Warning: This article contains light plot spoilers

The lone figure zigzags across the desert with a dance-like gait, the high suns burning down on him, as from the top of a nearby rock formation a crowd look on. A few of the onlookers are rooting for the plucky outsider, who has lived among them and taken on their ways, but most are content whether they watch him succeed or get turned into a snack for a giant, carnivorous desert worm.

My son and I are of course safely ensconced in the 1930s mock-Tudor hunting lodge that is Screen 1 of the Salisbury Odeon, watching Dune: Part 2, the second installment of Denis Villeneuve’s trilogy of films based on Frank Herbert’s1965 novels. If you like epic scale sci-fi with a pounding Hans Zimmer score (including space bagpipes – don’t ask, just experience at a cinema with a decent sound system!) then you have probably seen both films by the time you read this. If you haven’t, why not? Go to Netflix and at least watch the first film before reading on, as I reflect on what I have learned about discipleship from Dune.

Dune is the tale of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), who is transplanted from his home planet to a privileged colony on the desert planet of Arrakis. His father, Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac), has been sent there to ensure a constant flow of its valuable natural resources, for the sake of the empire’s economy. However, in an exceedingly hostile takeover, Paul and his mother are forced to flee into the desert. There Paul encounters the insular Fremen tribe. He is gradually accepted as one of them, as he learns their ways.

The five-minute montage 

One of the real strengths of Dune is seeing Paul’s journey from privileged teenager to the adopted leader of the Fremen, played out across a combined five hours and 20 minutes of film. From the shifting sands of another desert in Lawrence of Arabia to a US high school in Grease, the story of an outsider gradually earning the respect of a new community is a staple of film. Yet, the process is all too often reduced to a five-minute montage, underscored by a power ballad.

In many ways these characters’ journeys reflect the life of those who live and disciple among the lost, but if we expect the process to be a quick, upbeat montage then we are at risk of disappointment, burn out and losing an opportunity for truly transformed lives.

The pace Jesus set his disciples

If we look at Jesus’ life, the first thirty years were spent living among his people. I am particularly struck by the image of God incarnate, as a teenage boy, sitting in the temple at the feet of the teachers and asking questions.

Jesus then invests three years in sharing his life with his disciples. After allowing them to watch him and learn from him, he gradually starts sending them out in pairs to make disciples themselves, but it is only at the end of the three years, after his death and resurrection, that their disciple making truly bears fruit.

Prepared for a longer running time

Recently I was talking to one of our reps, who is now in his second year of leading a student ministry, after two years as a Connect intern. We were discussing how he became a rep, the impact of student ministry on his own life and his excitement today at seeing God transform the hearts and lives of a couple of young men he was working with. 

But getting to this point has taken time – time to become accepted in a new community and time for God to work in his own life. He described his two years on Connect as giving him a glimpse of what this ministry was like, but more importantly providing him with life-on-life investment by the more experienced Navigators he was working alongside.

The Dune saga is not yet finished and I look forward to spending another three hours in the cinema while Denis Villeneuve finishes the story with Dune Messiah (and perhaps in another DW we can explore other Dune themes, such as prophesy and the portrayal of Paul as a Messiah character). God’s kingdom plan is not yet completed, nearly two thousand years after Jesus announced that the Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst. As we seek to work out our calling as alongsiders, we need to remember we are part of an epic story, not a montage.