Sharing Life II

In my previous post, I discussed how we started to discipleship triads, and how great they went. So let me fill in some of the gaps on how's and why's.

I ordered some of the Discipleship Essentials manuals and asked two men to meet with me once a week for about an hour for a year. The commitment to the time is the hardest part. But this study is really not content-based. It is more about relationships and sharing life than about learning lots of verses of biblical truths. Although that having been said, the study part of it is not shallow, in fact is very deep, and deals with difficult truths (theodicy, sovereignty of God in salvation and suffering, etc.), quotes Piper, Packer, Stott, and others. But again, the main point of the study is to develop lives together.

So Monday morning at 5:45 AM three of us began our walk together with Christ and Greg Ogden in September of last year. We shared some of life each week, prayed for each other, and studied the Word together. And this group became the group of people that I would share anything with, and I mean anything. We all began to grow in closeness with each other and with Jesus.

It was going so good that I started a second triad with two other men. I will not do two groups at a time again simply because of time, but it went great too! The first two men were biblically-knowledgeable, and discipled. The second triad was made up of men whom the church had seen come to Christ, baptized, and then expected to grow upon their own. No one had ever discipled these men intentionally. And I figured that this would really be the test of Ogden's methodology. So we began meeting at 6 AM on Wednesdays. And their testimony was weekly, "this is the best thing that New River has ever done" to promote spiritual maturity and growth.

They began to grow in leaps and bounds. And it is not that these men were worldly or anything, but they just began to press on toward maturity. And their families and friends noticed their passion for Christ and the relationships in our group. And our relationship has surpassed that of a pastor or a hunting buddy to that of a friend, deep and true.

And this is one of the reasons that I say that this is what God has been using in my life. I have been grown, challenged, held accountable, and been encouraged through these two triads. I thank God for His grace to me in this fashion, and for these men.

And now, as our first triad is over, these men are finding two other men a piece, and beginning their own triads; forming deeper relationships over truth with other men; discipling others in the way that Paul and Jesus did. In fact, even in the second triad, these men are beginning to think about who they want to take on in their next triad. And we have some ladies in our church that have seen how the men have responded, read Ogden's book, and are contemplating beginning triads of their own. Hopefully this will help transform our church over several years, and fill it full of genuine disciples for Christ.

In the next post, I try to outline some of the helpful hints and suggestions that our groups have come up with, in case you are interested in doing triads.