3 Practices to Grow in Discipelship Freedom
Read Part 1: Discipleship Should Be Freeing
OK, so I’ll admit, it can still feel weighty and burdensome at times. That’s why we have to institute some practices in our lives to train up our ‘discipling muscles’ so it becomes easier. Here are 3 simple suggestions out of many possibilities that can help you move as you move toward intentional discipleship on your teams and in your lives:
1. Always be reading the Gospels. How can we be learning about discipleship if we are not learning from Jesus? Even though I’ve read the Gospels many, many times, since last June I have read from them daily and plan on doing so the rest of my life. Let me tell you, you want a freeing experience? Read the Gospels and pay attention to the disciples. They don’t call them the duh-sciples for nothing. Yet these men changed the world because they were disciples of Jesus who made disciples of Jesus. Learn from them, learn from Jesus, read the Gospels on a continual loop.
2. Shrink your discipleship circle. Are you a site director at your church with hundreds of volunteers under you? Leader of a Team with 15 people on it? Feel like you could never disciple all these people? First of all, recognize that all of the time you have with them is discipleship, but then realize that you need to be in an equipping relationship with only a few of them. Jesus called 12 by name out of the larger group of disciples. Love and lead all, intentionally disciple a few.
3. Get ‘discipled’ yourself. Has anyone ever said the Apostle Paul’s words personally to you, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” Probably not. We haven’t been great at modeling discipleship. This alone should be freeing: how can you expect to be a great disciple if no one has shown you how? Find someone in your life who can help you along the journey, even as you are leading. If you need help beginning this relationship with someone, please contact me or Mark Weaver and we can help make these connections.
These posts are not suggesting that there isn’t a responsibility or that it will be easy. However, discipleship should be freeing. If that is not your experience, that’s OK too! We’re all growing in this together as a family. Whatever you do, don’t sit under that bondage and burden. Talk with someone—a friend, Campus Pastor, trusted peer—that is your very first move toward freedom as a leader.