Four or Five Secret Ingredients to Jesus’ Discipleship Sauce

Just listened to Youth Specialties weekly podcast (http://youthspecialties.com/freeresources/podcasts), which featured Seth Barnes (checkout his blog: http://www.sethbarnes.com/) talking about discipleship. Barnes first talked about his passion for discipling his own kids, which is huge. Jim Burns’ (http://www.homeword.com/AboutUs/JimBurns.aspx) main point in Partnering with Parents is that parents are the most effective disciplers of their own kids and that youth leaders need to equip parents to disciple and purposefully influence their kids for Jesus.

Barnes lays out five, which I’m condensing to four, “secrets” to discipleship that he derived from his study of Jesus’ methodology in Luke.

1. Jesus goes with the goers – instead of trying to reach as many young people as possible, Barnes is promoting the idea of investing in a few, perhaps twelve like Jesus.
2. Model greatness – we have to live out our faith before our young people through service, missions trips, prayer, personal spiritual discipline, so that they can see what authentically following Jesus looks like.
3. Next Barnes talks about how we need to create the paradox of security and risk. On the one hand we need to create a safe place for our young people to seek after Jesus and open up their hearts to Him, youth leaders, and peers. So a safe place for soul work, but also provide an environment for young people to take risks and face danger. Barnes talks about how missions trips can help put people in these types of situations.
4. Invest deep and long (this is the one I’m condensing) – spend time with young people and give them opportunities to talk about the deep issues of their hearts: pain, dreams, and desires. Also be prepared to go the distance with them – stay in touch with them after college, and connect them with resources, tools, and other ministries that can reach them in ways that we don’t have the time, resources, or ability to.

My next blog post will discuss how I’m seeing these four secrets play out in the lives of five senior high guys that God’s given me the privilege of investing in.

Advertisement