timhawkins DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING
S E R I E S
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LEADER’S GUIDE FOR BOOKS 1 TO 5
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timhawkins DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING
S E R I E S
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LEADER’S GUIDE FOR BOOKS 1 TO 5
e l p sam o n ly Discipleship Training Leader’s Guide Tim Hawkins
Published by Christian Education Publications January 2004. Reprinted 2007. Copyright © Tim Hawkins 2004 Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without the written permission of the publisher. Christian Education Publications, PO Box A287, Sydney South, NSW 1235 National Library of Australia ISBN 978-1-876960-45-2 Editor: Mamie Long Design/Illustration: Anthony Wallace Printed in Australia
SERIES
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DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING Understand your new life
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Book 1 My new life
God has called you to an exciting new life following him. This book will show you what God has already done to ensure that you will keep growing as his precious child. Ten studies that cover the fundamentals of being both a disciple and a disciple-maker.
Deepen your relationship
These books will help you to understand and love our magnificent God, and show you how to deepen your relationship with him through prayer around his word. Book 2 My awesome God
Book 3 My intimate relationship
Nine studies exploring the character of this marvellous God who calls us to relate to him. We investigate the enormity of God as Father, Son and Spirit.
Ten studies designed to ground the growing disciple in the immense blessings of being immersed in a life of soaking in God’s Word, and in prayer.
Live as a faithful disciple Now you are ready to put it all into action in your personal walk with God, and in your active ministry to others. Book 4 My mission from God These nine studies explore the tasks that God has left for us here on planet earth. We look at being a witness, an ambassador, and a faithful manager of God’s gifts and blessings.
Book 5 My personal obedience These eleven studies focus on areas of personal obedience, and challenge disciples to ‘put on’ the new life that is theirs in Christ Jesus. 1
SERIES
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DISCIPLESHIP TRAINING
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Discipleship is not just a series of Bible studies. It is a lifetime of learning how to be totally committed to Jesus in every area of your life. Discipleship Training isn’t just a matter of ‘going through a course’. The impact you’ll have on your students will be through the ongoing relationship that you have with them. Everything in this course will need to be put into practice in your life and the lives of your students. The aim of this training is to help you and your students grow as disciples so that you will be better equipped to grow the kingdom of God. 2
Leader’s Guide Discipleship Training
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The Leaders’ Guide is for use with Books 1 to 5 of the Discipleship Training series. Introduction...........................................................5 Book 1 My new life..............................................11 Book 2 My awesome God.................................23 Book 3 My intimate relationship........................29 Book 4 My mission from God.............................37 Book 5 My personal obedience........................44
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Leader’s Guide Discipleship Training
Introduction How to disciple students so that we win this world for Christ.
Understanding Discipleship Training Matthew 28:18-20
e l p sam o n ly “Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (NIV).
Jesus has left us with a job to do; To ‘make disciples of all nations’. How do we do that? By raising up passionate disciples who will be equipped to go and win the world – one life at a time. That’s what discipleship training is all about. It’s not just ‘a Bible study’. Not just ‘head knowledge’. These studies are to help you achieve the very thing that is at Jesus’ heart – to raise an army of faithful disciples who will be able to reproduce that same spiritual change and growth in other people. One of the most important things you will ever do as a youth leader is to disciple young people. The greatest amount of time, effort, concern and care should go to the individuals whom God has placed before you to train as disciples. The small number of young people in whom you invest your life will become the godly men and women, the mums and dads, the missionaries, pastors and leaders of our community and world. The future of the church in general depends on how faithfully we carry out the command of 2 Timothy 2:2 ‘And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others’.
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If we want reach the vast ‘masses’ of young people, we will do it by equipping a small number of keen Christians to reach their friends. If we try to reach the masses by ourselves, we are doomed to failure and frustration. We want to train our students in all the building blocks of being a disciple – in a way that they will be able to reproduce in the lives of others. We want to equip our students to reach their friends – to reach their school – and to reach their world for Christ.
