My experience as a Southern Baptist informed my understanding of discipleship until beginning ministry and dealing with the realities of practical discipleship. When first serving as a pastor, the discipleship model I followed was a traditional discipleship hour in the church where basic Christian principles, doctrine and church polity are taught, all of which is commendable. Over the years of observing the effects of this model of discipleship, the conclusion that seems most reasonable while this is this is a great education system with a place in the church, it has no resemblance to real discipleship. Out of this realization came a desire to find curriculum that would facilitate what I had begun to formulate as real discipleship, the teaching of Christian principles, along with their application and personal accountability that would transform ones life to be like that of Christ. After experimenting with various curriculum, “Real Faith,” by “Life Builders,” a division of Campus Crusades for Christ, was my choice. “Real Faith” would still be my choice of material today, except it is out of print. They are, however developing new material. If you are interested, go to: http://www.lifebuildersnet.org, and watch for it’s release.
At this stage of my quest for Living Exponentially, my way of describing Christian Mentoring, I am not so concerned about curriculum, though the content is important, as I am the process. Currently, I have about 10 people enrolled in an adult discipleship class. We are using the Real Faith material, and are currently in session five. If you are familiar with the material you will understand, if not just follow along anyway. The Material is designed for individual discipleship and to take about twenty-four weeks to complete. While I have found no better material, my growing experience is that you cannot put a timetable on discipleship. In fairness to Life Builders, my training for the material clearly taught that you are not required to follow a rigid week-by-week schedule, and you will probably need to go back and revisit old lessons as issues arise again. As I reflect on the model seen in Jesus working with His disciples, however, I do not see a “set curriculum.” Because He was “Jesus,” His calling others to follow Him was not something that needed to be taught. Knowing that we are not Jesus, in any discipleship plan it seems we first need to clarify what it means to follow Jesus, or be a disciple of Christ. How are you saved and how do you know when you are saved is another way of expressing this. It seems that from this point forward, the process of discipleship needs to be an open slate. While the human experience is common, “no temptation [test, trial] is common to man…” (1 Corinthians 10:13), every person has a unique combination of experiences in life and begins their walk with Jesus from a different place. The question for today then is, “how can any one discipleship plan be right for every person?” Would it not be better to develop a resource that provides discipleship references to God’s Word along with alternatives to facilitate communication relative to various life circumstances and experiences? I love the stories in “Real Faith,” but not every story communicates with every believer’s personality, culture, or life experience. I am convinced that discipleship should be more about the person than the process. It’s focus should be the person being mentored, helping them go from wherever they are to where Jesus wants to take them. This, of course involves sensitivity to the leadership of the Holy Spirit, but we’ll save that for later. I pray this gives you food for thought, and perhaps speaks to your heart.