The Importance of Training Others to Lead

In this issue of the Prayer Partner Update, we're giving away free e-copies of my book, The Whole Life Offering which was written as a comprehensive discipleship manual (see the Field Ops article for more details!).

I'm sometimes asked how the discipleship method outlined in my book looks for me and my church, which meets simultaneously in Colorado Springs, CO and Seoul Korea.

Well, when I travel to Korea I lead one of the Korean discipleship training meetings in person and I do one of the American meetings by video conference. When I'm in America I lead one of the discipleship training meetings in person and I do one of the Korean meetings by video conference.

I do this on purpose because it is good for disciples to grow by not always having the teacher around. 

If the teacher is always there in person the teacher usually does all of these things.  But because I am not always here the individual students have to learn to do these things. And that's why most of the church is not regularly in a meeting I'm leading-because the meetings are being led by those I'm leading.

In our discipleship training program, we take these ten Works of Mercy and we dedicate a month to each.  That's 10 months.  But before we start hearing and doing the word related to any of the specific Works of Mercy we take one month to study the overall concept of the whole life offering.  We call this the Preparation month which is also what I'm blogging about this month. We focus on questions like,

• What is the gospel?
• What is God's plan for each individual Christian?,
• What is discipleship?

Then, we spend the next ten months tackling each of the Works of Mercy.  Our last month we call the Presentation month. We look back over the whole year and give God glory for how he's grown us in each area. We set goals for the next year, when we are sent out to lead our own group in our own sphere of influence.

That's what happens in our church. No one can stay several years in this group, just "being fed." They get one year of intensive training, and then they're leading a group.

I still train the leaders of the groups, but the point is there's no such thing as someone who is permanently only being discipled but not discipling others. That goes against 2 Timothy 2:2:

"...and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also."

That applies to all of us.

We may not be leading huge congregations, but Christ is holding each of us responsible for discipling those in our own sphere of influence.

If you have any question about that, check out the Great Commission.

A group of women on their way to one of our discipleship training schools were captured and returned to North Korea.  They
will likely face incredible hardship in labor camps.

Pray that the Holy Spirit would comfort them and give them strength to continue sharing the Gospel.

The map above was created by WikiTravel.org user, Cacahuate, and is available here.  Click on map to view in higher resolution.