Part 2 Lesson 1
I am Caleb Fielding and I have a question for you, What is the fastest way to mature as a Christian?
When I was in Bible college there was a man who was a couple years older than me who got saved out of a life where he sold and used drugs. Before he came to Christ he over dosed three different times and nearly died. God saved him and took the desire to do drugs away, and God called him to preach. He had never been in church all his life, but a pastor took him under his wing and within a year of discipleship this ex drug dealer was a more mature Christian than I was simply because he was getting discipled and I wasn’t.
The fastest way to mature as a Christian is through personal discipleship. I Corinthians 11:1 describes it like this.
1 Corinthians 11:1 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.
Today we begin a series on singles and discipleship which begs the question what is discipleship.
We live in a culture that does nearly all of its systematic learning through a classroom setting, the problem is that many things cannot be demonstrated in a classroom. For instance I took trigonometry in my senior year of high school, trigonometry is used to check the size of properties (also known as surveying). Although I learned the math I have no idea how to practically use what I have been taught because I have never been shown.
For someone to learn how to practically use trigonometry they need someone to individually take them aside and show them how to use the different tools of the trade, and in a very real sense they have to follow that person. For instance if they are going to learn to use trigonometry to survey a property they have to follow their mentor to different kinds of properties; from large to small, to flat, to hilly, to property with no buildings and property with many buildings.
Discipleship is meant to show you how to practically use what you learned in the classroom, or fill in the gaps that you never learned or cannot learn in the classroom.
Many of you are like me and you grew up in a local church. Personally as a kid I was in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, wensday and Thursday nights. Then I start Bible college and I was basically in church 5 or 6 days a week, and some weeks I was in church every single day.
Even though I got really good instruction, had really good Sunday school teachers, and heard really good preaching, day in and day out. It wasn’t enough.
For me it wasn’t until a few years after Bible College that I got discipled and when I finally got discipled in about 3 months I grew more than I did in 4 years of Bible college. Not because my Bible college was bad, but because all that stuff they said finally had a practical example for me to follow.
Discipleship in its simplest definition is simply following someone. Here in I Corinthians 11:1 Paul is saying to follow Paul as Paul follows Christ. At this time Paul is way closer to Jesus than the person he is talking to, and in order for this person to get closer to Christ in the fastest time possible he should follow Paul until he has Caught up to where Paul is.
When my pastor began discipling me I just came to him with this verse and told my pastor that I would follow him wherever he let me. So when pastor went to the hospital, I followed him. When pastor went out on visitation I followed him. When pastor had stuff to do at the church I followed him. Pastor even let me follow him to his house ever now and then. As our relationship grew Pastor even invited me to follow him to IHOP.
In following pastor I grew more in 3 months than I did in 4 years of Bible college. So much of what they said in Bible college was finally being modeled for me. And I did not just grow ministry wise. I Seriously lacked people skills and watching pastor handle situations in a wise way helped me. At times I handled situations poorly and my pastor corrected me and it was so helpful. During this time we grew close and I was able to share some of my baggage with him and if nothing else he helped me sort a lot of things out.
Although I will say in the first 3 months I grew more than I did while I was in 4 years of Bible college, for about a year and a half to two years I was clearly growing in spiritual maturity weekly. Just from following the man of God.
I would argue that if you are a single adult and you have not been personally discipled; where you have not found a mature Christian to follow around, then you are wasting your singleness. Discipleship makes singleness a gift.
Most teenagers, for a variety of reasons, are not in a position where they can follow the man of God (or for the ladies to follow the mature lady of God). For those who are it’s a treasure. For the majority of teens though, they have to wait until they are a single adult and can do what they want before they have the authority to choose to follow a mature Christian who will model Mature Christianity.
Most married couples are not in a position to follow a mature Christian. If either one of the spouses is against it they will not be discipled, and many times even if both are for it, their responsibilities to their family makes discipleship hard, slow, or impossible at times.
But singles are in a special place in their life where they have total authority over their life, without being responsible for anyone but themselves. What discipleship does for the singles is it makes their single years a treasure that they will give to their future spouse, children, and churches.
