Seth Barnes - How do I get discipled as Jesus discipled?

If you're a student, where do you go to be discipled in the same sort of way that Jesus poured into his disciples?

If you're a parent, what is your strategy for discipling your kids?

One place to look is the local church; usually you'll find someone there who really wants to help others follow Jesus. The trick is to somehow connect with them.

I'd be interested to know what you find at your local church when you dial up the church secretary and ask her if she can point you to someone who will disciple you as Jesus did. That'd be a good experiment [I hope a few of you will try that out and report back what you find].

Many churches seem to substitute programs and activities for the kind of process Jesus followed that was focused on waking up his disciples to supernatural reality.

Discipling is a process that usually is attended by pain and discomfort - things that we church leaders and parents work hard to protect our children from. We want to help young people get to greatness, but we're conflicted about exposing them to the uncomfortable, ambiguous situations that will get them there.

When my kids were in their teens, I realized that I couldn't delegate discipleship to anyone else - if I didn't do it, it wasn't going to happen. And so I made it a priority. We spent time trying to follow Jesus and his process.

It wasn't easy; at times it was stressful. If they were to wake up to life in the Spirit, they needed to experience the process of abandoning their lives of comfort and trusting God completely.

We were able to give that to them in spurts, but we needed the help of others to move them in the direction of making their faith their own.

I discovered there were no easy answers and no magic curriculum. Along the way, I did learn this, however: If we're to follow hard after Jesus, we need to be willing to be put in situations where we have to trust him in radical ways. And that begs a few questions.