15 Pavement Chocolate Cake

So Jesus commanded us, "Go into all the world and make disciples." So, who's supposed to be making disciples? Well, on the one hand, you can say it's the responsibility of every believer to disciple other believers. And there's great health and great life in that.

But often we need to hold truths in tension. And the tension of that is, most discipleship that goes on should be done by leaders. Leaders should be a greater influence. As community leaders, you need to be aware of who are the influences on my people.

Is it this guy on YouTube? Is it the latest book? I mean, to be honest, 95% of what's available out there I would hate for my people to be listening to and watching. But even if it's good stuff, we've got to ask ourselves the question, and this is a picture I use.

The Chocolate Cake Analogy for Discernment

If you were driving down the road and you saw a chocolate cake just lying on the side of the street. And it looked beautiful. But you didn't know where it'd come from. It's just there on the side of the street. This chocolate cake.

Would you stop your car, climb out, take that chocolate cake and eat it? I don't think many of us would, because as great as that chocolate cake may or may not be, you've no idea who made it and what's in it. And so preaching and teaching that's out there, it may even be good, but we don't know the people who are producing it.

We don't know what's in their lives. We don't know what they're breaking open. And we don't know what's behind the scenes. Now, I'm not talking about a cultic restriction of people are only allowed to listen to us, but we need to be the loudest voices in people's lives.

The apostolic graces within Four12 need to be the loudest voices. The local eldership. And then, as a community leader, you need to be a louder voice than that friend at work who goes to some strange little cult around the corner. We need to be actively discipling.

And there's a principle, they say nature abhors a vacuum. Where there is a vacuum, it will get filled. If we are not actively discipling people, somebody else will. And we have got to be responsible for making sure people are discipled well. But then when we use the word discipleship, people get weird.

Discipleship as Relationship, Not a Course

People say, "Oh, well, I've got this six week course to do." Discipleship is not about a six week course or a twelve week course or a hundred week course. Courses, videos, all of these things are tools, but discipleship first and foremost is a function of relationship.

As we have a relationship together, I will teach and train and guide and help to mature you through love. And that is the most powerful thing. Psychologists have discovered this principle. If people feel loved, if they're shown empathy, if they're shown unconditional acceptance, in a kind of counseling relationship, generally there's a positive outcome, regardless of any knowledge or techniques that that counselor uses.

That's what psychologists have said. That's their big secret, guys. So, actually what they're saying is people need to be loved and accepted more than they need fancy answers. And so that is the foundation of discipleship. And so when we're discipling people, when we're leading people forward, yes, we need to be training formally and informally.

We need to be helping people grow in their knowledge. We need to be helping people grow in relationship with Jesus. But we can do that in a way that isn't weird. We can do that in a way that isn't, "Let's go and sit in a classroom."

Coffee Conversations for Discipling New Believers

And one of the most powerful tools we have is coffee. We can just sit down with people and have conversations that are really key to helping disciple people. Let me give you some examples of some conversations we can have. If I'm sitting down with somebody who's new to my community or new to the church, I'm going to say, "Hey, tell me about how you met Jesus."

I want them to share their testimony with me. That will tell me a couple of things. Are they genuinely saved? Did they understand salvation? Have they been baptized? I don't have to do an interrogation. "Tell me, are you genuinely saved?" One of the problems we've got in a church like ours is we love people so much.

We draw people in and people can become a part of us and imitate everything we're doing without ever having a relationship with Jesus. We need to be having conversations. When did you meet Jesus? How did you meet Jesus? Share your testimony with me.

As they do that, you'll be able to get a sense of where they are and where you can take them. Next question would be, "Have you shared that story with anybody ever?" You'll get an idea of how strong they are, how secure they are, whether their friends and family have rejected them for their faith or would reject them for their faith.

We understand in a culture like ours, to become a Christian is literally to say goodbye to everything. Your family, your prospects, and everything. And unless we understand that, we're not truly going to be able to disciple people forward. Another conversation: "Hey, tell me, what are you reading in the Bible at the moment?

What's God saying to you through His Word? Do you ever struggle to really believe that the Bible is the Word of God? Is there parts of the Bible that you're struggling with?" You're discipling people in terms of being those who are in love with the Word.

Questions About the Holy Spirit, Prayer, and Relationships

Likewise, "Hey, what's the Lord saying to you? What's the Holy Spirit saying to you?" One of the things that we often say is, if you've not been convicted of sin in the last several weeks, then you're probably not hearing the Lord because we've all got sin within us.

And so by asking people, "What's the Lord saying to you?" first of all, it's helping you understand where they're at. But it's also helping them to understand that hearing the Lord speak to us is a normal part of the Christian walk. Questions like, "What's your prayer life like?

Who are you friends with?" Just in conversations. But not to speak. We need to be slow to speak and quick to listen. And that is a key part of discipleship and taking people forward. Another key part of taking people forward—we fall into jargon so easily.

Helping People Grow Into More

We can often talk about, "Let's take people into more, let's take people into more." And that is a true statement; we need to take people into more. But what does that mean? For the person that I am having a coffee with, what is the "more"?

Is it more in love with Jesus? Is it contributing more to the life of the church? Is it stirring up the gift that's within them? Is it that they've been called to be prophetic and they've never prophesied? Is it to pick up an instrument and learn to worship?

We don't know until we actually get to know that person and seek the Lord for that person. And so I want to encourage us to be deliberate, to be intentional, and to be faithful in discipling every single person that the Lord has given us responsibility for.

To raise up people into the fullness of what the Lord Jesus has called them to. To grow closer in their relationship with Jesus. And to look more like Him and then begin to reproduce of themselves. As a community leader, part of discipleship is identifying who are the future leaders so that as this community grows we can plant out new leaders with new people.

Discipleship isn't, "Let me sit down and go through a book with you." It's not, "Here's a video." It's not, "Oh, there's some good stuff on the internet." Use every tool at your disposal that we would recommend. But the ultimate tool for discipleship is you, your love, and your ears.