Discipleship in Generations of Grace
How do we disciple one another? Yanadi shares a few tools that we can use for discipleship and emphasises the importance of praying for one another.
Watching how the world and culture around me are "progressing" often makes me feel nervous. Recently I had more opportunities to catch up with some old friends. We shared some of the struggles related to adulting. For me? How the world, together with its worldview, has changed. I sometimes feel that I am obsolete and irrelevant. Not just moral and ethical related matters for me as a Christian, although no less important, but also technological advancement like blockchain and NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens; or for a simpleton like me: Non-Duplicatable Digital Identity, or maybe I still get it wrong) and the use of clickbaits to persuade participation. I feel like I am now one of the uncles whom I used to teach how to use Microsoft Word and Facebook to.
This predicament reminds me that I have been focusing on the wrong thing. Rather than focusing on the world, which rightly produces anxiety, I should focus on Christ, which will rightly produce assurance and hope. I am reminded of Christ's response to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world." (Jn 18:36) If I am hoping for the world to get better, I am placing my hope in the wrong place for Jesus himself never promised us such until He comes again. Not only that, my main call is not to transform the world apart from sharing the good news of Jesus Christ to them. Instead, my main call is to disciple my family members as well as brothers and sisters in GBC.
Recently I have been thinking more on how to disciple my children, especially as my wife and I were struggling with certain bad habits that our older one had developed. I am particularly thankful for Elder Mark who recently joined us to shepherd specifically GBC's family matters. We had a few edifying and helpful conversations not just on how to disciple our children, but also how to discipline our children. I encourage you to get to know him better as well as seek his wise counsel on family matters.
Mark shared in our most recent prayer meeting in June from Deuteronomy 6:1-12. He said that teaching our children God's word is the outflowing of our love for God. One specific way I introduce my older one to God's truth is by using catechism, just as how we now read a portion of a catechism in our worship service. There are plenty of catechisms out there, but I would recommend a book called Teaching Truth, Training Hearts by Thomas Nettles and Steve Weaver (Founders Press) which contains several baptistic catechisms suited for different age groups. Our library has a copy of this book. I love this book so much, I named my older child after one of the catechism authors therein. Currently we are going through Catechism for Girls and Boys in the book, which is one of the simplest catechisms. At 3 years old, he still struggles with many concepts as well as just the basic discipline of going through the session, but I just persevere through to get him familiarised and allow for clarifications to happen in our daily conversations.
Of course nothing can substitute reading the Bible and prayers. Those two should be the basic minimum for family discipleship. Moreover, I cannot stress enough the importance of prayer for someone's conversion. Just like our futile efforts of transforming the world outside of Christ, we could easily make our children the most moral and ethical persons in the world, but they will be the most miserable moral and ethical monsters if they are outside of Christ. So while introducing God's truth can be an ordinary means of God's grace, only His extraordinary means of being born again can save our children. So while we can pursue all sorts of ordinary means to lead our children to Christ, we must not forget to pray for them that the gift of being born again may be given to them.
What about in our church? How can we disciple our brothers and sister in GBC?
We can also use catechisms to disciple one another. As our church is reading New City Catechism weekly, we can use that in our conversations. Some of our church members have been providing a brief reflection on each Q&A to guide us in our discussion.
Alternatively, we can utilise our EQUIP platform to disciple others. We are starting our second run of our basic EQUIP series this month. They include:
Seeing Jesus in All of Scripture (How to Read the Bible Better) (Tue, 12 Jul–2 Aug, Zoom: http://gracebaptistchurch.sg/equip-core, 8–9:15pm)
Knowing the Truth: Christian Doctrines (Sun, 7 Aug–11 Sep, Rm 516–519, 11am–12nn)
Living the Truth: Christian Living (Sun, 25 Sep–23 Oct, Rm 516–519, 11am–12nn)
Speaking of Jesus: Evangelism (Sun, 6–27 Nov, Rm 516–519, 11am–12nn)
These EQUIP series are not just meant to equip the attendees with information, but also to become a basis of conversations as we live out our lives as a church. We can attend these sessions either for ourselves or by bringing someone we are discipling to have conversations on these basic but important matters in Christian life. And remember to pray for the persons we are in discipleship relationships with.
While not all of us have children, we all can have disciples. What we need to do is to have intentional conversations that will lead to gospel conversation, namely, how the gospel applies to you and me, even and especially as Christians, in our current life circumstances.