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Discipling According to Jesus

by Abe Huber

When Jesus gave the Great Commission, He gave it to a group of disciples that were already experiencing the challenges and benefits of developing relationships within a small group context. The natural outcome of their disciple-making would be to reproduce the model they had received from Jesus. But exactly how and when did Jesus disciple them?

As we study the Gospels it becomes clear that Jesus made use of every situation to invest in His disciples. When he ministered to the multitudes, they were watching and learning. Later on, in private, when it was just Jesus and the small group of His disciples, they would ask Him questions about what was taught and their was clearly a deeper level of discipleship.

I am not dogmatic about it (since the Bible does not clearly state this), but I believe that Jesus also invested a lot of time individually — one on one — with his disciples. Jesus traveled very much with his disciples; many times 20, 30 or 50 Kilometers between the towns and villages.  During these trips, hours and hours of precious discipleship time could be used since they where far away from the crowds. It is obviously practically impossible to talk to 12 people at once while walking at a traveling pace, so I believe that much of the deep discipleship that Jesus practiced was on an individual basis.

We have taught our cell members that the weekly cell meeting is only about 40% of what the cell is all about. At least 60% of the “cell-time” happens during the week with spontaneous fellowship, one on one discipleship, and other activities as the cell members prioritize relationships with one another.

Since discipleship is the heart of the cell, our cell leaders know that they have two main responsibilities: 1) Pray every day for each cell member. 2) Make sure each cell member is being discipled.  It is important to mention that the cell leader himself will not disciple individually all the members of the cell, but he is the one responsible TO MAKE SURE that all are being discipled by someone from within the cell that has been trained to disciple.

We can see that Paul also had this same goal: each person individually discipled to reach maturity in Christ!!

Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.Acts 20:31 NASB (In verse 30 he calls them “disciples”).

We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. – Col.1:28, NASB