping. The goal is for the church to recover and hand over the Christian faith to the next generation of followers. As a result, it is hoped the reader will have a deeper knowledge of and relationship with the God who made it all, redeems it all and loves it all.

For the past several years there has been a much needed resurgence in the subject of discipleship. No doubt one of the reasons for this rally is due to the decline of the North American church. As a result, there have been numerous books and articles written to address the return of the lost art of disciple making. This book is a contribution to the current conversation on how to make followers of Jesus Christ. It is both a theoretical and practical contribution with a twist. The twist is this book is guided by a metaphor of beekeeping. Since I am marrying metaphor with theology, it is important to communicate to you how and why I am undertaking this marriage.

Why beekeeping? Let me tell you the story of the how and why. The Christian life is a semiotic journey of discovering the fullness of the living God. On this journey we discover who God really is and who we are in relationship with Him. On the road the signs of His activity are illuminated. The discovery will take introspection and hopefully lead to fruitfulness. Here, then, is my story.

Several years ago I was attending a camp at my conference’s retreat center outside of Palestine, Texas. I remember the day very well because it was storming and one of my colleagues and I were visiting outside under the portico. He mentioned this doctor of ministry program he was currently a part of. We finished our conversation and went our separate ways. A year later that conversation with my friend came to the front of my memory. I went to the computer and began to research the program. The program is through George Fox Evangelical Seminary and the degree was in semiotics and future studies. I had never heard the word semiotics before. Its basic meaning is the study of signs. Crystal Downing once claimed that to understand the culture “responsible Christians must become skilled sign-readers, able to distinguish among diverse cultural powers in order to access their threat and respond appropriately.” This book, in part, is an attempt to articulate the signs of God’s activity in creation.

After being spurred to enter the program, I signed up. The journey of a lifetime began and set this Christian on a course that would change my life. In this highly relational cohort based program with a leading mentor we set sail. The first year we met in Portland, Oregon and the second year we met in Seattle, Washington. It was in this second encounter with the other members of the cohort and my mentor that God revealed himself. In this group of seventeen we split up into groups of four to talk about our projects. Each of us brought to the table an abstract of what we wanted to write about. In my group were Rob, Norbert, and Doug. Everybody in the group shared their thoughts on everyone else’s abstract. I was last to get feedback. My friend Doug was sitting directly across from me. He looked up and said, ‘Matt, I’m bored.” When he first said it I was kind of offended. Then he explained what he meant. It wasn’t what I wrote; it was the subject. The topic of discipleship has been on the modern church radar for the past several years and is a bit frayed. Everybody is tired of hearing about discipleship or spiritual formation. He finished his comments by saying, “Matt if you used beekeeping to talk about discipleship, I would buy that, because it is interesting.” Just as soon as it came out of his mouth, I realized God was speaking. It was a God moment; a true semiotic experience. This is the reason you have a book before you about discipleship and beekeeping.

While this is interesting, it is only a part of the adventure. The rest of the semiotic story is when I realized all of my life has been preparation for writing a theological book on beekeeping. The calling to write this was as strong and clear as my calling to the ordained ministry. For years God has been nudging me to write about honeybees and ministry. I asked God to tell me what and expected Him to open my head up and dump a revelation over my brain. A little voice whispered to me, “do the work.” It wasn’t going to be a seamless flow of information, but rather, writing that was born from deep seated trials and pains in the brain. Beekeeping and discipleship are a metaphorical marriage. The holy union has produced a new way of understanding the call of the Lord to make followers.

It was only recently that a holy marriage occurred between beekeeping and discipleship. My family has been keeping bees for many decades so honeybees have always been on the interest radar. I’m a fourth generation apiarist. I learned how to keep bees from my grandfather, Cliff Thomas. My grandfather and great grandfather learned from another of my great grandfathers, Arthur Banta (1896-1989), who got interested in bees while attending the University of California at Davis. Beekeeping like disciple making is something that is passed on to the next generations.

Like beekeeping, discipleship has always held a special place in this follower’s heart. In my twenty-year pastorate one of the most frustrating aspects is the level of maturity that is found in the church. Disciple making, as Jesus modeled it, is by and large, absent from the parish and it shows. There are signs, however, of disciple making but in limited ministry contexts.

Who would have ever bridged disciple making with beekeeping? God would! The bridge has always been there, but has been hidden from our sight. This less traveled bridge of nature, metaphor and story has eluded many Christians but, as I share in the book, holds something of value for all who decide to follow Jesus Christ. What we will discover when we lift the lid on the beehive is a new world and robust discipleship.