Time is on your side for discipleship

I recently received a phone call from a former student whom I discipled over 15 years ago.  He called me concerning some issues in his life that he needed to get straight, but ultimately he opened up and really responded when we began talking about someone close to him who was in trouble. Not only did this young man who I now call my ‘friend’ (I believe that the process of discipleship is from reckless follower to disciplined follower to friend) need help for his life, but he really needed coaching to help his friend. I often speak about Disciples ‘discipling’ Disciples, in other words to take LaCrea’s famous line ‘disciple-cycles’. We aren’t only helping kids get themselves together just for themselves or just for the moment; we are engaged in a kingdom agenda that causes us to make change in the lives of students who will in turn change others around them for the rest of their lives!  With that in mind, I want to briefly encourage you in one of the greatest tools that you have in effective discipleship: time.

I was once asked in an email, if I thought discipling urban kids was more effective than preaching to them.  That’s a really good question.  Out of experienced reflex most of us will answer a resounding ‘discipleship’ because we know that our kids need not only the gospel, but a context as to how the gospel works in one’s life and that’s only given by sharing and opening a window into our lives’ for them to see how this ‘living for Jesus’ thing works. See 1 Thessalonians 2:8

Right now, almost 100% of discipleship mistakes are made because we live in a "hurry up" world and folks are used to ‘instant’ gratification. In fact, almost all "problems" with ‘making disciples’ can be traced back to one thing:

*Trying To Disciple Converts Too Fast*

Here's why:
Proper discipleship takes time…and lots of it. Now although it doesn’t seem like it, but for the urban youth worker, time is their ultimate friend. We just use this tool called time the wrong way and find ourselves fighting against it rather than letting it work for us.

Bring A Student Behind The Scenes of Your Ministry. Even when you're planning your studies, lessons or just hang out times, you're actually spending quality time so invite a student into your planning world (go on and let them see behind the curtain of the ‘wiz’).  You’ll be surprised how much they pick up as they discover how much it actually takes to keep ministry fresh and alive for teens (and they might stop goofing around during your lessons and actually listen). If schedules conflict and you can’t get as much time together, try planning online.  You can use a Google calendar to sync to your regular calendar and post your events and dates online for your students and leaders to see (and remember the price for all of this is FREE).  Of course you know this means that you need to ‘get’ a Google account if you don’t have one. Just go to www.google.com and start an account.  If you have any questions, email me and we’ll walk through it together.

Another very important reason why trying to rush discipleship won't work is that we try to go relationally deep with EVERY KID WE MEET!  Now I know that you are God’s anointed man or woman for the hour full of faith and power, but the truth is that you can’t go deep with every student.  Just say this out loud and feel the stress roll off of your shoulders, “I CAN’T GO DEEP WITH EVERY STUDENT I MEET”. Take your time, spread out the leadership responsibility and you will successfully change the world one student at a time.

FREDDIE FREEBIE: I have a free excerpt from a great book that you may need to add to your toolbox.  The name of the book is: Help my Kids are Hurting.  Marv Penner a YS vet, great communicator and incredible thinker, wrote it.  I’d encourage you to check it out and share the pdf with your youth leaders. 

Sharing the gospel from ‘Street to Street’

Fred D. Lynch III
GodStyle Productions

Fred Lynch is the founder of GodStyle Productions. A ministry committed to changing youth culture. For more information on Fred, go to www.godstyle.com or check out his latest project The Script (the gospel of John translated into rap) at: www.godstyle.com