· Recognises her responsibility to everybody or thing within her sphere of influence. Teaches mainly by example

· Exhibits the capacity to recognise and work with essentials. Demonstrates simplicity, economy and the capacity to walk lightly on the earth while also confidently and astutely working in the midst of complexity

· Fights for right and truth, while retaining love

· Exhibits vigilance, and the capacity to deal quickly and effectively with expressions of evil

· Works with an absolute surety of the eventual triumph of good – and God’s purpose/plan

· Commits to be:
An ‘intelligent agent’
A ‘rising agent’ (as in yeast)
A firebearer – mature disciples will bear the ‘light of the soul’, but primarily they will bear the ‘fire of spirit’

· Exhibits the capacity to contact Divine Will and make it manifest on earth. This is a real danger area if the disciple allows any personal agenda to intrude

· Attends to every service task with loving detachment, then relinquishes and moves on without the need for recognition or praise

Maybe this is why we don’t immediately recognise a twenty-first century disciple. Mature disciples have always worked largely unrecognised, and they always will. But it is time that we learnt to recognise and appreciate the breadth of talent and spiritual wisdom they have to offer across all fields of human endeavour.
Traditionally they may have worked mainly in the humanitarian fields. In this cuspal time between Ages, their skills and experience will be needed at every flashpoint and wherever old forms are being challenged, and new skills have yet to be learned.

“What is arresting about these persons of Universalising faith and God-grounded selfhood is that in quiet or in public ways they live as though the kingdom of God were already a realised fact among us. They thereby create zones of liberation and redemption in the world which are both threatening and freeing to the rest of us.” (1)