Discipleship is Key

I will never forget my first year of ministry at Woodland Hills Christian Church in Abingdon, VA. I was fresh out of Bible College in 2011 and just knew I had all the answers. I mean, how hard could it be to deal with middle and high school students? Little did I know, I was in over my head! Within the first couple months, I realized I could not tackle this on my own. I needed help and I needed it fast. This brought me to my first “light bulb” moment in ministry, Discipleship is key. You see, in Bible College they teach you all about scripture but one thing I was lacking…how to grab and maintain reliable volunteers. In our ministry we call these people SHEPHERDS. We now have 16 Shepherds who lead our D-Groups on Sunday evening. For what it’s worth here are my keys in building a good Shepherd base:

1.      ASK. If you are not willing to ask, people will never know the help you need and or desire. All it took was a personal note allowing my chosen people the opportunity to serve. For me, it meant humbling myself, laying pride aside and learning the power of asking.

2.      VISION CAST. Listen, if you are not ready with a vision in place, you may well have not even asked. Come prepared with the vision you have laid-out for the upcoming year or two. This step is crucial in order to gain volunteers for discipleship. They have to be “sold-out” for what you have planned.

3.      TRAIN/EQUIP. Once you have asked and have willing volunteers, then comes the training portion of Discipleship. This is a must-have step in the process. If your volunteers do not feel adequately trained, they will not feel empowered to tackle the task you have laid out for them. In our ministry, I have created a 5 week “Shepherding the Next Generation.” With insight from “Real-Life Discipleship” by Jim Putman, these are the sessions: Leading Small (Intimacy), Commitment and Consistency (Intentional), Relational Mentoring (Authenticity), Blue Print for Success (Strategic: Biblical Model of Making Disciples), Where do we go from here? In order to train and equip to best suite your ministry, take all resources you may have and shape them to fit (just don’t take all the creditJ).  

4.      DELEGATE. You have to be willing and able to let go of some things in order for the Shepherding process to be effective. “Pride comes before the fall.” It is crucial for you to lay your pride aside and humble yourself in order to allow your Shepherds full reign in the discipleship process. An effective leader is one who is willing to let go so the ministry can grow to new heights.

Jesus was the master of discipleship. This is how we are to model discipleship, the way in which Jesus did. Jesus gathered His group together (disciples), He casted the Vision (the Gospel), He trained them (walked along side), and He Delegated (The Great Commission). This is the example we have to follow. We have to allow discipleship to happen in order to fulfill the commission marked out for us.