Before we begin breaking down all the nuts and bolts of discipleship there are two things you need to understand about discipleship.
First of all your Role is to follow.
One of the biggest obstacles to discipleship is the temptation to take the lead when you need to be following.
For instance you may realize that you have every Thursday off and you tell the pastor that you need to be discipled on Thursday since that’s your day off, and that the best place to disciple you is at some restraint over breakfast.
The problem with telling your pastor, when, where, and how to disciple you is that when you tell him any one of these things it makes it impossible for him to disciple you.
If anyone could have told their pastor when, where, and how to disciple them, then it would have been me. Before I was discipled I got degree in pastoral theology, spent years teaching a Sunday school class, preaching to children, teenagers, and in the jail, went soul winning every chance I got. But the honest truth is that I knew there was something wrong with me and I could not put my finger on it.
After I started going to my church I went up to pastor Cummins and asked him a question. I asked him “What is wrong with me?” He couldn’t give me an answer then but I can give you an answer now my problem was I had not yet had a man to show me how to be a man.
The Lord in His mercy would not let me get I Corinthians 11:1 out of my head, so I went to the pastor and told him “that the Bible says to follow you, so let me follow you.” I did not tell my pastor where we were going, when we were going there, or how this was going to be done. I simply followed my pastor every chance I got.
If you are going to be discipled you should go to your pastor and tell him you want to follow him. Or if you are a lady ask him and his wife if you can follow his wife in obedience to I Corinthians 11:1. Perhaps your pastor wont allow you to follow him at this time, but he encourages you to follow another member of the church. It doesn’t matter if you get discipled by the pastor or someone else, as long as your pastor directs you to someone who can disciple you.
When the pastor or the pastors proxy agrees to disciple you they are agreeing to let you follow them, so when they make hospital visits then you make hospital visits with them. When they go soul winning, you are their soul winning partner. When they get to church an hour early to open the doors and turn on the heating and air you get to church an hour early to turn on the heating and air with them. As the relationship naturally progresses there will be times that they invite you to their home and you get to see their family interaction.
During this time of following them as they follow Christ, you talk with them about all sorts of stuff including your relationship with Christ. During this time period you will get to talk with them about your struggles and success in Bible reading, prayer, and worship.
During this time period you will get to discuss with them doctrine and why you believe the way you do.
During this time period you will get to learn how they study the Bible and prepare lessons and sermons.
Why? Because you are following them.
Following someone is how the apostles were discipled by Christ. Jesus shows up and he tells the apostles to follow him. There are many of stories in the Gospels showing how the Apostles left what they were doing to follow Christ. And they followed Christ to deserts, over the sea of Galilee, through storms, to Cities. Wherever Christ went the apostles followed Christ.
Yes the Apostles learned from Christ’s preaching and teaching, but they also learned from seeing Christ. When they saw Christ put his teaching into action in good times and bad times it showed how they could apply the same teachings to their lives.
Although there are dozens of stories showing the apostles following Christ, the one I think that best illustrates our need to follow the man of God can be found in John 11.
We find Jesus on the other side of the Jordon River when John 11 starts. And while Jesus is on the other side of Jordon, Mary and Martha send someone to tell Jesus that Lazarus is sick. They had seen Jesus heal people before so since their brother is sick they quickly sent someone to tell Jesus so that Jesus could heal Lazarus. And Jesus decided to tarry 2 days.
The Bible does not say whether the Apostles encouraged Jesus to go heal Lazarus or not. We don’t know it they did. We do know that Mary and Martha was asking for Jesus to come heal Lazarus.
Sometimes when you are being discipled you will see something that looks advantageous. You will see something that you think you should act on. But the Mature Christian you are following wont move on that situation right away, or perhaps at all. In all honesty this is one of the best places to be discipled because they are handling a situation in a way you would not.
This situation will require you to really submit to them in a way you have never had to submit to them before. Generally when someone who has been serving God awhile does something in a way we would not do it, its because experience or a leading of the Holy Spirit is showing them that there is more to the situation. And as you trust them your understanding of things will grow enormously because that’s not how you would handle the situation. This is one of the most important reasons to be discipled. If you feel like you are not all that you should be or can be, then seeing how a mature Christian does things differently than you is the fastest way to grow, and increase understanding.
