Discipleship

I can see the value of discipleship. I dislike the term 'mentoring' and feel 'buddying' is a bit of a childish name, but I do see the value of them. I especially see the importance of it in the Christian aspect of my life and want to set up a relationship like that.

When I was in the UK last year, finishing off my degree, I used to meet fortnightly with one of the ministers at my church. Will (the minister) and I would meet in the afternoon in the week and chat and pray together. We read through a book of the bible together, albeit slowly (it did took us a year to get through 1 Thessalonians!), probably due to my ability to talk and meander off topic - sorry Will!

These meetings were great. I used to really look forward to catching up with Will and talking through things. He was at the next stage of life from me (at the time) - married with no children, so could give advice and wisdom for my situation. A good gap in that he had gone through what I was going through, but wasn't too far from it to have forgotten it and wasn't the same age as my parents (which would have just made things weird!).

I've been looking to set up a similar thing since I got back to Sydney, but so far to no avail! Life's busyness has just kicked up several thousand notches (bam!) and the people around me are just as busy. Being able to talk to someone with wisdom about marriage, work, ministry and all the other things going through my head would not only give me a really good idea of what it is to be a Godly christian man, but also how to live like this. In my circles, there are not many men who I know who fit this description (they're all my parent's age) and if they are in church, it seems to be something that the younger man has to initiate (which seems a little unfair to me...). In any case, it's something I'm praying for.

But in all my whining about it, I lost sight of the fact that I should also be discipling a younger man. I lead a youth group of teenage boys and they require the discipleship as much as I do. How selfish am I! To this end, I decided that I will try to meet with a couple of the boys regularly and invest more in the relationship. I've gone to a couple of their rugby games and plan to go to more and tonight will be taking one of the boys out for a bite to eat. Please pray for us as I attempt to pass on some (limited!) advice and wisdom to them and that God would grow the relationship between us for His glory.

Luke