Your relationship with your students You are about to enter a very privileged relationship with some valued people in God’s kingdom. You are about to disciple a small group of people. Your relationship will be special and unique.
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Because this is a privileged relationship, you need to be careful of a number of things: • that your relationship will always point those in your care towards Christ. • that you will continue in the relationship for the benefit of your students, not for what you are getting out of it yourself. • that you will always have the goal that students will become independent of you as they grow more dependent on God. You need to keep clear in your own mind that the relationship you will have with your students is the key to effective discipleship training. You are not just putting them through a Bible study course, you are there to invest your life in theirs. It is through the sharing of your lives that real learning will take place. This sharing of lives always needs to be grounded in and directed by God’s word. God’s word must be taking hold of your life in such a way that your growth is evident. God’s word must also guide not only your teaching, but the way you teach. Discipleship training could be described as a combination of three important factors: a) God’s word, which will train disciples in every area of their life b) Your walk – growing disciples will imitate the strengths and weaknesses of their trainer c) Your shared life – it is the relationship – your sharing of life’s experiences, your investment of time, that will provide the impetus for real growth. Further information on training disciples can be found in two excellent books by the same author – Fruit That Will Last and Leaders Who Will Last.
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Leader’s Guide Discipleship Training
Who to disciple Make sure you disciple students who want to be discipled! Try to make sure that each individual student has already made a commitment to Jesus. Set the standards high in your group. The group should be a top priority commitment for each of your students. When they cannot make it on a particular week, they should contact you in advance to let you know they will be away. Ask for a commitment for a year… or more! These studies are particularly designed for students in their senior years of High School (say, from Year 10 upwards), or for those who have recently left school. (For discipling junior high students, you should use the ‘Growing Young Disciple’ series, published by CEP.)
Basic format of the studies The basic format for all these studies is consistent throughout all books. Generally, a question is asked, with a number of Bible references where answers may be found. This is very different from a straight question and answer comprehension style (‘What does verse 5 say?’). These studies require students to read the passage and find the answer for themselves.
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This means that the leader has some work to do. You cannot just show up at your group and hope the study ‘runs itself’. You need to prepare carefully, and work out what points you will emphasise from each passage. You will also need to work out which passages you will use, and which ones you will leave for your students’ own research. Most studies finish with some personal application questions. You should probably spend as much time on these as on the biblical questions.
Place All you need for discipleship training is a place where you’re not going to be interrupted all the time. I prefer to meet in students’ houses so that parents get to see a little bit of what they’re doing. Meeting in a home introduces hospitality and friendliness and relationships into the picture. It sets up a model for normal Christian relationships. Christianity is not primarily a subject you can learn in a classroom. The group needs to be in a room that’s a bit separate with a door. A lounge room that everyone walks through is not the best place. Some discipleship groups may prefer to meet on the church property, which might be very convenient, especially if students stay on for the church service or youth group. But depending on the facilities your church has available, the atmosphere can be a bit cold and uninviting. Make sure you choose a time and a place that will work for your group.
Prayer One of your aims will be to teach young people to pray and to pray passionately. ‘Let’s just close/open with prayer’ seems artificial. I would 7
want to make prayer central to what we’re doing. If prayer got a bit rushed or we ran out of time and only had 10 minutes at the end of a meeting, next time we met I would say, ‘Last time we didn’t have a lot of time to pray, let’s do it right at the beginning and let’s make sure we all pray.’ If your students are hesitant about praying, start by having each person write out their prayer. This will make it easier to join in with everyone. (There is more teaching about prayer in Book 3.)
Program Take extra time to focus on the studies that your students might be having difficulties with. In Book 1 we go through the absolute basics – having a quiet time, praying, and dealing with temptation. If the group is made up of people who are fairly new Christians, I would spend some time establishing them in their faith. If you have a group who are having a great time with God already, look at a few things in Book 1 and move on fairly quickly.
