|
Offering healthy discipleship
Discipleship in a one-to-one context should be varied: people are different, with different expectations, and relationships can serve different purposes at different times. There is no right way to do discipleship.
The following guidelines are general therefore, and yet should help you to create a dynamic, healthy context to boost someone along in their relationship with God. What you do - and for how long - may vary, but the values below will help.
Whether you are using it or not, Deeper contains good practical and value-based pointers for how to lead someone in discipleship. Make the most of the other resources that are part of the CLC one to one package.
1. Aims
What you are trying to do?
The answer to this depends on what the disciple wants (ask him/her) and your evaluation of what he or she needs. Sometimes it is encouragement and support through tough times; sometimes ongoing accountability in specific areas of life (prayer/a relationship/change); sometimes about spurring them on to grow; other times praying together or studying the Bible. Get this clear.
In it together
One good definition of one to one discipleship is 'a mutual exploration of how the person can grow'. Growth and change may not actually happen when you're together, but you are exploring together (and with God) what it looks like, where it is happening, how it feels.
Use the resources
The resources in the one to one package will lead you towards specific aims.
2. Confidence
Be confident
The single biggest factor in your effectiveness in (and enjoyment of) discipling someone is your confidence. You have lots to give. You have a relationship with God who lives inside you. If you've learnt
one thing you can teach one thing. Teach what you know, what you're good at. Play to your strengths. you do not need to be the whole deal - you are only ever one small part of their overall discipleship.
Be yourself
Take your idea of the perfect discipler round the back and put a bullet in its head. Stop measuring yourself against an ideal and be who you are. Otherwise you'll feel almost permanently inadequate and be teaching the other person to be inauthentic too.
Be accountable
Make sure there are people that you talk to about your own growth regularly. You need to be growing yourself, and have someone to talk to.
3. Create an environment
A context for growth
Instead of seeing yourself as making the other person change, imagine yourself creating conditions for growth. It's the difference between trying to make the apples grow on the branch yourself and caring for the tree: water, pruning, protection, food - but little you can do to force the fruit out. The person needs to follow Jesus him/herself, and growth will come out of his or her relationship with God. Our question is what can we do to provide conditions for that growth to happen? See the growth questions in the key questions list.
Kindness
One prominent leadership coach describes kindness as the number one leadership skill. An experienced Headmaster once said, 'nothing changes children but encouragement'. Whatever you do for others, see them kindly, think the best of them, suspend judgment and work to bring out the best in them. This is manifested physically in the times and places in which you meet - do you give good time and attention, in nice surroundings, to make the person feel valued?
Listening
Listening is the top communication skill. It has been said that, 'the greatest need of the human soul is to be heard'. Listening is not just hearing words, it listening actively, attentively, kindly that will draw the other person out and make him or her feel valued. If you listen well for 50 minutes and talk for 10, you will have done immeasurably more good for that person than if you had said the wisest things in the world for any longer. It is the key to one to one discipleship - if you really want to get good at discipleship, learn to listen well.
Model openness
If you are open, honest about your life and real about your feelings the other person will be too.
4. Set boundaries
Setting boundaries will make your relationship healthy, however hard or easy the discipleship is.
Responsibility
You are not responsible for the disciple's life, growth, future, or relationship with God. He or she is. You are a support, a summathetes (fellow disciple), a peer, in the same boat. You are exploring growth together, and as an amateur volunteer you can offer some ideas and listen kindly, but the onus is on the disciple to get on with life and following Jesus him or herself. That's why, hard though it is to avoid, there is no such word as 'discipler' - you cannot make someone be Jesus' disciple, nor should you. An alternative way to look at the relationship is that you are helping to co-ordinate the other person's discipleship; pointing them towards people, resources, values that will help them grow. It is very much up to them whether they want to.
Confidentiality
Do not offer confidentiality. Make a point at your initial meeting that you will treat everything shared with discretion, and are unlikely to talk to anyone else about it. However, you can not offer confidentiality, for your own sanity (there are times you let off steam in your own discipleship context), for the times you need to ask someone to help you help the disciple, and for legal reasons. You are bound by law for example to report crime.
Gender
The vast majority of the time it is sensible to meet in pairs of the same gender and we recommend it in CLC. In rare cases where that doesn't follow, put good parameters around the meetings: in public, or around other people, with accountability for yourself in it.
Timescale and reviews
How long do you want to meet for? How frequently will you review how it's going? A termly commitment that is reviewed and continued if it is still helpful is a lot more healthy than an indefinite arrangement that people feel trapped in. It may help to think (back to the aims) about the specific things this relationship is set up to accomplish - and what time period is needed for that to happen.
Set times
Don't be afraid to ask the other person to fit with your schedule, and to set clear times for starting and finishing. For example, if the person is 15 minutes late, you should still finish at the agreed time. You need this boundary to enable you to offer discipleship among the other things you do, and it will bring a quality and importance to the time you do spend together.
Know your limits
Discipleship is not about solving all a person's problems - this treats the other person as less than human and puts unreasonable expectations on you. As a 'co-ordinator', or 'fellow-disciple', or 'amateur volunteer' there are plenty of occasions when you need to point the person towards other sources. Think about any professional help they might need (for example for addiction, clinical depression, marital breakdown, financial problems). there may be many occasions where a situation is bigger than you are comfortable with, in which case refer back to your tribe leader or other support for advice.
5. How time together might look
Think about what you are trying to achieve and what environment you can engineer to that end. You can go to different places for different perspectives, engage the person physically not just in conversation (take a walk), go somewhere nice for a drink or food. In the case of meeting to chat and listen, the following ideas are common.
You could ask some key questions to find out how the other person is doing, where they are blocked, what there is to celebrate. Ask about previous things you have discussed, anything that you agreed or are keeping him or her accountable on? Listen to the response actively, showing that you understand and asking questions to take the response deeper. You may get on to sharing your own experience and ideas, and a good place to be aiming for is a conversation about applying the things that are coming up. What could the person do differently, or is there an offer or request to be made? What do they need now? Praying together is a great place to end.
6. Persevere
Finally, stick at it and you are more likely to see some fruit. For growth to happen you will encounter resistance - think of a chick pecking its way out of an egg, the growing pains in adolescence, the thorns on a rose bush that yet needs pruning to flourish. If someone is reluctant to talk, or is stubborn about change, don't give up. That's where discipleship becomes worth something - who else is going to help this person push through? Pray for them, be kind, be yourself, and see what God might do.
|
|
|
