Becoming Disciples Sample

Stay Connected 

As mentioned previously, I absolutely love the analogy of Christ being the vine and His children the branches. Are you familiar with The Great Vine? It’s an old grapevine planted in 1768 at Hampton Court Palace, near London. This great grapevine has been around for a while. It’s over 200 years old and interestingly, only has but one root. It’s got a trunk that’s about 2 feet wide (or 2 feet thick I should say). Some of its branches are 200 feet long. Can you imagine that? I was watching a YouTube video of this grapevine. The caretaker is an incredible woman who is in charge of coordinating all the pruning. She was telling the story that the reason this great vine was planted was because the King wanted to give the best grapes and wine to his visitors. So, he decided to plant this huge grapevine never imagining how much it would grow nor how much it would produce.  Although it’s over 200 years old, it’s still producing several tons of grapes. Yes, tons! And even though some branches are small, and others are 200 feet, they all come from the same vine.

If you think about it, here we are 2000 years later, and when Jesus said to his disciples “I am the vine, you are the branches,” He was saying that we, not only the disciples of His time, but all of us are His extension of the good news. When Jesus calls us His branches, He’s not only telling us that we can be His extension, but He is also calling us to be His disciples. It does not matter how far you feel from the vine, you are the branch, which means you are connected to Him.  

We currently live in a society that’s turned off by religion. They have every excuse in the world to go against any faith and by the way, some of them are very justified. But there are some people who use that as an excuse for their relationship with God. They will say “I’m disconnected from God.” Others have completely stopped attending church because they get disconnected. They begin to plan more “important” things on Sundays, such as sports or free time. Or some know the importance of church but still feel disconnected from it so just stop attending. What we have forgotten is that disconnection impacts our relationship with Christ. Let’s stay connected.