We know In John 11 that Jesus tarried a bit longer than Mary and Martha wanted Him too, and perhaps Jesus waited longer than one of the Apostles wanted him to, we don’t know cause the Bible does not record what the Apostles said about this, But when Jesus did go to visit Mary, Martha and Lazarus some of the Disciples were concerned.
In John 10 the Jews tried to stone Jesus, and so Jesus led his Apostles to the other side of Jordon, and now that Jesus is leading his Apostles back across Jordon to visit Lazarus the Apostles are concerned, they are warning Jesus about how dangerous it would be to visit Lazarus now. But Jesus flatly tells them that he is going; and they follow Jesus.
Sometimes when you are being discipled and you are following a mature Christian, you are going to think they are doing something stupid or crazy. This is one of the best times to follow them because again they are not doing something that you would do. This gives you the most opportunity for growth, the most opportunity to learn from them.
Imagine the Apostles telling Jesus how bad of an idea it is to go across Jordon at this time, but Jesus tells them they are going, they get to where Lazarus is and he is dead, Mary and Martha think he should have got there 4 days sooner, the Apostles think he should not be there at all. Then Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Jesus knew what he was doing all along, and in following Jesus the apostles got the best education possible.
Discipleship in its essence is following, and the best time to follow is when you would do something differently than the mature Christian you are being discipled by. It is the best time to grow and gain understanding, it’s the best time to develop trust, it’s the best time to see God move.
Are you willing to follow a mature Christian whether you agree with where they are going or not?
If you are going to be discipled you have to be willing to follow them but in order to be discipled your decision is not the only one that matters, you have to find a mature Christian that is willing to let you follow
Like any relationship both sides have a choice in the matter, and in order to be discipled one side has to agree to follow and the other side has to agree to let them follow.
Honestly the first part of this series is about developing the relationship with a mature Christian like your pastor or other church leader, so that they would be willing to let you follow them.
If you follow them like you should then you are going to see very private aspects of their lives for them to let you in that close they have to learn to trust you which requires you to build a relationship first.
If you are trying to be discipled by someone then you are going to have to build that relationship. The first time they meet you its very unlikely they will begin the discipleship process. Even if they have known you for years, if they are not close to you they are unlikely to begin the discipleship process.
Before you begin to be discipled by someone its likely you will need to care for one another, consider one another, exhort one another, let each other know about your suffering, share your honor with one another, rejoice with one another, provoke one another to love and good works. Its really in practicing these biblical truths that you develop a relationship that can develop into discipleship which is a far deeper relationship than you will have with other people in the local church.
Lets say you have been trying to obey the scripture in developing a relationship with church leadership for months and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. I think the best thing you can do is talk with that church leader or pastor and tell them that you have a need to be discipled and that you are trying to develop the right kind of relationship so that they will allow you to follow them as they follow and serve Christ.
And either they will tell you what you need to do to follow them, or they will tell you its not going to happen. If they tell you they will not allow you to follow them or if they tell you what you need to do to follow them and you take the time to jump through hoops to meet their demands and they continually blow you off for a few months, then you really need to have a conversation about where you can go to be discipled.
I do not like talking about anyone leaving their local church, I know its offensive and honestly it should be offensive, but if you cannot be discipled by one man of God, it is Biblical to be discipled by another man of God.
In Acts 13 we are introduced to John Mark. John Mark followed Paul and Barnabas to Cyrpress and when they left Cypress instead of continuing on the missionary journey with Paul and Barnabas, John Mark went back to Jerusalem.
In Acts 15 Paul and Barnabas makes their way back to Jerusalem and during their stay there Barnabas decides to let John Mark follow them on their missionary Journey. Paul absolutely refuses! Paul is so against discipling John Mark that Paul breaks off his relationship with Barnabas and goes to a different area of the Roman Empire.
Years later in II Timothy 4 Paul said that John Mark is profitable to the ministry.
