Pastor Joey Bonifacio, author of The LEGO Principle, has written a brilliantly simple book about discipleship – built on the metaphor of the LEGO brick.
The LEGO Principle: Connect first to God and then to one another.
You’ve gotta love it!
Regardless of the shape, size, or color of a LEGO brick, each one is designed to do just one thing: connect. LEGO pieces are designed to connect at the top with studs and the bottom with tubes.
Like LEGO, if you can connect to the top with God and to the bottom with others, you can pretty much shape the world you live in.
Here are a few examples pulled from the LEGO world, with Bonifacio’s application to the life of the believer:
Not all LEGO pieces have the same ability to connect. Some have the capacity to connect with as many as twelve or more bricks while others are limited. There are pieces that can connect to only one other brick. The secret of LEGO is not that every brick connects with the same number of other pieces but that each piece has the capacity to connect.
This secret applies to believers as well: every believer has the ability to connect directly to God.
Each LEGO brick comes with studs that give it the ability to connect. Every stud has the LEGO trademark engraved on it, a symbol of trust. In the past others have tried to copy LEGO bricks but have been unsuccessful. Their studs did not connect as well.
Like trusted LEGO bricks, we connect best when we are the real thing.
Two eight-stud LEGO bricks can be combined in twenty-four ways. Three eight-stud bricks can be combined in 1,060 ways. Six eight-stud bricks can be combined in 102,981,500 ways. With eight bricks the possibilities are virtually endless.
Just like LEGO bricks, using love to connect with people has endless possibilities.
By 1968, nineteen years after the first LEGO brick was made, the LEGO company built its first LEGOLAND – an entire city of LEGO structures in its hometown of Billund, Denmark. Something was missing: people.
In 1974 LEGO began making people, starting with the LEGO family. These mini figures soon became the biggest-selling product, enjoyed by both boys and girls. Several billion of these figures have been built to date. LEGO realized that people love people. What good is a world without people?
To the degree that we value and love people will we engage our community and culture.
LEGO bricks are built to connect multigenerationally. That means bricks made in the 1950s connect just as well with those made in 2013. Connecting bricks made decades apart is not a problem.
In the same way, when people make disciples through relationships, generational, traditional, and denominational differenced fall by the wayside.
And like LEGO bricks, when the connections happen, the possibilities are endless.
27gen.com 