Reimagining Discipleship: The Lisu Life–Rhythm of Shared Christian Practices

The Lisu people of southwest China have reimagined Christian discipleship to emphasize various shared practices. Lisu Christian practices, such as singing hymns together, attending Christian festivals, abstaining from smoking and drinking alcohol, interceding for one another in prayer, and greeting one another with the traditional salutation and handshake, are less personal and more communal, less inward and more outward, less emotional and more embodied. Embedded in every practice are meaning, significance, and worldview; the practices are not empty. This article shows how Lisu Christians have transformed their faith into a life rhythm of practice–oriented discipleship appropriate for the agrarian context of this communal people