Real Discipleship
It is amazing to me how I can be so spiritually filled when I have time to minister to and with others, there is no drug that gives you a high like this! For the first time, I got to hang out with the youth at NWBC on a Wednesday night and MAN it is different from Sunday nights. We had a full rocking worship band, movies and games, a mini-sermon as well as discipleship groups and at LEAST 40 kids. I remember saying to myself many times THIS is what I expected our group to look like. Of course, it is wrong to create a preconceived notion about such things but I know I am not the only one who feels that way.
The part that I felt most joyous in was when I joined up with the 7th grade boys breakout group, it was 10-12 boys and only one teacher, that’s why I joined… or so I thought.. the reality was that God needed me to share some things that the other teacher could not have shared. Somehow, some way, we went from talking about bloody machetes at Halloween to prayer and Jesus…don’t ask me how… that’s just how boys work :). I got to hear some boys share their challenges in faith such as why God would let someone die when they prayed for them to get better and why God denies them a chance to go on a mission trip. I was humbled when I answered the boy with the family member who had died by saying “What if having that person live meant they would be suffering on earth instead of relaxing in Heaven.” He crumpled into his chair (not crying, just overwhelmed) and quietly said “I’d never thought about it like that… that really changes things…” Wow! Praise God! Sure, these goofs are rough around the edges but they are a work in progress like all of us.
It just seems fitting that I am in Discipleship Ministries at seminary and here I am in the trenches really doing it with the group of believers that God really is calling me to minister to. I can’t explain it, but this is like getting the best present in the world as soon as you wanted it and finding it was even cooler than you thought it would be. By God’s grace, I am blessed with the privilege to meet some of His most misunderstood demographics and I am really sharing faith with them. That’s REAL discipleship, I am sure George Barna would approve.