A Cup of Tea With Me

Heart for God (John 1:38-42)

1. Does he/she seek to obey God in every area in which she knows God’s will?
2. Does he/she spend time in God’s Word?
3. Does he/she seek to tell others about Christ?
4. Does he/she spend time in prayer?
5. Does he/she talk about what he/she is learning from the Lord?
6. Is God changing his/her life?

Available (Luke 5:1-11)

1. Has he/she been willing to participate in ministry opportunities? Has he/she been increasingly willing to sacrifice his/her time to take advantage of ministry opportunities?
2. From what you know about this person, would his/her schedule permit him/her to be involved in ministry opportunities?

Faithful (John 6:66-69)

1. Does he/she follow through on commitments?
2. Does he/she make commitments to do things he/she knows are important?

Teachable

1. Does he/she seek out the advice of others?
2. Does he/she apply God’s Word to his/her life?
3. When he/she is convicted, does he/she respond?

Your Goal
Simply put, your goal is to invite 2 people to meet with you for 1 1/2 hours a week for a year (if you are in a college town or are discipling students, you may want to set this up to be “for a school year”) and then multiply by encouraging them to do the same. In that time, you will mutually encourage each other to be more like Jesus Christ.

How do I begin?

1. Pray about who God has for you to disciple.
2. Ask yourself, “Is this person faithful and teachable?”
3. Approach him/her and say, “I have been praying about spending time each week in a discipleship relationship with someone. The Lord has laid you on my heart. I’d like to know if you’d like to meet with me (and possibly another person if you have a triad) once a week to study the Word, pray and challenge each other to become more like Christ. Pray about it this week and let’s get together sometime so I can tell you more about it. You can commit to it after that if you choose.”

The first Get-together: The Commitment Meeting

• Get to know each other. Share your testimonies, about your family, you ministry involvements, your future aspirations, etc.
• Discuss the commitment, both time commitment and spiritual commitment. Be specific in your expectations about meetings, materials, teachability and openness.
• Discuss curriculum or material and what kind of assignments you’ll be giving.
• Give him/her a discipleship covenant and “Plan for personal growth” sheet to fill out and bring back to the next meeting as an indication of readiness to begin (both to come later).
• Set your next meeting time.

The second get-together

• Share about what God has been doing in your week.
• Talk over the the personal growth sheet. Ask for clarification. Make notes about topics you’d like to cover and needs that jumping out based upon what he/she wrote down.
• Read Luke 9:1-6, 23-27, Luke 1425-35 together and answer the following questions:
  • What is a disciple?
  • What does it cost to be a disciple?
  • Am I willing to count the cost and follow Christ?
  • What does it mean for me in a specific, tangible way on a daily basis?
• Give him/her your first assignment.
• Ask for prayer needs and pray together.

What now?
Every week plan to spend about 30 minutes share about your week and asking accountability questions, 45 minutes on the material you have chosen and 15 minutes praying together.

Every so often, evaluate the discipleship process. If it seems to hit a valley, you may want to try and change things up a bit. Or sadly, if things are not working, you may need to end the relationship.

I am not done with my posts on discipleship. I need to head out for errands. I hope to finish these posts today, but it may be later this week.

1. Life Investment

2 Timothy 1:1-4 (AMP):
PAUL, AN apostle (special messenger) of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
To Timothy, [my] beloved child: Grace (favor and spiritual blessing), mercy, and [heart] peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord!
I thank God Whom I worship with a pure conscience, in the spirit of my fathers, when without ceasing I remember you night and day in my prayers,
And when, as I recall your tears, I yearn to see you so that I may be filled with joy.

Paul’s discipleship of Timothy was clearly based on a relationship, on that was “rooted and grounded in love”. Not impersonal teaching, but a deep intentional, relationship.
Mutual love (John 13:35), transparency and accountability.
Customized to the unique needs of individual people. - Be flexible
Walk alongside each other - running the race together (Hebrews 12:1)

Corinthians 3:3 (AMP):
You show and make obvious that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, not written with ink but with [the] Spirit of [the] living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

2. Multiplication

2 Timothy 2:2 (AMP):
And the [instructions] which you have heard from me along with many witnesses, transmit and entrust [as a deposit] to reliable and faithful men who will be competent and qualified to teach others also.

Disciple a person in a way that they will be able to reproduce themselves.
This is why it is important to seek out faithful and teachable people to disciple.
This was Jesus’ plan for discipleship.

