Personal discipleship – part 2

Posted by on Jun 28, 2010 | Comments Off

The 3 components of discipleship

OK, so someone’s approached you about discipling them and you’ve said yes.  Awesome… but now what?  At this point many people freak out because they have no clue what to do after saying “yes”.  When you look at the discipleship examples of Jesus and Paul (the clearest in Scripture) their discipleship boils down to three things: modeling, teaching, addressing weaknesses/encouraging strengths.

1.  Modeling

Discipleship isn’t just teaching information.  It’s imparting a lifestyle.  You’re not simply inviting them to a meeting; you’re inviting them to watch your life.  Jesus LIVED with his disciples for 3.5 years.  Every second of that time was discipleship.  The first and most effective aspect of personal discipleship is modeling godly living.  This means inviting your disciples into your life to model godly living for them as much as possible.

A couple ideas…

  • Invite them to family dinners
  • Invite them to holidays if their family isn’t in town
  • If you’re working in the yard or on a house project, call them for some help
  • Plan your grocery shopping schedules to go with each other
  • Occasional double dates

Letting them watch you be a mom or dad, make decisions about your finances, pursue God, love your spouse, fail to love your spouse, repent of failing to love your spouse – all of these things are things you can disciple them in by simply inviting them into your life to watch.


2. Teaching

Weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly meetings for Bible teaching are huge.  Tomorrow’s post is all about this, but my meetings usually include…

  • Prayer
  • Discussion of a book we’re reading together
  • Discussion of a portion of Scripture we studied or memorized that week

Just like Jesus lived with his disciples but also expounded upon the Scriptures to them, so should you.

3.  Addressing Weaknesses/Encouraging Strengths

As your relationship deepens and you get to know your disciple better, encouraging them in their strengths and helping them address their weaknesses will be a truly special role you increasingly take on.  You can’t start this from Day 1.  You build to this after showing them you love them and gaining trust.  Again, I’m devoting a blog post just to this role later this week but here are some tips…

  • Wait until you are confident that they trust you, respect you, and know that you believe in them before addressing a weakness… unless they ask you.  (HINT: the greatest thing you can do for someone who’s discipling you is to humbly ask them what weaknesses they see, opening the door for them to speak into your life)
  • From Day 1 begin developing a vision for who your disciple could become if they entrusted their lives wholeheartedly to God.  Envision the things God might use them to do for his kingdom and glory with their gifts.  Before you confront weaknesses and areas of sin they need to know that you believe in them and what God is going to do in their life.
  • Identify and encourage the strengths of a person 10x more than you address their weaknesses if at all possible.  Encourage, encourage, encourage to show them that you love them and believe in them.
  • Keep your vision for them in the forefront of the “weaknesses confrontation”.  Communicate that you want to see them maximize their kingdom potential and THAT is the reason you’re confronting this weakness – to help them grow to that goal.

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