Real Life Discipleship #4

  Reproducible Process

This is our fourth week in our look at what it means to help people become disciples of Jesus based on the Real Life Discipleship Training Manual.  Today, we are going to look at the Reproducible Process as outlined in the Bible and as utilized in our church’s discipleship ministry.  Think about Jesus’ goal with his apostles. His goal was to lead them to put their faith in him, and also to disciple them to a level of maturity where they can disciple others who can then become disciplemakers themselves.  Or, as we talk about at Lincoln Christian Church…”our goal is to turn sheep into shepherds.”

We have adapted the “wheel” image from Real Life Ministries to help us in two ways:  1) help identify where people are on their spiritual journey, and then 2) to identify what kind of of action that a disciplemaker needs to take to help them move to the next stage of growth.  Those stages are: spiritually dead, infant, child, young adult, and parent.  They aren’t based on age but on spiritual maturity.

A key tool for this process is to help people identify the “phrase from the stage.”  When we visit with people in study and conversation, we can begin to see where people are spiritually as we listen to them talk.  That helps us understand each person’s stage of growth.

As discipleship leaders, we need to keep our ears open to where people are spiritually and encourage them to take next steps.