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Rookie Disciple Making Mistakes: Driven by Fear

Sean Cronin — Fri, 18 Oct 2019 09:00:04 +0000

by Discipleship.org: Are you a disciple making rookie?

Rook • ie

Meaning: A new recruit, especially in the army or police. A member of an athletic team in his first full season.

In sports, rookies represent hope. Some arrive to the team as hyped prospects expected to be the future of the franchise. Others are unknown players who have defied expectations to get there. Fans watch rookies eagerly because they each unfold a unique story. How will this one work out?

At some point every disciple maker was a rookie. I still remember the first meeting I had as a discipler. I had prepared and prayed a lot for my meeting with Brad and as we sat down together I was nearly shaking with fear!

Like most disciple making rookies, I was afraid of so many things: looking stupid, coming on too strong, and most of all, failing. I lacked what every rookie lacks: experience. And as you know, there’s no substitute for experience.

Experience is earned. It’s impossible to get experience by completing discipleship curriculum or listening to sermons. In fact, no amount of disciple making knowledge or understanding can make someone a disciple maker. Disciple makers are made by making disciples. And since the process of making a disciple is never without challenge, each experience has the potential to bring growth.

I’m no longer a disciple making rookie. Somehow, I’ve accumulated over twenty years of disciple making experience (I don’t feel that old!). My experience is broad and deep. I’ve discipled younger students and older adults, men and women (in triads), Americans and Asians (Africans too), new believers and seasoned Christians, extroverts and introverts; you get the picture.

Like a wily veteran on a sports team, I want rookie disciple makers to learn from my mistakes and the mistakes I’ve seen others make. It turns out that most rookie disciple makers make similar mistakes. So, this post is the first in the “Rookie Mistakes” series.

Let’s start with the biggest mistake made by rookie disciple makers. What is it? Rookie disciple makers are often driven by fear instead of trust.

Unlike other mistakes, the posture of fear drives rookie disciple makers to make decisions that are self-protective rather than Jesus modeled. Instead of discipling a person who is FAT, they disciple someone who is friendly. This protects them from being rejected. Instead of using the Bible as the main tool in discipling they use curriculum. This keeps them from being wrong. Instead of formally inviting someone to start being discipled, they keep the relationship loose and undefined. This keeps them from being accountable. Instead of opening up about their struggles, they hide behind tools. And there are still other ways that fear pollutes disciple making.

Fear may never completely go away in disciple making, but it doesn’t have to drive your discipling practices. Veteran disciple makers have learned to manage it by marinating in these two truths:

1. Failure Is an Option

Are you ready to fail at disciple making? I’m not looking for an enthusiastic YES. No discipler should be eager to crash and burn, but veteran disciple makers know that sometimes it doesn’t work out like you hoped. Regardless of how spiritual you are or how prepared you are, there’s no guarantee of success.

Fear of failure can imprison rookie disciple makers. Instead of focusing on the needs of the disciple, she focuses on avoiding failure. If a disciple maker is grounded in Christ, she can handle failure. . .even if failure is largely her fault. As they say, failure doesn’t have to be fatal.

I’ve failed and lived to tell about it. I’ve discipled people who have never passed it on, who have ghosted me, and who have simply rejected the offer of being discipled. Each time, it’s hurt. But it’s also been a learning experience for me. Maybe I failed. So what? The ability to handle failure is part of maturity. And disciple making is the work of someone more mature helping those less spiritually mature. Don’t fear failure!

2. Trust Over Fear

There are plenty of other fears that rookie disciple makers carry. Some fear being exposed for lack of understanding or existing sin in their life, others fear their relational weaknesses being uncovered, others fear of giving bad advice, etc.

For a disciple maker the antidote to fear isn’t courage, it’s trust. Veteran disciple makers disarm fear by trusting deeply God’s call to disciple. Since Jesus has promised His presence as we disciple (Matt. 28:19-20) we can disciple from a place of safety. It’s okay if we look stupid, ill-equipped, weak, or incompetent because He is with us. He has sent us and so our power comes from Him, not in our sufficiency.

In fact, experience has shown me that our weaknesses have far more power in discipling than our strengths do. It’s as if when the Bible says, “His power is made perfect in our weakness” that it’s really true (because it is) (2 Cor. 12:9)!

Soaking in these truths disarm fear and allow us to surrender the results to God. When we disciple we are obedient to His call on our life. Since Jesus is with us, what can man do to us?

So, if you are a rookie disciple maker, beware of being driven by fear. Not only will fear cause you to make many less than ideal choices as a disciple maker, it will also weaken the power of a healthy disciple making relationship. If left untended it will obliterate both your disciple making relationships and your long-term survival discipler.

Those who disciple for the long haul have learned to make peace with failure and to trust God instead of wilting under their fears. I’m praying you will do the same!

Written by Justin Gravitt

Justin Gravitt is the Dayton (Ohio) Area Director for Navigator Church Ministries. Read more from Justin at his blog, “One Disciple to Another,” where this article first appeared.

The post Rookie Disciple Making Mistakes: Driven by Fear appeared first on Discipleship.org.

Source: Rookie Disciple Making Mistakes: Driven by Fear

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Overcoming Three Big Leadership Fears

Patrick Bradley — Sat, 27 Oct 2018 09:00:50 +0000

by Brandon A. Cox: I’m a leader. And it’s likely that you are too, whether you’re in an officially recognized leadership position or not.

Leadership is influence, and it’s pretty much guaranteed you’re influencing people – employees, kids, a spouse, a church or small group, etc.

