Following Jesus

Last Updated on May 4, 2020 at 3:46 am by Rocklyn Clarke

This page is being updated frequently. Check back regularly for updates!

Contents

1 Description and Purpose
2 Goals
3 Discipleship
4 Components
- 4.1 Future Components:
5 Resource Lists (for your convenience)

Description and Purpose

This web page supports our Following Jesus class – currently under development. Following Jesus is a core component of our discipleship effort which has the following goals:

Goals

Knowledge & Skills

You will understand the Gospel, God’s Kingdom, what it means to follow Jesus, and how to explain each of these to others.
You will understand how to consistently connect with a small group of believers for deep fellowship, prayer, and accountability.
You will understand what your sphere of influence is and how to bless people and represent God’s Kingdom within it.
You will understand how to do outreach by regularly bringing new unchurched people into your sphere of influence.
You will understand how to evangelize by being a Kingdom influence on people in all five stages of unbelief.
You will understand how to lead seekers into a life of following Jesus and how to disciple them.
You will understand how to help disciples discover their own ministries.

Lifestyle

You will establish a lifestyle of representing God’s Kingdom within your sphere of influence.
You will establish a lifestyle of outreach, evangelism, discipleship, and ministry development.

Challenges

You will be able to handle an environment in which people are skeptical about Christianity.
You will be able to handle questions raised by alternative religions in your environment (e.g. Jehovah’s Witnesses, Nation of Islam, Five Percenters, New Age, etc.).
You will be able to handle questions arising from science and technology, politics, public policy, social science, etc.
You will be able to handle the fallout from failures and scandals among Christian ministries.

Expectations

This will not happen overnight, but it won’t take forever either. Expect it to take about 3 years.
The Gospel of Matthew will be a skeleton from which you can hang various Kingdom concepts.
You will use the Gospel of Matthew and the Book of Acts as a basic framework for both understanding how to follow Jesus and for instructing others.

Discipleship

In this class you will grow spiritually by:

Identifying others who are hungry for growth and who don’t have access to this training.
Guiding them towards spiritual maturity by teaching them this material and training them to train others.

The training passes through the following phases or components:

Focus On the Message	Begin by focusing on Jesus’ message and the Bible’s unified story that leads to him.
Family Up	Develop the understanding and discipline you will need to be an effective part of Jesus’ family.
Flow in the Spirit	Jesus is present in his church through his Spirit. Learn how to be led by the Holy Spirit in every area of your life.
Face Your Problems	In Christ you can face your problems and overcome them!
Farm Your Land	Learn how to function fruitfully wherever God has placed you.
Find Your Purpose	Discover the ways that God wants to use you.
Fulfill Your Mission	Accomplish the things that God want to do through you.

These phases have a significant amount of overlap, so they are not completely consecutive. That notwithstanding, each phase builds on the one that precedes it. As your disciple progresses through these phases, you will help him/her to:

Develop godly habits
Turn godly habits into skills.
Turn godly habits and skills into his/her ministry.

Assignment for training your crew (using this material to bring others to spiritual maturity):

Throughout this material you will find sections titled “Assignments for training your crew”. They are designed to assist you with training others. Use the assignments to guide the people you’re discipling into a deeper understanding of God’s Kingdom and the life of following Jesus. The will typically involve the following:

Listen to God.
- Set aside a daily time to spend with God when you won’t be disturbed.
- Use this time to pray. Ask your discipler to teach you how if necessary.
- Keep a notebook that you can use to write down what the Lord says to you during this and other times.
- Review what God says to you with the person who is discipling you.
Read some Bible passages.
Watch some videos.
Discuss answers to some relevant questions.
The discussion is an important part of the growth process. The relevant questions will often include the following:
Standard Discussion Questions:
- What did this passage teach you about God (Father, Son, Holy Spirit)?
- What did this passage teach you about people?
- In what ways does this passage apply to your own life?
- How are you measuring up to what God is requiring of you?
- How can we help you in this area?

Try to pace the assignments at about one per week

Components