How To Disciple Well

Hi guys. I just wanted to share two thoughts around discipling and mentoring with you. This is something I get asked about quite a lot. So I wanted to share the two keys that I found most helpful in discipling and mentoring other people. And the first is around being family together and the second is about keeping people accountable for their destiny. So firstly, family. I think historically, in the church we’ve done a lot of discipleship that’s been meeting-based, organizing time to do Bible studies together or I don’t know, prayer meetings together and it’s not that that’s bad.

It’s just that there’s a lot of fruitfulness that comes from inviting people into family and into life with us. I find it incredibly empowering where I’ve invited people into my space, into my life and they can see the good and the bad. They can see the weaknesses and the successes and when we see in the Gospels that’s how Jesus did discipleship. He invited people in to life with him and to journey with him so that they could learn from his everyday circumstances. And so I wanna encourage you if you’re doing discipling, invite people into life with you, into family with you where they can see you with your kids maybe, and your spouse, and just journey together in everyday life moments, dropping grace moments, lots of empowering conversation in your everyday life. And the second thing is accountability.

I think in the past, maybe, we’ve done a lot of accountability around sin and around weakness, getting together on a weekly basis talking about the things we’ve gone wrong with and asking for prayer about our sins, and I think that puts the focus on the negative rather than putting the focus on the destiny that God has spoken over us. And Graham Cooke talks about Ephesians 4, where it says speaking the truth in love to one another and he makes the point that truth isn’t an idea. He’s a person and He lives inside of you and me.

Jesus lives inside of you and me, and so that verse in Ephesians isn’t about getting to criticize one another and then saying, “Oh, I was doing it out of love.” But is rather about speaking Christ-likeness into one another, reminding one another who we are and who we’ve been made to be. And so I want to encourage you in your discipling, create accountability around destiny, not around sin. Create accountability around greatness, not around weakness. And as we remind one another who God has made us to be and who lives inside of us, then actually sin and weakness fade away because we’re focusing on the glory that God has put on us, the glory that He’s put in us for the transformation of everything around us. And so do family, do accountability around destiny. That’s the most exciting way to do discipling.