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Making the most of discipleship
It is easy to think with discipleship that a service is being provided for you and if you sit back and let it happen then you'll grow in your relationship with God. This not only puts unrealistic expectations on the person you are meeting, it also means that little that happens will stick.
Entering a discipleship relationship needs to be done with a hunger for God and a desire to grow. You need to see yourself as the primary agent for change, and be prepared to work at following Jesus. The other person could be a catalyst, or a support, a good friend or an occasional wise counsel, but they will only ever be a small part in your overall discipleship. They will not 'do discipleship' for you. You are the disciple. Get learning from Jesus.
In this wise forget the title discipler (the word does not exist) and imagine instead that the person you meet is a co-ordinator, someone who can explore together with you how best you can grow. Perhaps it is true that real learners can learn from anything - joy or pain, wisdom or ignorance, good one-to-one or bad. God can teach us through all things.
In which case you can drop the idea of the 'perfect discipler' - the person for whom you have a list of idealistic requirements like a naive singleton destined always to be alone. Not only can you learn from spending time with anyone, you might also consider that you could learn from someone for a time - perhaps one term, one year, even just one meeting. Perhaps, too, there are arrangements where you meet with an individual to learn a specific skill or viewpoint, such as handling money or renewed earth theology, and then, lessons learnt, you continue on your way.
There is in some circles the myth of the spiritual parent, the all-knowing mentor from whom acolytes learn how to minister. Usually one of these uberChristians is quite enough for the world at large, without their blindspots and flaws being recreated willy-nilly in the feeble-minded who follow. The world does not need you to find a spiritual superhero and become like him or her, rather, to become yourself under the multifarious inspiration of a thousand brothers and sisters. You are after all in the same boat as every other Christian, you are all summathetes (fellow-disciples), peers, learners, disciples. Jesus, on the other hand, is our hero complete. Him we may become.
So ask yourself 'what did I come to see?' What are you going to do about growing and where can another person help you along the way? Answer that, and your times together need never be tedious again.
Set clear parameters
1. Have one meeting and decide whether or not it's a goer.
2. Set clear timings and stick to them.
3. Have regular reviews of what you are learning, whether to keep meeting.
4. Agree an expiry date for your meetings - even if it's a rolling agreement based on review.
Have aims
5. What are you aiming to learn, grow in, change over the next while? (The growth questions might help)
Take responsibility
6. Make it happen. Pursue it. You get what you ask for.
7. Take responsibility for your own growth. Don't allow yourself excuses.
Be open
8. Be open, honest and real, even if it about your inability to be open, honest or real.
Set boundaries
9. What rights do you want to give to the other person? Can they challenge you about anything at any time?
10. If problems arise within the relationship, speak to your tribe leader.
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