Bible students or disciples?

Our family just returned to the east coast (USA) after two weeks of conferences in California and a week of vacation with my brother-in-law's family. We were then subjected to what seemed like a week in the Seattle airport due to heightened security measures, missed and cancelled flights and other such riotous fun while ALL of our luggage vacationed in Baltimore ;-)

We stood in this line, which extended down into the bowels of the airport,
in order to pass through the Seattle airport security

At Brethren National Youth Conference (Biola University) I had the opportunity to do a luncheon discussion on "informal intergenerational disciple making" entitled, Tell Your Kids: Don't Waste Your Life. I accepted the invitation to share on this topic because years ago I reached a critical juncture in my church planting; I realized that I was making Bible students, but I was not making disciples.
D.A. Carson says:
“Disciples are those who hear, understand, and obey Jesus’ teaching…. It is binding on all Jesus’ disciples to make others what they themselves are—disciples of Jesus Christ.”

Sounds good, but how does one do that?! So at the luncheon I shared some of my insights on disciple making and gleaned others from the participants. The gist of my thoughts from Titus 2:1-10 were:
Share your time with them (don’t depend on the youth group meeting)
Share your life with them (don’t depend on the Sunday School curriculum)
Share stories and tips with them (don’t depend on the Sunday sermon)

In an accelerated culture, sharing time with someone may be
our costliest sacrifice and most fruitful investment

One reflection on disciple making that has greatly impacted me comes from Dr. Günter Krallman's book, Mentoring for Mission. He writes:
"In his discipling of the Twelve the Master attached eminent importance to association, i.e. companionship, the cultivation of close relational ties. On the basis of such with-ness he (Jesus) generated a dynamic process of life-transference which was meant to foster holistic maturity in his friends…."
Nothing intellectually groundbreaking in all of this. The hard part, of course, is actually incorporating the "life-transference" that fosters holistic maturity into our praxis; so we had a time of prayer asking the Spirit to enable us to do that.
Otherwise, this summer the Klawitters have visited churches in York, Souderton, Lancaster, Hagerstown, Shady Grove, Clinton, Alexandria, Lancaster and Coatesville. We will be in Hope and Telford before we head back home in less than two weeks. It has been so good to see friends and family again, sharing glimpses of the Trinity's doings in Europe and how we might all participate in His activity through prayer.

If you would like to have a short list of prayer items for GBIM's established churches and emerging teams as well as for the European Charis Associates (evangelists and church planters), please drop me a note at: paulklaw@gbim.org and I'll be glad to shoot them off to you.
Rather than attempt to crank out another entry on the fly, I think we will take a summer break. See you in September!