follow: second in a series on daily intern life

 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ. (1 Cor 11:1)

In addition to prayer, learning through discipleship is one of the central practices for the Boiler Room interns.  

Jenn and I are discipled by Bruce and Sue who have shepherded intentional Christian communities.  In turn, Jenn disciples Sarah Renee, Brooke, Sarah Jayne and Chelsea; and I disciple Danmike and Chip.  We meet weekly to discuss what they're learning about God, what they're realizing about their identity in Christ, and what missional calls God is putting into their lives.  

As a part of the discipleship chain, we've started d groups (as in discipleship groups) that focus on accountability, reading large chunks of Scripture and praying missionally.  We are in the process of multiplying these groups in order to call the interns to experience what it's like to be the initiator of one of these d groups.  Brooke is meeting regularly with high school students connected with The Other Way.   Danmike has called two friends to meet and explore what it might mean to follow Christ in less "safe" ways.  Chip has called two friends to meet weekly.  Sarah Renee is facilitating a small group particularly focused on people who are in the midst of healing from past wounds. Sarah Jayne has started to disciple children in the neighborhood with an eye toward connecting them with simple church on Thursday nights.  

And as the interns begin to disciple others, Jenn and I are available to pour into other disciples.  With d groups multiplying, we have prayed about other friends of the Boiler Room and have been led to establish new discipling relationships. 

During the week, disciples learn from doing something with their rabbi.  Jenn and Chelsea are looking to practice concrete weekly outreach to six neighbors over the course of two months.  Jenn shared with Chelsea about how our first year in the neighborhood  was spent befriending one family.  And God moved through that one relationship. Chelsea listened to her rabbi and thought that made sense especially with an opportunity to do it with someone else like Jenn.  

As we prayer walk, I try to model what I've been learning about intercession for the neighborhood as well as interactions with neighbors.  Chip has taken off on this and has made prayer walking and inviting to the Love Feast one of his weekly tasks.  Danmike has found a preference for late night prayer walking.

Discipleship clearly has a dimension of learning and we call interns to spend regular time in study.  Interns will study Scripture based on their d groups and individual study plans.  Sometimes getting a spiffy new Bible will prompt new types of study (Danmike!).  We also study specific topics like healing, hospitality and most currently simple church.  Convening for book groups once every six weeks provides us with an opportunity to learn together about topics related to the practices of a Boiler Room.  

A final part of the discipling time that I've found is time spent noticing and sharing observations.  For example, Sarah Renee and Brooke have a gift toward praying for healing and deliverance in the course of community prayer. Part of this past week was spent praying and discussing how we might make space for this in our community.   With Danmike's passion toward worship, I've been nudging him (another discipleship practice) toward imagining how he can use worship to disciple others and to be a missional activity as in something like open air worship.  

Sometimes views of discipleship are distorted to think it's a prideful placing of one on a pedestal.  On the contrary, we find that we're simply calling others to run hard with us after Jesus.  And we find that we are trying more and more to make the foolishness of our lives transparent to our disciples in order that they might see all of the challenges and joys found in this life.  Others might view discipleship as simply pouring all of my knowledge into an empty vessel.  This puts too much pressure on the rabbi and in turn doesn't recognize the Kingdom of God inside of the disciple.  What we've found is that discipleship is about doing, opening one's life up, reflecting, noticing, nudging and asking questions.  It's hard work;  but it seems wise to us as a way for us all to spend a chunk of our days.

God's provided this brilliant and simple practice of discipleship and we praise Him for it.  It's slow;  it's small scale but we believe that our God is the God of the mustard seed.  As we follow His example and call others to follow us as we follow Him, we believe that will be how the Kingdom of God breaks out in our neighborhood and in Grand Rapids.  

May we all make disciples who make disciples.  

::tony::