3. Transformation

Romans 12:2:
Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].

Transparent trust - be real and open with each other
Encouragement (Hebrews 11:24-25)
Walking through the tough times together (1 Corinthians 12:26, 1 Thessalonians 3:10)
Knowing the truth of God’s word and making it a priority! (Psalm 19:7-11)

2 Timothy 3:16-17 (AMP):
Every Scripture is God-breathed (given by His inspiration) and profitable for instruction, for reproof and conviction of sin, for correction of error and discipline in obedience, [and] for training in righteousness (in holy living, in conformity to God’s will in thought, purpose, and action),
So that the man of God may be complete and proficient, well fitted and thoroughly equipped for every good work.

But I don’t feel capable to do this…

Matthew 4:19-20 (AMP):
And He said to them, Come after Me [as disciples--letting Me be your Guide], follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men!
At once they left their nets and became His disciples [sided with His party and followed Him].

Jesus doesn’t call people who are already qualified and ready to “make fishers of men”…instead, He is is the one who made them fishers of men. Jesus was their adequacy, and He is our adequacy too (2 Corinthians 3:5). He isn’t looking for people who think they know what they are doing, who think they can handle this on their own; He is simply looking for our humble obedience and submission to His will. If God calls you to disciple someone, he will provide you with the strength to do it!

It’s true; we aren’t capable of doing this…in our own strength

Ephesians 3:20 (AMP):
Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams]–

Before we ever get started, we have to come to the realization that we will never be effective disciples according to our own strength and ability. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit in us that we will be able to disciple others. Humble yourself before the Lord and surrender this over to Him.

So, what is discipleship?
“Discipling is an intentional relationship in which we walk alongside other disciples in order to encourage, equip and challenge one another in love to grow toward maturity in Christ. This includes equipping the disciple to teach others as well.” - Greg Ogden

• In looking at the life of Jesus, it is basically “doing life with another person”. It is investing in someone (through the power of the Spirit) in a way that causes them to be more like Christ and more in love with Christ. It also implies a sending out of the disciple to now be the one who makes disciples.

Why do discipleship?

• Jesus did it (Ephesians 5:1 - Be imitators of God)
• Because Jesus Commands us to do it. (Matthew 28:19-20) - This is a personal call on each of our lives! It is incredible to know that in doing this we are in the center of God’s will for our life…what a sweet place to be
• Because we love Jesus and we desire to be obedient…not out of compulsion (1 Peter 5-1-3 and 2 Corinthians 5:14)

Jesus’ ministry on earth
His ministry was not all about appealing to the masses of people, instead He invested in a few people that would go out and spread the Gospel after He was gone.

• “We need to have enough vision to think small” - building the church up solidly with only a few people at a time.

I have been wanting to share this with you for a while. It will most likely be a series of posts. I took a bible study, through my church this summer. It was very good, even if I did not get to attend every lesson. I had the folder and worked through it.

The lesson was taught by the wife of our University Minister, and they use this same lesson to teach their students how to disciple. Mind you, this is not discipling. I will get into that later. She used copies of chapters of books. I cannot share those for several obvious reasons. So, here is a list of the books that she used:

• Transforming Discipleship: Making Disciples a Few at a Time
• Disciples Are Made, Not Born
• Becoming a Titus 2 Woman; A Bible Study with Martha Peace

I have not read the books completely, only the chapters she shared with us, but they are on my reading list.

Let me start out by sharing the difference between discipleship and evangelism. Both are necessary.

Evangelism is the outreach. Telling people about Christ. Leading them to salvation. This can be done one on one, or in groups. You may plant the seeds, but you may not be the person to lead them to Christ. That does not mean you should not evangelize. We are to take the Good News to the world.

Discipleship is teaching them to live Christ-like lives.

Matthew 28:18-20 (AMP):
¹⁸ Jesus approached and, breaking the silence, said to them, All authority (all power of rule) in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.
¹⁹ Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
²⁰ Teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you all the days (perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion), to the [very] close and consummation of the age. Amen (so let it be).
(emphasis added)

I am going to end this post here, as I do not want the posts to be so long that I loose you. Look for more on this topic soon. I will be sharing the handouts only. I believe that most of the neccessary information can be found in there. However. I encourage you to pick up and read the books listed above. What I have read of them has been very informative.