The reality is that in Acts 13 John Mark blew his relationship with Paul. Not due to sexual sin, committing a felony, betraying Paul, or stealing. John Mark blew his relationship by simply not following Paul when he had the chance, probably due to immaturity, and it didn’t matter what he did he was never going to get another chance from Paul.
The reality is that if your pastor or church leadership is unwilling to let you follow them then either you blew your chance already, or others have blown it for you.
In Acts 15 even though Paul was unwilling to disciple John Mark, Paul was happy to go to the same church as John Mark. Being content to worship together does not mean you have a good relationship.
Even though Paul did not disciple John Mark it did not affect Paul’s ministry or walk with God. Paul utterly Refused to disciple John Mark and God still blessed Paul, and Paul still wrote most of the New Testament, so if your pastor or church leadership refuses to disciple you, that does not make them bad people, and they probably wont be hurt by it. They have made a judgement call, and you have to live with the consequences of it.
John Mark did not wait around for Paul to come back to Jerusalem in the hopes that Paul would disciple him when he came back. That would not have helped John Mark, so John Mark moved on and was discipled by Barnabas.
Just because your pastor, or church leadership wont Disciple you doesn’t mean that nobody will.
Paul did not hold a grudge against John Mark, in II Timothy Paul bragged on the man he refused to disciple. If someone refuses to disciple you it does not mean they dislike you, it simply means that either they do not trust you or do not click with you. The best thing to do is give up on Paul discipling you and to find a Barnabas, and perhaps your Paul can help you do that.
In conclusion if you are going to be discipled you must agree to follow someone and they must agree to let you follow them. If both sides do not agree to it, then discipleship is impossible.
One of the things I would encourage you to do is that if you recognize your need for discipleship then you also recognize you are not everything you ought to be. If you recognize that you are not everything you ought to be and you are a single adult I would encourage you to wait to date until you have been discipled. At the end of every lesson I will mention how discipleship is preparing you for a major area of marriage. I do this because in my own life before discipleship if I had gotten married to anyone, I would have ended up getting divorced because I was way less than I ought to have been. And as always I encourage you to talk with your pastor about this.
I am Caleb Fielding and I have a question for you, What is the fastest way to mature as a Christian?
When I was in Bible college there was a man who was a couple years older than me who got saved out of a life where he sold and used drugs. Before he came to Christ he over dosed three different times and nearly died. God saved him and took the desire to do drugs away, and God called him to preach. He had never been in church all his life, but a pastor took him under his wing and within a year of discipleship this ex drug dealer was a more mature Christian than I was simply because he was getting discipled and I wasn’t.
The fastest way to mature as a Christian is through personal discipleship. I Corinthians 11:1 describes it like this.
1 Corinthians 11:1 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.
Today we begin a series on singles and discipleship which begs the question what is discipleship.
We live in a culture that does nearly all of its systematic learning through a classroom setting, the problem is that many things cannot be demonstrated in a classroom. For instance I took trigonometry in my senior year of high school, trigonometry is used to check the size of properties (also known as surveying). Although I learned the math I have no idea how to practically use what I have been taught because I have never been shown.
For someone to learn how to practically use trigonometry they need someone to individually take them aside and show them how to use the different tools of the trade, and in a very real sense they have to follow that person. For instance if they are going to learn to use trigonometry to survey a property they have to follow their mentor to different kinds of properties; from large to small, to flat, to hilly, to property with no buildings and property with many buildings.
Discipleship is meant to show you how to practically use what you learned in the classroom, or fill in the gaps that you never learned or cannot learn in the classroom.
Many of you are like me and you grew up in a local church. Personally as a kid I was in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, wensday and Thursday nights. Then I start Bible college and I was basically in church 5 or 6 days a week, and some weeks I was in church every single day.
Even though I got really good instruction, had really good Sunday school teachers, and heard really good preaching, day in and day out. It wasn’t enough.
For me it wasn’t until a few years after Bible College that I got discipled and when I finally got discipled in about 3 months I grew more than I did in 4 years of Bible college. Not because my Bible college was bad, but because all that stuff they said finally had a practical example for me to follow.
