Discipleship and Toyota

In my last thread I wrote on discipleship and small creatures. This is new thread is about cars. We’ll see how far it goes. For starters I am writing about Toyota -reputed to be one of the most popular and dependable car makers in the world.

The first time I heard about Toyota was in the late 1960’s. A family friend was showing my father his new Toyopet, an early edition of Toyota cars. In those days people were wary of Toyota. Cars brands then were Mercedes Benz, Ford, Chrysler and Volkswagen.

For some reason the Toyota name just did not sound right. In sounded like some kind of soy sauce. In fact Toyota struggled to get a foothold of the market. In time however, Toyotas became very popular and are some of the World’s most sought after cars. How did that happen, through proven performance and dependability.

By sheer word of mouth friends, relatives and neighbors tried, used and validated Toyota’s dependability. News about it spread and more and more people started to buy it, use it and talk about it. In time Toyotas became attractive and the rest is history.

Herein lies the discipleship relationship interface. It is not our brand name -“Christianity” that attracts others rather it is the example of our lives that people see day in and day out that makes them take stock of our Christianity.

It is when people see how our lives hold together in the midst of bumpy roads, bad weather and the usual wear and tear of life that they become interested in the brand and not the other way around.
Finally, just like the Toyota we can expect our lives to have a good run because of the one who made us.

‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ Acts 17:28a