Most of us have heard someone called a BFD, which is shorthand for a very big deal, and I’ll let you fill in the middle letter on your own. We all like to think we are a BFD. We like to believe our title, our years of experience, or our seat at the table make us important. After a glorious summer here in south central Pennsylvania, the fields are ripe for harvest, and they remind us that the only way any of us truly earn those three letters is if we can say we are Bearing Fruit Daily.
Jesus gave us the picture in John 15: “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.” A branch does not strain to produce grapes. Its job is to stay connected, to abide, and fruit is the natural result of that connection. A branch cut off from the vine withers into a DFB, a Dry, Fruitless Branch. We are called to reflect what we are rooted to.
In Mark 11, Jesus came to a fig tree covered in leaves and found nothing but leaves. From a distance it looked healthy, yet up close it had nothing to offer. Plenty of us are growing leaves, with full calendars and packed inboxes, and still the question stands: is anyone being fed?
The same truth plays out in every group we belong to, whether it is the workplace, the church, or the board we serve on. Each one is like a vine, and each of us is a branch. No branch can bear fruit by itself, which is why being part of an enterprise requires communion and not just union. Union is your name on the roster and your paycheck in your account. Communion is when the life of the organization flows through you, when you take in its mission and its people and give back something that nourishes both. Without it, you may be attached on paper, yet you are just taking up branch space.
Why does it matter that we bear vocational fruit rather than just transact a paycheck? Bearing fruit is the reason for our existence. A vine does not eat its own grapes, because fruit is grown to be given away. We bear it to serve the customer, each other, and our leaders. That is the reason for living. It is living in giving.
Researchers have a name for much of this everyday fruit: organizational citizenship behaviors. These are the things no one writes into a job description, like helping a coworker who has fallen behind, welcoming the new hire, or speaking well of the organization when its leaders are not in the room. I call them practical holiness. Through them we model our culture, and the beauty and character of our organizations are displayed every day. This is the fellowship of followership.
The greatest followers are the most fruitful branches, and they maintain a moment-by-moment abiding. Fruit is not grown at the annual retreat or the quarterly review. It grows in the next conversation, the next decision, and the next hour of work. Abiding means staying close to the mission, in step with the people beside you, and open to the leaders you follow, so that you show up connected and not just present.
Before you do a thing, say a word, or think a thought, ask yourself: Am I being a BFD, or just a Big Fat Distraction? The reply-all fired off in frustration, the side comment after the meeting, and the eye roll at the new initiative are all Big Fat Distractions. They pull the group’s energy away from its purpose and take up branch space that fruit could have filled.
Every piece of fruit carries seeds, and seeds multiply exponentially. A single apple holds several seeds, and each one can grow into a tree that bears fruit season after season. The coworker you encourage goes on to encourage someone else, and the follower you invest in becomes a leader who invests in others. You may never see the whole orchard that grows from your faithfulness, yet it grows all the same.
As the fields around us are harvested this fall, look at every group you are part of. Ask whether you are in union or in communion, whether you are growing fruit or just growing leaves, and whether you are seeking to bear fruit moment by moment. That is the only way any of us is a BFD.
