Last week I began a series of articles about the real mission of the church, which is to make disciples. Too many churches have stopped short of this mission and settled for making converts. They do this by leading people to Jesus, but not raising these people to full maturity in Christ. This is the major reason the church isn’t having more impact on the world today. If you missed last week’s blog, you can check it out here.
In this article, I want to focus on how to train a person God has called you to disciple. There are three basic components we are going to examine in this article. They are instruction, modeling, and then giving your disciple opportunities to do what they have been taught.
Before we go further I want to emphasize we are called to train disciples, not just teach them. Proverbs 22:6 says to train a child in the way they way they should go and when they are old they won’t depart from it. This passage says to train, not teach.
Teaching is more theoretical and abstract than training. Training is hands-on and practical. For example, if a person teaches a child how to make their bed, they would give them instructions on how to make the bed. If they trained them, however, they’d instruct them, then show them how to do it (modeling), and then give them the opportunity to do it themself. When the child made the bed, they would give them feedback. They would affirm them on what they did right and correct mistakes they made so the child could learn how to properly make the bed.
The American church is great with instruction, but we do not always do a great job of modeling or giving people opportunities to do what they have been taught and giving specific feedback so the person can learn and grow. Jesus didn’t operate this way. Jesus always made the theoretical practical and made the theological experiential. Jesus trained His disciples and gave them the opportunity to grow.
With that foundation laid, let’s take a look at the training process. The first step in the training process is instruction. Jesus taught his disciples. Examples include Matthew 4:23, Matthew 7:28, and Matthew 9:35. These verses are below:
Matthew 4:23 And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.
Matthew 7:28 And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching,
Matthew 9:35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
As simple as this is to say, it cannot be emphasized enough that people cannot know what to do unless they are taught. We must instruct our disciples.
The second step in the training process is modeling. After teaching His disciples, Jesus then modeled the way. An example of this is Matthew 9:35. Jesus taught the disciples in the synagogues and then He modeled things He taught them by healing sickness and disease. Jesus showed the disciples how to pray prayers of faith for sick people and cast demons out before He sent the disciples to do so.
This leads to step three, which is giving your disciple the opportunity to do what you have taught them to do. After training and modeling in Matthew 9, Jesus then sent out the 12 in Matthew 10:
5 These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.
Jesus sent the disciples to do many of the things He had taught and modeled to them for a period of time. This was important because it gave them the opportunity to put into practice things they had been taught, which would allow them to discover what they really understood. When we read this account in Luke 9, we discover they preached the gospel and healed everywhere. They had great success! Praise God!
In Luke 10, Jesus sent out 70 others and they also had great success ministering to people! When they did, Jesus gave positive feedback to encourage them! Look at Luke 10:
17 Then the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.”
18 And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you. 20 Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”
When our disciples do well, we need to give them positive feedback to encourage them. This is a reward, which will motivate them. Doing right in the absence of reward is working in a vaccuum, which is ultimately unsatisfying. We must provide positive feedback!
At the same time, we must also provide negative feedback when a disciple makes mistakes. We should ensure we are kind and we affirm them in their identity in Christ, but must we most address wrong actions if we want to see them grow and change. Jesus did this a lot. One example is in Luke 9:51-56 when His disciples wanted to call down fire from heaven on the Samaritans because they rejected Jesus. In Luke 9:55-56 Jesus rebuked them and said:
55 But He turned and rebuked them, and said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. 56 For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them.” And they went to another village.
Jesus brought correction. He didn’t just say, “Now is the season of grace. It doesn’t matter what they do or one day the Holy Spirit will show them.” Jesus took responsibility and brought necessary correction. This is hard because bringing correction isn’t fun as we are often afraid of offending people by bringing negative feedback. If we love them, however, and want to see them grow into all Christ has for them, we need to give our disciples feedback when they get it wrong.
There is no way to get around the fact that training people is really hard. It requires a lot of time as well as physical and emotional energy, but the reward is always more than the cost! I hope this article has helped and encouraged you. I pray the Lord gives you wisdom about how to apply these concepts towards those you are discipling. Look for opportunities to instruct, model, and allowing them to attempt to what you have taught them. This is key to their growth. If you’d like to learn more, check out this message I taught at Grace Life Church.
