Hello again friends. I feel like it’s been a while. Though I try to post weekly, I just wasn’t up for writing last week because I was on the tail-end of the stomach flu. Ugh. It hit three out of four in our household (including the 18-month-old) and suffice it to say, with fevers up to 103 degrees, it was a rough week. I’m sure you can imagine. Thankfully, we are all just about back to normal.
In my last post, The Buts and What-ifs of Discipleship, I shared a theory I have about the topic of discipleship. My hunch is, while many believers would say they agree that they should make disciples, they may also have questions about the how part of it and could even feel ill-equipped. Others just might not know where to start, and as a result, they haven’t yet made discipleship a priority.
If that describes you, or someone you know, I’d love to share some ideas from Jesus’ life and ministry as well as my own personal experience.
My hope is that we would intentionally and actively pursue a lifestyle of discipleship for the purpose of spiritual growth and ultimately, to advance the truth and heart of the Gospel.
I know discipleship can sound daunting. At least, it did to me. My first experience with discipling someone was shortly after I accepted Christ as a teenager. I would meet weekly with a friend of mine from school and we went through little booklets that were designed to help us know and understand the fundamentals of our faith.
To be totally honest, I had no idea what I was doing. I had never been discipled, so I didn’t know if I was doing it “right” or not.
Years later, when I lived and served in Costa Rica, I began to understand discipleship at a whole new level. My team leader regularly spent time with my roommate and I, studying the life of Christ. As we did so, we started to see how He called His disciples, spent time with them and ultimately trained them to go out into the world after His death and resurrection.
Whatever we learned, we would then share with the girls we were discipling. Those girls would then share it with girls they were discipling. Multiplication.
If you want to see discipleship modeled, you can’t go wrong reading through the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Note how Jesus invited specific men to “come and follow me,” (Mt. 4:19). Note also that later, we read in Luke 6:12, Jesus spent the night praying to God before choosing the twelve apostles.
As you consider making discipleship a part of your life (if you’re not already discipling people), the best thing you can do is pray. Ask God to bring to mind a person or a couple of people with whom you can begin a formal discipleship relationship.
I say “formal,” because the kind of discipleship I’m referring to is going to require some commitment, not just on your part, but on the part of the person you are discipling.
Some people would define discipleship a little more broadly and see it happening in a more organic, circumstantial kind of way. For example, maybe you have someone in your life who prays regularly for you, contacts you often to see how you are doing, and speaks words of wisdom into your life. That person is investing in you, and their impact in your life is truly valuable.
However, for “formal” discipleship, I would include a few other things: 1) time studying the Word together, 2) regular and consistent time together, 3) meeting for the purpose of growth and multiplication.
When we look at how Jesus spent time with the disciples, we see that he spent time teaching them (Luke 11:1). Sometimes that teaching was actually a better way of understanding something they had already been taught (Mt. 5:21-23).
Jesus spent a ton of time with the disciples. They traveled together (Lk. 8:22), ate together (Mt. 26), and experienced the miraculous together (Mt. 17). They did life together and in so doing, the disciples were able to learn, grow and later to share what they learned with others.
If you want a simple step-by-step guide to getting started with discipleship, here’s what I would suggest:
- Pray that God would bring to mind the name of one person you could approach about starting a formal discipleship relationship.
- Approach that person and ask if she would want to get together regularly for the purpose of mutual spiritual growth. This will include time to share one another’s joys and burdens, time to pray and time to be in the Word.
- When the person says yes, set a time to meet (ideally weekly).
- For your first meeting (maybe at a coffee shop or a good place where you can chat freely), talk through the idea of a mutual commitment to meeting regularly, praying for one another and keeping confidential that which is shared between you. Have the person self-assess where they are spiritually and determine if it would be best to start with the fundamentals of the faith or if there is a particular book of the Bible they’d like to study with you.
- Bring a notebook where you can write down prayer requests and praises and where you can write notes of things you might want to share.
- Trust that God is going to use these divine appointments to help both of you grow spiritually.
Don’t let excuses stop you. Give it a try and see what God does. You don’t have to be formally trained in Theology. You don’t have to have the gift of teaching. You don’t have to be an extrovert. Be who God made you to be and know that’s enough 🙂 He will be with you!
I would love to hear your thoughts. Please comment below.
Until next time, let us go be radiant this week!
Go Be Radiant 