Discipleship in its simplest definition is simply following someone. Here in I Corinthians 11:1 Paul is saying to follow Paul as Paul follows Christ. At this time Paul is way closer to Jesus than the person he is talking to, and in order for this person to get closer to Christ in the fastest time possible he should follow Paul until he has Caught up to where Paul is.
When my pastor began discipling me I just came to him with this verse and told my pastor that I would follow him wherever he let me. So when pastor went to the hospital, I followed him. When pastor went out on visitation I followed him. When pastor had stuff to do at the church I followed him. Pastor even let me follow him to his house ever now and then. As our relationship grew Pastor even invited me to follow him to IHOP.
In following pastor I grew more in 3 months than I did in 4 years of Bible college. So much of what they said in Bible college was finally being modeled for me. And I did not just grow ministry wise. I Seriously lacked people skills and watching pastor handle situations in a wise way helped me. At times I handled situations poorly and my pastor corrected me and it was so helpful. During this time we grew close and I was able to share some of my baggage with him and if nothing else he helped me sort a lot of things out.
Although I will say in the first 3 months I grew more than I did while I was in 4 years of Bible college, for about a year and a half to two years I was clearly growing in spiritual maturity weekly. Just from following the man of God.
I would argue that if you are a single adult and you have not been personally discipled; where you have not found a mature Christian to follow around, then you are wasting your singleness. Discipleship makes singleness a gift.
Most teenagers, for a variety of reasons, are not in a position where they can follow the man of God (or for the ladies to follow the mature lady of God). For those who are it’s a treasure. For the majority of teens though, they have to wait until they are a single adult and can do what they want before they have the authority to choose to follow a mature Christian who will model Mature Christianity.
Most married couples are not in a position to follow a mature Christian. If either one of the spouses is against it they will not be discipled, and many times even if both are for it, their responsibilities to their family makes discipleship hard, slow, or impossible at times.
But singles are in a special place in their life where they have total authority over their life, without being responsible for anyone but themselves. What discipleship does for the singles is it makes their single years a treasure that they will give to their future spouse, children, and churches.
Before we begin breaking down all the nuts and bolts of discipleship there are two things you need to understand about discipleship.
First of all your Role is to follow.
One of the biggest obstacles to discipleship is the temptation to take the lead when you need to be following.
For instance you may realize that you have every Thursday off and you tell the pastor that you need to be discipled on Thursday since that’s your day off, and that the best place to disciple you is at some restraint over breakfast.
The problem with telling your pastor, when, where, and how to disciple you is that when you tell him any one of these things it makes it impossible for him to disciple you.
If anyone could have told their pastor when, where, and how to disciple them, then it would have been me. Before I was discipled I got degree in pastoral theology, spent years teaching a Sunday school class, preaching to children, teenagers, and in the jail, went soul winning every chance I got. But the honest truth is that I knew there was something wrong with me and I could not put my finger on it.
After I started going to my church I went up to pastor Cummins and asked him a question. I asked him “What is wrong with me?” He couldn’t give me an answer then but I can give you an answer now my problem was I had not yet had a man to show me how to be a man.
The Lord in His mercy would not let me get I Corinthians 11:1 out of my head, so I went to the pastor and told him “that the Bible says to follow you, so let me follow you.” I did not tell my pastor where we were going, when we were going there, or how this was going to be done. I simply followed my pastor every chance I got.
If you are going to be discipled you should go to your pastor and tell him you want to follow him. Or if you are a lady ask him and his wife if you can follow his wife in obedience to I Corinthians 11:1. Perhaps your pastor wont allow you to follow him at this time, but he encourages you to follow another member of the church. It doesn’t matter if you get discipled by the pastor or someone else, as long as your pastor directs you to someone who can disciple you.
When the pastor or the pastors proxy agrees to disciple you they are agreeing to let you follow them, so when they make hospital visits then you make hospital visits with them. When they go soul winning, you are their soul winning partner. When they get to church an hour early to open the doors and turn on the heating and air you get to church an hour early to turn on the heating and air with them. As the relationship naturally progresses there will be times that they invite you to their home and you get to see their family interaction.