I agree with the maxim, whoever may have said it first, that everything rises and falls on leadership. It’s vital!

So why do we hold back from leading at full throttle?

Personally, I face three particular, recurring fears. They sometimes bother me in my dreams and often keep me from leading at my full potential.

I have a hunch you probably struggle with these as well, so I want to point them out and offer a remedy…

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Source: Overcoming Three Big Leadership Fears

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5 Lessons Church Leaders Can Learn From The “All-Day Breakfast” Trend

Patrick Bradley — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 09:00:45 +0000

by Rich Birch: In October 2015, McDonald’s made a significant change to its menu that made a huge difference to its bottom line and market reach. That month they added all-day breakfast to their offerings, and in many ways it ended up changing the course of history for this corporation.

For years, insiders had been saying that all-day breakfast, while a great addition to the menu, simply couldn’t be done. In fact, the turnover between the breakfast and the lunch menu kept stumping the logistics folks. It was almost a joke that you could get breakfast up until 10:29 a.m., but at 10:30 a.m. the entire kitchen had to turn over to lunch orders only.

People who follow this industry had been saying that offering an all-day breakfast menu was a potential way for McDonald’s to increase its reach and attract customers who normally wouldn’t return later in the day. I know for our little family this change meant a switch in our consumption habits. You see, my wife is the decision-maker when it comes to which restaurants we frequent. Now that she could order oatmeal or an egg McMuffin for dinner, it meant that McDonald’s was now on the list of restaurants that we could go to if we needed to make a quick stop for a meal!

…

Source: 5 Lessons Church Leaders Can Learn From The “All-Day Breakfast” Trend – unSeminary

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8 Gifts to “Pour Into” the Leaders You’re Developing

Patrick Bradley — Sat, 12 Aug 2017 13:15:48 +0000

by Brandon A. Cox: It’s great to be “pouring into” people. That’s a popular phrase in today’s leadership environment. I’ve used it because I like the word picture of it.

Whatever I may have learned about life and leadership, I’m supposed to be passing along to others. But what does the phrase really mean? What, exactly, are we to pour into the people we lead?

We’ve been talking a lot as a church staff lately about leadership development. I really believe it’s the key to our reaching the next level of growth and effectiveness as a church. But I’m becoming aware of a couple of obstacles.

First, I’ve never led a church beyond where we currently are. I joined the staff of a church with well over 20,000 in weekend attendance, but I wasn’t there for the years when Saddleback grew from zero to their present size.

I’m facing the reality that what we’ve done so far as a new church plant has been good, but it isn’t sufficient to take us somewhere else. It’s the whole “law of the lid” that John Maxwell speaks about.

I think, on a practical level, that means we’re going to need to do some re-structuring and shifting. We’re going to have to think outside of our already established routines. And we’re going to have to take some risks.

And the second obstacle is that I don’t think we’ve clearly defined what it is we need to be pouring into the leaders we’re developing.

Does that mean having coffee and chatting about life? Does it mean walking through a training course or workbook? I think the answer lies somewhere in between those two options.

There are at least eight gifts I hope to pour into the people I’m leading, and I hope they pass these gifts along to others too.

1. Love and concern.

That is, living with a genuine interest in the lives of those we lead. And this is more than just the occasional “how are you?” question. It’s staying tuned in and aware of how life is along the way.

Loving people is pretty basic, but profoundly powerful.

2. Knowledge and skills.

Obviously, if we’re going to raise up and train leaders, we need to pass along the knowledge and skills necessary to get things done. This comes in the form of apprenticing, coaching, resources, and modeling.

3. Responsibilities, with clearly articulated expectations.

I’ve had to learn a lot the hard way about being very clear in communicating my expectations of those I lead. I can’t assume that someone knows what results I desire to see unless I’ve painted a thorough and accurate picture for them.

Be sure to check out my list of 10 of the Best Books on Vision and Leadership.

4. Golden opportunities.

As a leader, you no doubt always have a spot to fill and a task to assign. But do you reserve the very best opportunities – the ones most sure to be rewarding – for yourself? Or do you generously empower others with them to serve up the win to someone else?

Let me stop to note that the opportunities I’ve written about thus far are the easier ones to give. The rest get harder…

5. Theology – a peek into our view of God.

You can always sit down with people and walk through some systematic theology, text-book style. But what I’m really referring to is that we speak openly of our faith in God in such a way that the people whom we lead have a bigger perspective of him from having been led by us.

6. Freedom.

It’s hard to really let people go and entrust them with the freedom to fail, to make mistakes, to do things differently than we would do them ourselves. But that kind of freedom is necessary to effective leadership. When we fail to grant freedom, the best leaders will leave.

7. Accountability.

Pastor Paul Chappell is always saying that “people only respect what you inspect.” My own tendency has been to give away tasks and responsibilities, but rarely to go and follow up on how it’s going. But good leadership requires us to check back in, to hold people accountable in a positive way.

8. Our big “YES!”

I’m not arguing that we should say yes to every idea or request that comes along. But those we lead should have the impression that it’s more likely that we’ll say “Yes!” than “No.”

Great leaders create “Yes” cultures where people are encouraged to keep being creative. Sometimes leadership means saying “yes” to people even when it’s scary to do so.

I’m still figuring out how to give these gifts well, but I’m committed to doing so in order for our leadership development culture to thrive. You can have growth, or you can have control, but you can’t have all of both.

I want to err on the side of having just enough control to keep the train on the tracks.

Source: 8 Gifts to “Pour Into” the Leaders You’re Developing

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