In his book The Passion of Command: The Moral Imperative of Leadership, USMC Col. B.P. McCoy details what he calls “the five habits of training.” These five habits will save lives and the absence of these five habits will cost lives. He lists them as combat marksmanship, combat conditioning, casualty evacuation, battle drills, and discipline. This last habit, discipline, is actually nothing more than habit under fire.
In the context of this chapter, McCoy quoted Carl von Clausewitz’ On War this way: “Habit hardens the body for great exertions, strengthens the heart in great peril. Habit breeds that priceless quality, calm, which, passing from rifleman to commander will lighten the task” (pp 23-40).
Habit is the central focus in the WHO acronym of discipleship. One must know the Work, develop the Habit, and teach Others to become and make disciples. The central focus of becoming and making disciples is that of doing from habit what most men will never do at all. One of my early mentors back in the sixties used to ask, “why should I do what others can and will, when I can do others can’t or won’t?” That continues to be good advice.
Here is Col. McCoy’s take: “We focused on the principle of habit in five basic areas where we wanted flawless performance…habits to be ingrained so thoroughly that our Marines would be able to fight, win, and survive at least the first five days of combat. After the first five days, we felt that they would have seen enough of combat to be able to avoid death from simple mistakes from then on. From these ingrained habits would flow confidence, aggressiveness, a bias for action, and, most of all, the courage to close with and kill the enemy” (p 25).
Several places in Scripture liken the Christian life and ministry to combat, most notably 2 Timothy 2:3-4. Significantly, this portion follows immediately upon the discipleship training concept that Paul placed before his protégé Timothy. The training concept was not new, but originated in the “family plan” of the Hebrew Torah. There the training was to take place day by day (Deuteronomy 6:6-7) and generation by generation (Psalm 78:1-6). So also in New Testament discipleship, the training must take place day by day and spiritual generation by generation. 2 Timothy 2:2 reads, “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” The two overarching criteria for discipleship are faithfulness and ability. This is the WHO acronym in a nutshell. Those who are able have done the work themselves and developed it into a habit such that they are characterized as faithful and then they become able to teach others.
Faithful men are not born faithful. Faithful men become faithful by learning the work, developing the habits, and teaching others. McCoy deals with training men in combat marksmanship, combat conditioning, casualty evacuation, battle drills, and discipline. The next several posts to this “blog” will deal with similar habits that men who would be found faithful must develop and teach.
.
REB
