Discipleship Group

This really only applies to those who go to New Start Ministries, but for those of you who are part of my church, here is some information for you.

Friday Night Discipleship Group
With readings from “Devotional Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups” edited by Richard Foster and James Smith.

Background
This Friday was going to be the beginning of the discipleship group. However, Naomi’s grandfather died on Thanksgiving Day so I will be in eastern Washington for the funeral instead of here in San Francisco. So the first actual gathering of the discipleship group will be delayed by two weeks.

However, the first gathering was going to be an introduction to what the discipleship group is, with the actual discussions beginning the next meeting. So this letter is designed to be a replacement to that introduction so that the next time we meet everyone will be caught up to speed already.

The reason why we need a discipleship group at all is that we all know that what the Bible calls us to is not who we are or what we have been doing. We try our best to follow God, but on our own we almost invariably water things down until we convince ourselves that who we are and what we’re doing is all there is to life. We reinterpret the Bible so that it fits with what we are already doing, instead of allowing the Bible to encourage us to grow.

But that is the whole point of why Jesus came and died for us, so that we can be reunited with God and reformed back to the image of God we were created to look like. Salvation is only the beginning, but it is so easy to forget that on our own. We need to see different perspectives on what we as Christians can become to see where we have personally let ourselves water down the gospel.

Fortunately we are not along in this journey. Millions of people have traveled this road before us. And while only Jesus has fully shown the image of God, many different people have mastered individual aspects of it. Some of these people have written down their insights and the things that helped them the most. It is those insights on following God and being transformed that we are going to look at in this discipleship group.

The book that we will be looking at is an anthology of excerpts from many Christian writers spanning five continents and the last 1800 years of Christian history. Most of these authors come from various traditions emphasizing different parts of the Christian life. These generally focus on different aspects of what are known as the spiritual disciplines. Over the course of this group we’ll look at a variety of different perspectives and traditions. Some of these I can guarantee you will disagree with, possibly quite strongly, but almost all of them will stretch you, and me.


Discipleship Group Outline
We will be meeting every other week on Friday’s during the normal time of Friday Night Fellowships. The group itself will mainly be discussion based. Before each meeting, we’ll each read the next two sections of the book, and when we get together we’ll discuss those two chapters of the book as a group. If there is something that you want to talk about that is important to you, we can talk about it. Nothing is off-topic if you need to talk about it. Generally, however, the discussion will attempt to be centered around what we agree or disagree with about the readings for the week and how we can apply the same ideas to our own life.

The goal is to get exposed to different flavors of Christianity that can each help us to grow closer to Christ. There are 52 readings and with meeting every other week this is designed to be a yearlong course. Each section is only a few pages long, and is followed by suggested reflection questions and ideas to ponder. These are only suggestions, however, and we will first talk about any insights, problems, or applications that any of us personally got from the reading. However, feel free to use the discussion questions to start your thinking on your own if they help.


Accountability
Understanding how we have watered down the gospel is only the first step, however. We have all heard great insights that we have completely neglected to put into practice. The new knowledge and insights is only the beginning, we need to put these insights into practice as well. That is where accountability comes in.

Just as each of us has our own special strengths we also have our own weaknesses. Whether it is prayer, Bible, anger, fear, issues with appropriate sexuality, or any number of other things, we all have weaknesses. And we know that already, but we can’t seem to do anything about it on our own or we would have already taken care of it.

Along with the larger group, part of the discipleship program is also to have a personal accountability partner. This is someone that you will meet with one on one at least once every other week (once a week would be preferable) to talk about stretching points from the week and areas that you are trying to grow in.

The idea is to find someone that you trust and can be honest with. Whether this is someone in the group or not, or even whether it is mutual accountability or just them holding you accountable is up to you. Share what is going on in your life, pray together, and especially share what areas you are struggling with and what areas you are trying to grow in. As we journey through the book, you will hopefully find more ideas to work on and try out. Have your partner keep you accountable to these new things so that they are not forgotten with the next chapter of the book.

If you have never participated in accountability before, or want some sample things to talk about with an accountability partner let me know. There are many sample lists of questions and ideas that I can supply you with, including those used quite successfully by John Wesley several centuries ago.