(Click here for an Overview of the 4 Levels of Discipleship.)
After a person gets saved (Level 1) and matures in the Lord, they will go through the process of being taught about Christianity by others (Level 2) as well as learning to grow themselves through the Word of God and prayer (Level 3), yet that is not the end of discipleship. Their personal maturity in the Lord must continue to develop until their focus makes a shift from themselves to others. This change is part of a life-long journey into Christian service.
Catching a Vision To Serve
While a person is growing in the Lord, they must come to know their new identity in Him, and also the inheritance they carry. This process can take a lot of time and revision – years for many of us. However, this internal identity shift should naturally begin to manifest itself outwardly in service toward others.
As a believer discovers the extravagant ways Christ loves us, their hearts will begin to change, in love, toward other people. They will naturally begin to look for ways to share that love. As they do, God will begin to give them a vision for ministry (which simply means service) and to reveal their spiritual gifts to them, for His purposes.
Although there are obvious universal aspects to God’s ministry within the church, this developing vision for ministry will be personal to each believer. As people demonstrate the desire to serve and begin to step into various love-sharing opportunities, we must begin to disciple them in clarifying their vision for serving others.
Christ gave general commands to those He sent out in the New Testament. Those same commands still apply today. We must continue to “preach the gospel,” “heal the sick,” “cast out demons,” “encourage one another,” “care for widows and orphans,” etc. However, He has also uniquely designed each one of us to fulfill different aspects of service in His Kingdom. Each of us are equipped with different giftings and callings from the Lord.
As we disciple people to “become who they are in Christ,” we must never seek to force all Christians into the same areas of service, or expect the same abilities from everyone. Just as not all are apostles or pastors (see 1 Corinthians 12:29-31), it is also true that not all are choir leaders, children’s ministers, or ushers.
As we continue to disciple people, personally getting to know them, we must give them opportunities to develop their own unique gifts and talents, and help them find their place within the Body of Christ. This will enable them to serve His people, and the world He wants to save, with passion and effectiveness.
Catching a Vision To Lead
Once a person has found their own place in the Body and is using their gifts with excellence and with joy, the next step is to go beyond simply serving, to leading. As we have discussed before, we replicate in others what God has formed within us. We said that at the most basic level, disciples make disciples. In the same way, ministers will make ministers out of others.
As we have also previously discussed, Ephesians 4:11-12 makes clear that the role of ministry leaders is not “doing” the ministry, but “equipping” others to serve. All believers, without exception, must discover how to minister to the body of Christ and to share the gospel with the lost. However, in the continuing growth process, we must all move from being ‘learners’ to being ‘leaders’ in our service.
Part of a person’s vision to lead will develop naturally, as others begin to pick up and follow their passion for service. However, for most Christians, there comes a time when they must be pushed out of their comfort zone, and into the place of leading and guiding others.
We, as disciple makers, must make every effort to identify the giftings and fruit in a person’s life, and move them toward opportunities to teach others what they have learned from the Lord.
Let me share a personal example. I once served as a missionary to the island nation of Haiti. I was in an area of heavy witchcraft, yet the present reality of evil also built an expectation of supernatural activity from God. Every Sunday after I closed our church services I was approached by many people for prayers for their physical healing.
Up to this point in my life, I had seen people healed through the prayer of others, and I had a very high personal desire to see healing in the ministry, but I had never had the opportunity to pursue healing very much. I had no idea what I was doing. I knew that the “effectual, fervent prayers of a righteous man” has power to heal (see James 5:13-15), but I did not know how to pray that prayer for myself. My passion was still greater than my inability; however, and so I prayed (ineffectively) for every person who came to me for months.
As I continued this pursuit, God led me to the ministry of a man named Randy Clark, whom God has used to both heal the sick, and to impart the healing gift into thousands of regular Christians all around the world. I was personally touched very powerfully by the Lord while attending the Voice of the Apostles conference and receiving Randy’s prayer. I went out with a new boldness to pray and a new gift inside me. The very next week, on a short trip to Southern Sudan, I had the chance to lay hands on a blind man and to watch his grey eyes regain their color. Many other incredible healings followed over the next few days.
Being emboldened by this experience, I signed up for Randy’s training course for healing ministry, to learn from him and his team how to pray more effectively. That was in 2012. Since then, God has used me to heal hundreds, maybe thousands, around the world in my own ministry.
I have also taken up the responsibility of teaching those I lead how to pray for the sick. I want my fellow ministers to have strong faith for healing breakthroughs, too. Though I have not attained to the level of Randy Clark or others, it does not release me from the responsibility of sharing what I have learned with others.
Imparting God’s Vision for Your Organization
The last thing I want to touch on is moving people from “lay minister” to joining the official ministry leadership within your church or ministry. It is at this point you must add to your mentoring processes what I call, Values-Based Discipleship. This is how you will begin to shape them with the vision God has given for your organization.
If I were to ask you, “what are your highest personal values as a ministry,” you would likely have an answer. Most founders and senior leaders of organizations have received a clear vision for the ministry. However, as I have found throughout my own ministry experience, that vision is seldom passed on to other leaders clearly or effectively.
We must personalize our leader-making discipleship strategies to fit our church or ministry. This will begin the process of turning new disciples into long-term, mature leaders within our organizations.
To give an example, in my ministry, Sozo Ministries, we have set 5 “cultural values” that the Lord called us to live out when we founded the ministry. They are Bible-loving, Intimacy (prayer)-led, Identity-driven, Revival-longing, Empowerment-focused.
The goal is that these values would mark every leader, missionary, pastor, church, and church member in our ministry. In order to make that goal a reality, we cannot simply post the values on the wall and hope they are being received by people passing by. We have to teach, train, and demonstrate these things in order to impart them into every leader and member of our churches. These things, then, become a vital focus in our disciple-making process.
In your ministry, too, I am sure you have a vision from the Lord and a set of values you attempt to live out. The question that must be asked is, “how well are you imparting those things into your next generation of leaders?”
It is true that not every person who comes through your ministry will end up carrying the same vision. That is perfectly fine! You will eventually release those individuals to go serve another ministry or begin something new. Praise God that He used you to touch their lives as you did.
Despite this fact, there are those whom God has called to come behind you, to carry your vision on long into the future. That is a high honor for both you and to them, but it only happens when you fully share with them all that the Lord has placed on you.
We must realize that everything the Lord has done in our lives is intended to be passed on to others. We are to take the things God has given to us, and to give them away to others. If we have been taught from the word, we must share the truth with others. If we have been set free of demonic powers, we are given authority to set others free as well. If we have been called into leadership, we must raise up other leaders around us. This is not optional!
If we seek to protect what is “ours” — our ministry, our church, our blessing, our…whatever — we will end up losing it. Instead, when we learn to pour out what God has given to us for others, we will be refilled again and again as faithful stewards of the things of God.
Photo by Jehyun Sung on Unsplash
