It is no secret that God calls the church to make disciples of Jesus Christ. It is, in fact, our main calling.\u00a0 But far too often we leave this important mission to others, primarily the pastor and\/or church staff.\u00a0 Sometimes we leave it to Sunday School teachers, or to those who are \u201cgifted\u201d in making disciples.<\/p>\n
It is true that there are some people who are better at making disciples than others.\u00a0 Thank God He places in the church those who find making disciples squarely within their gift-mix! But God calls ALL of us to be in the disciple-making business, which is the church\u2019s business.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why I have so often emphasized mentoring and small groups.<\/p>\n
Mentoring is one-on-one discipling.\u00a0 It is taking another, younger Christian or pre-Christian (not necessarily chronologically younger, just younger in the faith) under your \u201cwings\u201d and walking with them as they grow in discipleship.\u00a0 It requires spending time with them in the Word, prayer and doing the things that disciples of Jesus Christ do.\u00a0 It requires a commitment to relationship, and an intentional movement toward a deeper walk with Jesus.<\/p>\n
Small Groups do not substitute for mentoring, they provide a communal form of discipling.\u00a0 Each member of the small group is responsible to hold the other members accountable for discipleship growth.\u00a0 Small group members will spend some time with the other members outside of the small group gathering, but not as much as a mentor will spend with their mentee. Small groups meet to encourage one another, study something that helps them grow, and create a place where discipleship growth is noticed and celebrated.<\/p>\n
The whole church gathers each week to celebrate together what God has been doing in and through them in their own discipleship, their mentoring relationships and their small groups.\u00a0 It is a time to \u201cbring it all together\u201d and lift it up to God in worship.\u00a0 All three are necessary for a healthy church, doing discipleship well.<\/p>\n
How are you doing in these three areas? How could you do better?<\/p>\n
Blessings,
\nPastor Glen<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is no secret that God calls the church to make disciples of Jesus Christ. It is, in fact, our main calling.\u00a0 But far too often we leave this important mission to others, primarily the pastor and\/or church staff.\u00a0 Sometimes we leave it to Sunday School teachers, or to those who are \u201cgifted\u201d in making […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":1169,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,104,39,113,38,102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-news","category-fellowship","category-local-outreach","category-newsletters","category-outreach","category-pastoral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2336"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2337,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336\/revisions\/2337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefount.church\/church\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}