May
06
Messy Journey pt1
Yesterday was awesome! It started early when I woke up around 6am to get ready for my day. For the first time in about 2 weeks, I got up when my alarm went off. I felt awake and ready to go for the day! It was an incredible feeling after waking up so many times, shutting my alarm off and then falling back asleep. I got ready for the day and off I went to Starbucks to start my morning off right. I got a little bit of work done, then had a great meeting with one of my key leaders. Then it was time for Destiny Leader Online.
It was a frustrating conference to say the least. Not because of what I was hearing, but because my internet continued to falter and I had to switch locations during the middle of the conference. Making me miss some speakers. That wasn’t the worst thing that could have happened. Although I did for the first time hit the Twitter barrier of too many tweets. That was frustrating. Especially when I was trying to win an Ipad2.
But for some reason as the day went on, I started thinking about a single thing. As, this conference online continued to go on, it seemed like there was one common theme.
If we as Christians, dont live out discipleship and dont teach real discipleship, then we are failing others as we ll as the Great Commission.
Discipleship is a tricky thing in my mind. Not the steps or the reason for doing discipleship. It is the process of teaching and living discipleship. Understandably, everyone is different. So the the ways someone else lives/studies out discipleship, may be different than mine. But does that mean he/she couldnt teach someone better than me?
As a youth worker, church worker, it seems like it falls on my shoulders to teach discipleship. But as a I think more and more about discipleship and the structure of leadership in the church I work at. My job is not to disciple the 60-80 people that come on a Tuesday night or the 30 or so people we have come on Sunday morning. My job is to live and disciple a group of 5-7 key leaders in my ministry, then in turn those 5-7 people will live and disciple a separate group of 5-7 people and so on.
The trick is understanding and knowing how and when.
How do you disciple someone else?
I dont think there is a specific way to disciple someone. Everyone is wired differently and everyone is going to grow differently. But I believe there are a few key things that we need to show in our efforts to disciple anyone:
1) It is messy.
- I dont think I have met anyone that hasnt had some sort of past, or some struggle when it comes to this idea of discipleship. Because let’s be honest, it is a hard thing. It requires a lot from us and sometimes we just dont want to give it. Discipleship is a messy process also because not everyone will grasp a hold of what it means quickly. Some will falter, some will flourish. But the one thing you need to remember is that people are messy and their spiritual lives ares messy.
2) It require Grace.
- Discipleship is all about grace. The only reason we even talk about this idea of discipleship is not because we just feel like it, but it is because of the grace that God has given us, the grace that we have received without deserving, the grace that we have felt and we want more of. Grace is a maybe not a step in the processes of discipleship, but it is a key component to anyone that is teaching discipleship. Because if we dont teach Grace alongside discipleship, then we will train and teach a generation of people that we have no room for error and that is just not true.
3) It takes time.
- There is a phrase that I hear all the time, it is ” Life is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.” Which is very true. When you sprint, it is a completely different feeling than when you are running a marathon. I believe that you can insert many different beginning words to that phrase and it could be true. None more than Discipleship. Discipleship is by far much more a marathon than a sprint. The idea of Pacing has been a huge process of learning in my youth ministry work. I can not expect my 14 year freshman boy to think and learn and live out the life I am. Because he is a 14 year old boy and I am almost 24. We are different places, times, seasons of our lives. The one thing I can do though, is live in front of him as a disciple and teach him different discipleship processes/techniques so that when he/she is ready, they will have the right tools to become true disciples of Jesus.
Stay the course. Dont let the little things stop you from discipleship, in your own life or someone else’s. Remember that God has called us to know him and we should work hard at knowing him. But there will be hiccups along the journey, so dont lose track of the goal.
The journey is long, winding and bumpy. But the end is smooth and beautiful.
You have to read Real Life Discipleship by Jim Putnam. It will help you go down this road more effectively.
However, my question is can student truly disciple other students?
Hey Dave,
I think that is a great question. For some reason I am hesitant in my answer, but I also think that is up for discussion. I think that students can and have the ability to mentor other students. There obviously has to be guidance for the student doing the mentoring, but I think that students are definitely capable at mentoring. Although, mentoring can lead to
an interesting situation, whether or not the student stay humble. When a mentor loses the ability to be humble about the mentor relationship they are in, or when they become prideful of themselves, that is when the mentoring will stop.
So maybe the bigger questions are: how do we teach humility for life? How do we teach what it means to BE a mentor to others?
I will have to get that book. What do you think?