Thoughts on Making Disciples 9

I’m here at SFO, getting ready to board a flight to Albuquerque. The Navigators are interested in scattered networks like ours. I’ve been invited to exchange ideas with people doing similar things in Albuquerque… exciting times.

Okay, back to thoughts on making disciples. Having an idea of what I’m after - mature followers of Christ (Remember how I said it’d be good for each of us to figure out how we’d define maturity? One good track is to consider Jesus as being the model of maturity), praying, going to non-Christians and beginning to build relationships, thenext step is to make some sort of ask. I’ll use how I got things rolling with my cousin John as an example. Haven’t asked him, but he won’t mind. Although I’ve known John most of my life, our relationship really started about a dozen years ago. We’re ten years apart in age so we grew up in different stages. I can’t remember how, but we reconnected as adults. We hung out maybe a handful of times, strewn over a couple years. And although the times were sparse, we had this great connection. Mostly cause John’s hard not to like. As our relationship grew, I started thinking about him and Christ. During one of those hanging outs, the subject of my job came up. As I mentioned last week, in wisdom, I try to be open with my faith. For me, talk about my job is an opportunity to naturally bring up my faith. When I did with John, I noticed that he didn’t get weird about it.

I told Tara, the next time we hang, I'm going to ask. She said, "You're nuts." The next time, I said something like, “Hey John, I noticed that when I was telling you about my job, you seemed pretty interested. You have some background with Christianity?” To which John responded, “Yeah, I’m like most Korean kids growing up in LA. Did the whole church thing… I think it’s cool what you’re doing.” “I’m interested in your story with all that. Next time I’m up in LA, can we get together? I’d like to hear more of it.” Not long after, John took me to a great burger and beer place in Culver City. After hearing his story, and concluding that he had probably put his trust in Christ in his youth, I asked him if he would be interested in growing. Told him that if he was, I’d like to help. Before I left that night, we read a passage together. We’ve been at it for five, six years now.