During this time of following them as they follow Christ, you talk with them about all sorts of stuff including your relationship with Christ. During this time period you will get to talk with them about your struggles and success in Bible reading, prayer, and worship.
During this time period you will get to discuss with them doctrine and why you believe the way you do.
During this time period you will get to learn how they study the Bible and prepare lessons and sermons.
Why? Because you are following them.
Following someone is how the apostles were discipled by Christ. Jesus shows up and he tells the apostles to follow him. There are many of stories in the Gospels showing how the Apostles left what they were doing to follow Christ. And they followed Christ to deserts, over the sea of Galilee, through storms, to Cities. Wherever Christ went the apostles followed Christ.
Yes the Apostles learned from Christ’s preaching and teaching, but they also learned from seeing Christ. When they saw Christ put his teaching into action in good times and bad times it showed how they could apply the same teachings to their lives.
Although there are dozens of stories showing the apostles following Christ, the one I think that best illustrates our need to follow the man of God can be found in John 11.
We find Jesus on the other side of the Jordon River when John 11 starts. And while Jesus is on the other side of Jordon, Mary and Martha send someone to tell Jesus that Lazarus is sick. They had seen Jesus heal people before so since their brother is sick they quickly sent someone to tell Jesus so that Jesus could heal Lazarus. And Jesus decided to tarry 2 days.
The Bible does not say whether the Apostles encouraged Jesus to go heal Lazarus or not. We don’t know it they did. We do know that Mary and Martha was asking for Jesus to come heal Lazarus.
Sometimes when you are being discipled you will see something that looks advantageous. You will see something that you think you should act on. But the Mature Christian you are following wont move on that situation right away, or perhaps at all. In all honesty this is one of the best places to be discipled because they are handling a situation in a way you would not.
This situation will require you to really submit to them in a way you have never had to submit to them before. Generally when someone who has been serving God awhile does something in a way we would not do it, its because experience or a leading of the Holy Spirit is showing them that there is more to the situation. And as you trust them your understanding of things will grow enormously because that’s not how you would handle the situation. This is one of the most important reasons to be discipled. If you feel like you are not all that you should be or can be, then seeing how a mature Christian does things differently than you is the fastest way to grow, and increase understanding.
We know In John 11 that Jesus tarried a bit longer than Mary and Martha wanted Him too, and perhaps Jesus waited longer than one of the Apostles wanted him to, we don’t know cause the Bible does not record what the Apostles said about this, But when Jesus did go to visit Mary, Martha and Lazarus some of the Disciples were concerned.
In John 10 the Jews tried to stone Jesus, and so Jesus led his Apostles to the other side of Jordon, and now that Jesus is leading his Apostles back across Jordon to visit Lazarus the Apostles are concerned, they are warning Jesus about how dangerous it would be to visit Lazarus now. But Jesus flatly tells them that he is going; and they follow Jesus.
Sometimes when you are being discipled and you are following a mature Christian, you are going to think they are doing something stupid or crazy. This is one of the best times to follow them because again they are not doing something that you would do. This gives you the most opportunity for growth, the most opportunity to learn from them.
Imagine the Apostles telling Jesus how bad of an idea it is to go across Jordon at this time, but Jesus tells them they are going, they get to where Lazarus is and he is dead, Mary and Martha think he should have got there 4 days sooner, the Apostles think he should not be there at all. Then Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. Jesus knew what he was doing all along, and in following Jesus the apostles got the best education possible.
Discipleship in its essence is following, and the best time to follow is when you would do something differently than the mature Christian you are being discipled by. It is the best time to grow and gain understanding, it’s the best time to develop trust, it’s the best time to see God move.
Are you willing to follow a mature Christian whether you agree with where they are going or not?
If you are going to be discipled you have to be willing to follow them but in order to be discipled your decision is not the only one that matters, you have to find a mature Christian that is willing to let you follow
Like any relationship both sides have a choice in the matter, and in order to be discipled one side has to agree to follow and the other side has to agree to let them follow.
Honestly the first part of this series is about developing the relationship with a mature Christian like your pastor or other church leader, so that they would be willing to let you follow them.
