Recently, we launched out on a new era at LifePoint Church. Each of our staff took on the call to make disciples (Matthew 28:19-20) by living out the call of Matthew 4:19 (ESV): “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”
Over 12 weeks, each staff person discipled five people from their ministry area. You may ask: “New era? Shouldn’t you have been discipling all along?” Well yes, we have, but never with this much intentionality!
To help you do the same, here are five easy steps:
1. Identify. Prayerfully identify five people God is leading you to disciple, or help become more like Christ tomorrow than they are today. You know God is also working in their lives to prepare them, so why not ask Him who you are supposed to be walking with?
2. Enlist. Talk with each of the five individually and invite them to be part of your group. Clearly explain what is expected. When I asked men to join my group, I also clearly explained that this was a weekly meeting for an hour, daily reading from the Bible and a manual, and they would be asked to repeat this process with five people in the next six months.
A couple of them were very hesitant to respond, which led me to allow them to not participate. The five I am meeting with (two car salesmen, one police officer, one shoe salesman, one rock star) immediately said, “Yes, count me in!” which told me they were feeling the need to be committed.
3. Meet. Spend the next few weeks meeting, discussing, challenging, praying, learning, reading, growing, etc. We met for a planned one hour a week, same time, day and location each week. However, we also allowed God to continue the meeting or conversation as long and as often as He chose.
4. Grow. Listen as your group shares what God is doing in their lives, and share what He is doing in your life right now. Over the course of these weeks, make notes of issues, prayer requests, challenges, fears. Watch (and share) what God is doing in and through the stories. Point out the growth of each other as celebration of what God is doing.
Did I mention “listen”? This is very important when helping people grow as disciples. It is not about bestowing knowledge to them, but about hearing how God is growing them.
Dallas Willard in The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship, gives a wonderful definition of a disciple: “A disciple is a learner, a student, an apprentice — a practitioner, even if only a beginner … Disciples of Jesus are people who do not just profess certain views as their own, but apply their growing understanding of life in the Kingdom of the Heavens to every aspect of their life on earth.”
5. Challenge. Each week, I challenged our group to “watch for God at work and join Him.” Each week, I also explained how they would be asked to lead five others through the discipleship process. We were not meeting/walking through this growth for ourselves, but as Luke 6 shows us, for those around us. That is what it means to be a true disciple, when we use our energy, resources and life to make disciples.
