Diary of a Discipleship Relationship

After our friend Lexi responded so enthusiastically to AWANA and her new Bible, I feared spiritual attacks aimed both at her enthusiasm, and at our ability to disciple her. After she completed her school homework on Thursday, she put her Bible in a plastic grocery bag and headed over to our house.

I know this how, exactly? Because Peter loves to look out the window and announce the comings and goings of his friends.

Lexi, being highly distracted, got involved in squabbles with neighborhood kids along the way and it wasn't until after 6:00 PM that she made it over here, her Bible still in one piece. :)

That squeezed our evening awkwardly but we did manage to serve her ice cream and have a Bible reading and study time with her. And some more good news!  We got permission to take her to church with us this Sunday, at her suggestion. She's still very excited about all this, thank you, Jesus.

I must be better organized to accommodate regular Bible study with her. One-on-one discipleship is something I strongly believe in. In my mind it's the most effective method for The Church to grow strong enough to really impact society for Christ--and I don't refer to strength in numbers. Too many Christians live like everyone else, resulting in a weakened, low-impact presence in our world.

One-on-one discipleship is not only training in the Word, but a concentrated question and answer, teacher and student relationship that builds trust and digs in deep, meeting the believer, or the seeker, right where she's at.

Satellite church groups popular now, in which small groups of a congregation meet during the week, don't meet the need for personal discipleship. They certainly help identify problems and prayer needs and keep people accountable for attending church regularly--making them feel welcome, as though their presence matters to people. But without someone studied in the Word willing to meet one-on-one with a stagnant, new, or weak believer, the impact of these groups remains low as a whole. Pastors and deacons often can't commit to the time-intensive endeavor of one-on-one discipleship, especially when marital problems, hospital visits, and crisis management take up so much of their time. It's up to individual believers to commit to one-on-one discipleship in the name of Christ, through the strength of Christ.

I benefited greatly from two years of one-on-one discipleship from a fellow school teacher, after which I married and began receiving teaching from my Bible-scholar husband. As soon as I believed through my teacher friend's leading, there were constant question and answer sessions and on-going Bible Studies, all with a widow who needed the fellowship as much as I needed the discipleship. God works wonders when we let Him use us--when we say yes to His agenda. 

When I became a mom to my first colicky baby and held a part-time, at-home job, my walk with Christ weakened, strengthening again when I quit working and when special needs in my son, accompanied with husband's job loss, drove me to the Word for answers, for comfort, for survival.

Without that foundation laid through intensive discipleship, I wouldn't have known--wouldn't have experienced--that Bible and prayer hold all the answers. Often our first response is to look to the world for answers, but when someone trains you, really trains you, in how to cling to God, it becomes your knee-jerk reaction to the trouble in this life. And as you fall in love with the Lord through your study, your time with Him is a pleasure.

Last night revealed something important: One hurdle in training Lexi in the Word will be her reading ability. She repeated third grade and now in the fourth grade, she's still presumably toward the bottom of the class, at least in reading. Retention, which my state does a lot of, is rarely the answer for students not making the grade. Another year of the same type of institutionalized learning doesn't help and could hinder. 

Lexi miscued on half the words she read from the Gospel of Mark and without my husband's verbal recounting of the passage for her, she would have comprehended little. She wouldn't let me read it while she followed along. Turns out she likes to read aloud. I didn't make mention of her reading difficulties. She was happy to miscue and keep going, not concerning herself with whether the sentences carried any meaning for her. It was as though she liked being the center of attention, more than anything else, but she did listen attentively to husband's teaching and she asked many questions as he spoke, which allowed him to hone in on her misconceptions.

A couple common misconceptions were cleared up last night. Lexi thought that if you sin a whole lot or commit a really big sin, you would go to hell--which she thought was just a burning and instant death, rather than eternal suffering. And if you just committed regular sins, you would still go to Heaven. Husband also explained Satan's background and a little about how he works his evil.

I'm going to introduce her to Bible web tools, including a site allowing her to listen to the Bible online, and read it online with different sized fonts.  

She has ADHD and 65% of these kids have co-morbid disorders, which could include OCD, tic disorder, depression, anxiety disorders, learning disabilities, and oppositional defiant disorder. She has anxiety which causes her to pick scabs mercilessly and cut herself, she has oppositional defiant disorder, and some difficulty associated with reading.  It took me several years to figure out that my son's ADHD comes with dysgraphia, which is difficulty with all aspects of writing--spelling, handwriting, and organizing thoughts on paper. Obviously I'm no expert on processing disorders, but I hope to help Lexi nonetheless, maybe using her desire to read aloud to help her practice--without her even knowing I'm remediating her, hopefully.

But I'm already a busy mom and this all feels overwhelming, just as Satan wants it to! 

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me! I'l keep chanting it. I know a couple of you have been praying for Lexi and I want to thank you. Fruit is forthcoming, I believe.

Lots of progress on day one! And a bonus is that my children witnessed all of it, making them more apt to disciple someone on their own in the future, as they watch it unfold. I disciple them throughout the day, but they're so used to it they don't know what I'm up to. Seeing it done this way, they can identify it in their minds as discipleship in action and mimic it when God presents the opportunity. Our neighborhood has become a means for them to practice their faith, to stand up for Jesus and withstand the pressure to fit in, with mom and dad right there to provide assistance, strength, and prayer, as needed.

I think it's so neat--looking back on those years of a quiet neighborhood and us praying for friends--that God waited until my boys were strong in the Lord to present them with a broken world looking in all the wrong places for answers. Everyone, kids and adults alike, want to be accepted, to belong, and therein lies hidden mines, planted by Satan, capable of destroying hearts and futures.

They all need the same answer. Christ. The Redeemer, the Lover of Your Soul, to whom you will forever belong, to whom you can always go, through whom you receive love, purpose and peace.

Go! Tell them the good news!

John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

Hallelujah!