If you follow them like you should then you are going to see very private aspects of their lives for them to let you in that close they have to learn to trust you which requires you to build a relationship first.
If you are trying to be discipled by someone then you are going to have to build that relationship. The first time they meet you its very unlikely they will begin the discipleship process. Even if they have known you for years, if they are not close to you they are unlikely to begin the discipleship process.
Before you begin to be discipled by someone its likely you will need to care for one another, consider one another, exhort one another, let each other know about your suffering, share your honor with one another, rejoice with one another, provoke one another to love and good works. Its really in practicing these biblical truths that you develop a relationship that can develop into discipleship which is a far deeper relationship than you will have with other people in the local church.
Lets say you have been trying to obey the scripture in developing a relationship with church leadership for months and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. I think the best thing you can do is talk with that church leader or pastor and tell them that you have a need to be discipled and that you are trying to develop the right kind of relationship so that they will allow you to follow them as they follow and serve Christ.
And either they will tell you what you need to do to follow them, or they will tell you its not going to happen. If they tell you they will not allow you to follow them or if they tell you what you need to do to follow them and you take the time to jump through hoops to meet their demands and they continually blow you off for a few months, then you really need to have a conversation about where you can go to be discipled.
I do not like talking about anyone leaving their local church, I know its offensive and honestly it should be offensive, but if you cannot be discipled by one man of God, it is Biblical to be discipled by another man of God.
In Acts 13 we are introduced to John Mark. John Mark followed Paul and Barnabas to Cyrpress and when they left Cypress instead of continuing on the missionary journey with Paul and Barnabas, John Mark went back to Jerusalem.
In Acts 15 Paul and Barnabas makes their way back to Jerusalem and during their stay there Barnabas decides to let John Mark follow them on their missionary Journey. Paul absolutely refuses! Paul is so against discipling John Mark that Paul breaks off his relationship with Barnabas and goes to a different area of the Roman Empire.
Years later in II Timothy 4 Paul said that John Mark is profitable to the ministry.
The reality is that in Acts 13 John Mark blew his relationship with Paul. Not due to sexual sin, committing a felony, betraying Paul, or stealing. John Mark blew his relationship by simply not following Paul when he had the chance, probably due to immaturity, and it didn’t matter what he did he was never going to get another chance from Paul.
The reality is that if your pastor or church leadership is unwilling to let you follow them then either you blew your chance already, or others have blown it for you.
In Acts 15 even though Paul was unwilling to disciple John Mark, Paul was happy to go to the same church as John Mark. Being content to worship together does not mean you have a good relationship.
Even though Paul did not disciple John Mark it did not affect Paul’s ministry or walk with God. Paul utterly Refused to disciple John Mark and God still blessed Paul, and Paul still wrote most of the New Testament, so if your pastor or church leadership refuses to disciple you, that does not make them bad people, and they probably wont be hurt by it. They have made a judgement call, and you have to live with the consequences of it.
John Mark did not wait around for Paul to come back to Jerusalem in the hopes that Paul would disciple him when he came back. That would not have helped John Mark, so John Mark moved on and was discipled by Barnabas.
Just because your pastor, or church leadership wont Disciple you doesn’t mean that nobody will.
Paul did not hold a grudge against John Mark, in II Timothy Paul bragged on the man he refused to disciple. If someone refuses to disciple you it does not mean they dislike you, it simply means that either they do not trust you or do not click with you. The best thing to do is give up on Paul discipling you and to find a Barnabas, and perhaps your Paul can help you do that.
In conclusion if you are going to be discipled you must agree to follow someone and they must agree to let you follow them. If both sides do not agree to it, then discipleship is impossible.
One of the things I would encourage you to do is that if you recognize your need for discipleship then you also recognize you are not everything you ought to be. If you recognize that you are not everything you ought to be and you are a single adult I would encourage you to wait to date until you have been discipled. At the end of every lesson I will mention how discipleship is preparing you for a major area of marriage. I do this because in my own life before discipleship if I had gotten married to anyone, I would have ended up getting divorced because I was way less than I ought to have been. And as always I encourage you to talk with your pastor about this.