Building Disciples ... A bit gunshy

I'm currently in Taichung attending a Taiwan Missionary Fellowship conference (see link). It has been very refreshing attending the conference. There are some really great speakers here including Dr. Darrell Bock, who's given some really great insights into the book of Acts and the Early Church & Dr. David Roadcup who's been sharing more on the topic of Spiritual Disciplines.

Today Dr. Roadcup focused on the topic of Discipleship. Now for many of you whom I have talked "ministry" with, you know that "discipleship" is a topic that I've grown more and more passionate about over the years. At Tyndale seminary I wrote a paper about "Building Mentors/Discipleship". At ETCBC (East Toronto Chinese Baptist Church), I was discipleship coordinator and really had a vision that building mentoring/discipling relationships in the church was THE WAY to build spiritual revival into the lives of brothers and sisters. And even coming to Taiwan, I was excited about the opportunity to be able to disciple sisters in a more intimate way.

....do you sense a "BUT"? Well...here it is...

BUT, almost 1 year ago when I started discipling a Taiwanese sister from the church, I was eager to try out a near discipleship program with her, and cautious to follow suggestions from the fellowship leaders who have had success with the program, I BOMBED the relationship. It's hard to say what exactly made it a "bomb". It was a mixture of my rigidity to "Following the program", and probably a lack of prayer and sensing of the Holy Spirit, and maybe, just maybe, the sister not being ready. But whatever the reason, I felt hesitant to start a new discipling relationship. That, and I really had nobody that I felt God was highlighting for me to disciple.

Well Mr. Roadcup's talk today gave me a renewed heart for discipleship. I have learned a lot since my last discipleship experience through reflection and even watching other colleagues and missionaries on the field here in Taiwan. I'm definitely not the wisest or most experienced of Christians, but I'm still convinced that discipleship/mentoring is crucial in building God's kingdom. The relationships, spiritual development, and depth that can be achieved in such relationships is undeniable. I mean, What DID Jesus Do? He MADE disciples!

I'm not sure where this leads me to next, and what God's calling me to do, but though I'm a bit gunshy about starting a discipling relationship again, I think I need to seriously pray about whom God is calling me to minister to, and how.