If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, in that He died to rescue & redeem you from your sins and rose again to give you hope of eternal relationship with Him, instead of infinite estrangement, then someone, somehow told you about Him.
I pray that since then, someone has worked with you, trained you as an apprentice, taught you how to develop a relationship with God, to serve and love Him, and others, in His name.
If you have been discipled like this, you are like that person's spiritual son or daughter. The person who trained your discipler is your spiritual grandmother or grandfather. So which apostle do you think is your super great grandfather in the faith?
My favorite's Peter (I love his passion and the way God uses him to demonstrate His abundant forgiveness).
The same parting words with which Jesus left our spiritual ancestors have been passed down from one generation to another along with the good news of His salvation: "Go and make disciples of all nations." (Matt 28:19)
I have a fantastic new understanding of what this looks like after a summer of reading Master Plan of Evangelism with the lovely Shannon Morton who has so graciously been discipling me. "Make disciples" does NOT just mean "Make believers, make converts," it means make believers and then train them into maturity.
Give them someone to whom they can be an apprentice, someone walking closely with the Lord, whom they can imitate and in so doing imitate God!
It means, teach them to observe all that He has commanded us! (Matt 28:20) It means teach them to LOVE HIM with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to LOVE OTHERS as themselves. This is all He has commanded us!
{Me with Erin, my Bible Study leader from last year, Shannon, and Mark, in the background, all of whom have taught me more by their examples than could ever be put into words}
I dare say people learn best by observation and imitation. Just LOVE HIM. LOVE OTHERS. and find younger believers or people who don't know God to bring into your life.
Just let them hang out with you and your family or friends, follow you around, see how you are kind to your waiter, or patient in traffic, or quick to come to someone's service without desiring that your good deed be noticed. Let them see you pray before making a big decision, or use the Word to govern your behavior.
In just letting someone watch you walk with Him, you will teach them to walk with Him, and you will make a true disciple.
We don't want to just make believers who will stay baby Christians, unable to digest solid food. Feed them scripture, feed them an example, and watch them mature from believer to disciple, a disciple who will be able to make more disciples for His glory!
I am so grateful for this new understanding as we go into directing Doulos this fall. We get to be part of the lives of all of these precious freshmen and hopefully provide them with good examples in their sophomore leaders who are growing with the Lord and who can train them to follow Him!
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