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Here is a useful grid to help you keep your group on track. This is the GAMES grid. Keep checking that your discipleship group is showing the following five results:
G A M E S
ROWTH
your students growing in their faith in Jesus? Are they Are growing in their areas of obedience?
Do you hold each other accountable to put into practice CCOUNTABILITY what you’re learning? Do you all help uphold high
INISTRY
standards in each others’ spiritual journey? Are people ministering outside the group?
QUIPPING
A re students equipped to be strong in a nonChristian world?
UPPORT
Are people caring for each other?
It’s really hard to put down a formula for meetings. You want to make sure that you’re learning from the Scriptures, loving each other, and praying together, but the proportion of that might change each week depending on the need. You don’t have to do a new study every week. It’s okay to take a number of weeks on one particular study, to make sure that everyone in your group not only understands but is putting into action the biblical teaching. You can do the studies out of order. For instance if you’re finding a number of the group are getting drunk, go to the study in Book 5. Just say, ‘Drinking alcohol seems to be a real issue, I think we should deal
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with it now.’ Or you might find the group really doesn’t understand the importance of learning the Bible and praying, you could say, ‘Let’s go straight to Book 3.’ Although Book 1 introduces the program, the other books could be done in any order. If the church is giving teaching on financial stewardship, there are studies on giving in Book 4 and you can do those. Probably you’ll repeat them later, but the coach has to be sensitive to the needs of group members.
You might well take three years to do the 50 studies in these five books. Some you’ll do in just one week, but others might take three or four weeks. Be sensitive to what your group needs. Pastoral care
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Make sure you care for each other as brothers and sisters. Go around the group and ask them to talk about their week in a couple of sentences. If one student says ‘My dad walked out this week’, then don’t just say, ‘Oh that’s no good’, but stop and say, ‘Hey, this is a big issue. You must be finding this pretty hard. Would you like to tell us more about how you’re feeling?’ If this student wants to talk about things, then that’s what your group will focus on that week. You will listen, you will support, and you will pray. What do students learn from that? They learn that people get hurt, and that Christians can listen. Hopefully you will coach them in how to listen. Normally everyone will jump in with advice, ‘Why don’t you try… have you thought about…’ and you can say ‘Just hold the advice. I think Fred probably knows all that. Let’s just listen to what Fred is saying.’ We learn about loving each other, not just because we do a Bible study on it, but because when something has happened we stop and spend time with people and pray for them and do whatever it takes to look after them. When someone has a crisis, then make sure that is the person you catch up with that week. The next time you meet, you might ask… ‘Last week you had a pretty awful week, what’s it been like since then?’ If you’ve taken a lot of time with pastoral care in your group, then the following week, you might say, ‘This week I want us to get straight into the Bible study because we didn’t get to it last week and God has got stuff to teach us.’
Not just teaching, but coaching These studies will help you teach the Bible to young disciples, but your role is far bigger than this. You are a coach who will train your students to play an active part on Jesus’ ministry team. A sports coach will train the members of a team – teach them various skills – and equip them to play the game. Your role as a discipleship coach is to equip your students – 9
train them – hold them accountable – model for them what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and encourage them – so that they can be active for ministry on Jesus’ team through out their life while you cheer for them from the sidelines.
So share your life with your students. Share your successes and your failures. Show them how to live for Jesus by your own example, and model for them how to have an effective ministry to others. Spend time with each student outside your normal group time so that you can coach them individually.
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How do you know if your group is going well? Here is the sign to look for – that your students are standing strongly for Christ outside of your normal group meeting. Jesus has called your students to a lifetime of active service on his ministry team. These studies are to help you be an effective coach, so that together we can win this world for Christ, one life at a time.
This book will show the group what God has already done to ensure that they will keep growing as his precious children. 10
Leader’s Guide Discipleship Training