Life-on-Life Discipleship – From A Pastor's Heart

For years I watched it happen in the back yard of our next door neighbor.

There was Dad patiently, sometimes frustratingly, teach his son and daughter the mechanics of pitching a ball, swinging a bat or fielding a grounder.

There it was . . . discipleship . . . mentorship . . . training in action!

Discipleship is not the latest “buzzword” in Christian circles.

Discipleship describes the Christ-life, who we are as believers in Christ.

Discipleship is a growing, intimate follower of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:9; Philippians 3:10; 2 Peter 3:18) whose passion in life is to help others come to know and follow Christ (Matthew 28:18-20).

But it does not end there. The goal for God’s glory is to see a disciple disciple others; it’s reproduction (1 Timothy 1:2; 2 Timothy 2:1-2; Titus 2:1-10; Heb. 3:12-13; 10:24-25).

As I would watch my neighbor teach his kids how to play ball, he was sharing what he had learned from someone else. One day, perhaps, his children will teach others as well.

Today, the local church needs:

Believers living out the Christ-life of discipleship.
Believers who are hungry to grow and change in Christlikeness, willing to meet with others for the purpose of searching the Scriptures and learning to appropriate who we are in Christ in practical ways.

Are you a genuine, passionate follower of Christ?

Would you be willing to mentor that young lady who is longing for help in her marriage and blended family situation?
Would you be willing to meet with that man who is struggling with a divided heart, wanting to live for Christ but experiencing a strong pull from the world’s allurements?
Would you be willing to meet every other week with a man at a restaurant and read through Scripture and/or a book like Disciplines of a Godly Man?
Would you be willing to invite a lady into your home to study the Word and then train her how to plan and cook a week of meals for her family?
Would you be willing to sit down at a coffee shop with a young man who just graduated from high school who needs encouragement to continue to follow Christ?

Discipleship is hard, supernatural, rewarding work. The needs are great! Every believer should be involved in the lives of others helping them take the next step toward Christ.

Will you pick up the spiritual bat, ball and glove and show someone how to follow Christ? The rewards are eternal!

“You used a Black & Decker drill to perform surgery on a man in jail?” That was my response a few years ago as an OB-GYN doctor serving in medical missions in Africa told her story while we were gathered around our dining room table. Even better was the fact that this man later came to believe in Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior (John 3:16; Romans 3:23; 6:23; 10:9-13).

This story was one of probably a thousand or more in my lifetime! Growing up in a pastor’s home provided many opportunities for evangelists, college presidents, pastors, and missionaries to put their feet under our kitchen table and/or sleep in our guest bedroom.

I can remember as a grade school aged boy sitting at the kitchen table after an evening church service listening to all kinds of ministry stories. Those memories are also a part of my junior and senior high school days as well as college.

With eyes wide open and ears open even wider, those narratives told me that life was full of blessings, fun, hardships, trials, laughter, questions, burdens, answers to prayer, rich in Bible knowledge and application, and tears to name a few. But no doubt about it, those stories from real Christians revealed a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ and an unshakable faith in an awesome, faithful, promise-keeping God!

Interesting enough, I did not learn until long after I had left home that it was my dad who invited most of those folks home. My mom really did not like duty in the kitchen. That was just not her “cup-of-tea.” I share this to encourage you. Our meals were usually very simple. The table was not elaborately set. Mom used what she had, and in our early days at home, that was not much.

You see, it was not the food at the table I remember or how the table was decorated that has left an indelible impression upon me. Most assuredly, it was all those hours in the presence of simple servants of the Lord.

How grateful I am that many, many times, my folks would let me stay up on a school night way past bedtime to sit under the influence of such godly men and women. The eternal influence in their eyes was always more important than the temporal influence.

May I encourage you to host missionaries, evangelists, preachers, and other servants of the Lord in your home? How cool it is to have a faithful missionary from a far-away land while eating dessert share accounts of God’s grace, protection, and answers to prayer! What an impact it is to listen to a preacher tell about a lost soul receiving Christ as his Savior or expound the Word while eating a grilled cheese sandwich! Oh, how wonderful to hear a college president while enjoying a bowl of corn chowder share how the Lord provided the school’s needs at just the right time!

Parents, your children need to experience this! They need to experience it often.

Prepare the guest room, fix some sandwiches and invite a servant of the Lord into your home. By the way, be sure to open your ears, too!