We exist to educate God’s people!
We are to equip people to minister in today’s world through teaching and mentoring.
We must train and mobilize our Sunday audience into a Monday through Saturday army.
We can accomplish this only by training and equipping each individual who is a member of our church.
Everyone must move from believer in Jesus to disciple of Jesus. Only disciples are willing to pay the price of following Jesus alone.
We must assist our congregants in finding authentic Christianity and challenge them not “to accept forms of godliness while denying the power thereof.” (2 Timothy 3:5)
This process is best accomplished through teaching the individual through instruction called mentoring.
Making disciples is a critical component for implementing the Great Commission. In Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus commands his disciples to, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (NASB).
A disciple is much more than simply a believer in Jesus Christ – a disciple is an obedient follower. Unfortunately, discipleship is not automatic. There is no pill or class which one can take after which one will automatically become spiritually mature. Paul taught Timothy an important spiritual truth comparing the achieving and maintaining of spiritual maturity with achieving and maintaining physical fitness:
7 discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness; 8 for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.
1 Timothy 4:7-8 (NASB)
We need to understand that the pursuit of becoming a spiritually mature person is the responsibility of every Christian.
Too many churches have allowed the misconception to remain in too many Christians that discipleship is like physical maturity. They have wrongly assumed that after salvation spiritual maturity would occur automatically all by itself. As a result too many churches have no strategy for leading their members to grow spiritually.
Our church has asked and answered two questions:
1. What does the spiritual life of a devoted follower of Jesus Christ look like?
2. How do we lead individual Christians to practice that kind of spiritual life?
There are many strategies for developing spiritual depth in every member.
Perhaps the best means in developing devoted followers of Christ occurs during the evangelistic process. As an individual evangelist shares the gospel with an unbeliever, he/she needs to be careful not to diminish the personal responsibilities for living the Christian life including the costs of discipleship. None has better stated this price than Dietterich Bonhoffer in the opening line of the book, “The Cost of Discipleship,” when he penned, “When Jesus bids a man, he bids him come and die.” The perception that one may get saved and never live for Christ needs to be eradicated from all those who hold it.
There are many means for being discipled. The most effective form of discipling is one-on-one mentoring. We have a new members class in which we explain the expectations that our church has for its members, our church’s structure and strategy for reaching our community for Christ.
We also have spiritually mature members in a one-on-one discipling or mentoring ministry whom we pair with new members who are ready to exit this introductory class. These mentors help the new members assimilate into the church, get involved in a ministry of the church, and become growing Christians. We have discovered that many younger adults, especially when they have moved away from family, jump at the chance to get to know an experienced Christian.
If you want to become a discipling mentor of a new member you should be carefully and prayerfully placed into a mentoring relationship. When possible, we place individuals who have similar interests and similar personalities with one another. Usually an older mentor with a younger new member is the best situation. The older mentor will have life experience that the new member will find helpful. The mentor and the new member must be of the same sex.
As a mentor, you must be trained in order to be an effective discipler. We have found that people who love people or have the gift of encouragement do well.
The training includes:
1. The Master Plan for Discipleship
2. We give you our disciple/mentor goals
3. Please encourage the new member to become involved in a ministry of the church
4. You must also encourage the new member to develop the disciple habits of Bible study, fellowship, tithing, and prayer
5. Also you must encourage the new member to become an authentic New Testament Christian by following Christ in their heart, home, work, and family life.
As a mentor you are not to become a Christian counselor to the new member.
Mentors should notify the ministerial staff if the new member needs care which the you as the mentor are unable to provide. Once the discipling relationship has been established, you should meet weekly for at least 6 weeks, but 13 weeks is better.
After the initial weekly meetings the mentor/mentee pair should decide how often to meet, but they should meet at least monthly. If either the mentor or mentee discover that they are not a good match, then they are allowed to find a new mentor and/or mentee.
