Alex J. Purtell
May 2, 2014
Discipleship Final
Throughout the semester, I was able to meet only two times with my
disciple. We had discussed over the phone why it was important to meet, and
also to try to work out times, but it was very difficult to make times happen. The
student, whose name is Nate, is a senior in high school and lives in Columbus.
The initial plan was to meet every week after band practice on Saturday’s. Nate
plays guitar in our student led worship band at our church, and we have
practices every Saturday at 10:00am. When we first met, I had an idea in my
mind as to which direction the meetings needed to go. I planned on encouraging
him along is walk and helping him grow in his faith so that when he gets to
college, he can be a light to whom ever he meets. But when we first met, I knew I
needed a new plan.
Nate had discussed with me the concerns he had about his faith when he
would leave the comforts of his Christian school and local church family and
head off to one of the biggest party schools in the nation. I started to write down
and discuss with him some goals that we needed to place in his life to start laying
down a stronger foundation. I discussed with him the critical needs of having a
devotional life. This includes prayer, and quite time with God on a daily basis. I
challenged him to start each day off by waking up a half hour earlier to spend
that time with God by asking Him to teach him something new for that day. This
of course would be the first baby step in the plan, which would continue to grow
and would have more goals of course. What I would have done knowing what I
know with Nate, is started him on an actual devotional. I really enjoy the Word of
Life’s Quite Time Devotional. I myself grew up with doing the Quite Time, and I
know that it has helped me grow in my faith, learn Scripture, and have a
consistent prayer life. Though we did not get quite this far, I have been in touch
with Nate several times since our last meeting, and he has taken the initiative to
be more consistent in his prayer life. It may not be every day, but it is at least
more than what he was doing before.
When we first started talking during our first meeting, the conversation
quickly went from cliché to being very transparent. I could tell by the body
language that he was uncomfortable at first, not with talking with me, but with
his life. Because I am Nate’s worship leader, I could tell he may have felt guilty at
first talking with me and confessing some of his problems with sin and the fact
that he was struggling with some faith issues. But when he was assured that I
was there to listen and help him get past some of these walls in his life, he
opened the floodgates of his life and the entire meeting at that point continued to
last a solid two hours. Although Nate goes to a Christian school, is involved with
the worship band in school and at church, his parents have not been faithful in
bringing him up in the Lord. He expressed to me that he feels they have turned
him over to every other Christian out there and expected them to raise their son
in a Godly, Christian way, while they sit and coward in their sin. I started to see
how much Nate needs someone like me in his life, and expressed to him how
much he needs Christ to give him the constant strength each day, but in order for
that to happen, Nate must allow God to have complete control in his life and
make decisions based off of God’s will for him.
It was and is hard to evaluate the growth in Nate’s life. From only meeting
twice as just the two of us, it is difficult for me to evaluate his growth. I do know
however that his heart for Christ and desire to do his will has grown. From the
last few times I have talked with him over the phone, it seems as he has a new
focus on his life and his future ahead. He knows that he is going to a secular
college, but he seems to no longer be afraid that he will have a major downfall in
his faith in Christ. Instead he discussed with me how exited he is to get involved
with some Christian ministries that there are available on campus that he found
out about through a Christian friend of his that goes to this college. I told Nate
and reminded him that although he may be feeling this right now, the prayer life
and devotion life needs to be consistent through college and through the rest of
his life, because right now times are easy or at least easier than they will be when
he is graduated high school and attending the secular college. The times that it
will seem pointless to pray or read God’s word because of all the social
contradictions or the evolutionism and secular teachings at the college will be
the most important times to stay grounded in the word. I told him that even I
have struggled in college to be consistent in my devotional life due to business
and bad influences, and I go to a Christian school! I believe that the majority of
the growth that I will see in Nate’s life will be in the upcoming months while he is
preparing for college and when he gets there.
Some personal reflections I have noticed during the meetings and trying
to schedule more is the further down the road our relationship got, the more
persistent I became in wanting to meet. I grew a desire to be his mentor. I didn’t
mind buying him lunch during the times we met, or opening up with my life
stories, telling him some very personal things that not many people know about
me. It opened my eyes to see how much striving after someone’s spiritual
development can encourage me to engage in that person’s life and strive to
throw my spiritual development into 5th gear. Nate showed me that striving to
see him grow helped build up our relationship, although we were only able to
meet twice. This gave the both of us encouragement in the faith, since it was
really our first time in each of our roles being the disciple and discipler. I truly
was blessed by this experience, and am continuing to be blessed by seeing Nate
develop, probably much more than he realizes. Although we had only met twice,
we are still in contact with each other at least once every two weeks.
Now that I am out of school, this summer has opened up for me. My time
and schedule do not conflict with his near as much. We were lucky to be able to
meet twice before he started his baseball season, which yes played on weekends.
It was unfortunate that I was only here in Columbus on the weekends, due to my
full time status at Cedarville. Luckily this was not a situation where he did not
want to meet with me, it was a situation where we couldn’t line up our
schedules. But I have a firm belief that God put us together for a reason, and I am
most definitely planning on continuing this throughout the summer and staying
in contact with him while he is away at college. This summer what I plan on
covering is a more extensive training objective. Starting with getting him a
devotional plan that he can start using on a daily basis, and getting more
grounded in a daily routine with spending time with God. I am going to
encourage him more to send me back the discipleship self-evaluation sheet so
that we can start our process there. What I am mostly concerned about with him
is consistency. I know how tough it can be to stay faithful to God and to our faith
when we are surrounded by evil and bad influences on a consistent basis. The
one thing that will keep him faithful to God is his personal devotion on a daily
basis. This is what we will focus on first, and then we will move on to
evangelizing and discipling others.
After speaking on the phone with Nate, he is exited to continue our
meetings this summer. Yes it was unfortunate that we were only about to meet
in person twice to cover content, but I am just overwhelmed by how much he
wants to continue this and realizes how much he needs this in his life. I know
that he needs to get in a Bible study of some sort while he is at college and he
knows it too, but what I encouraged him in is that God will take care of him. He
will put the right type of people in his life to surround him in love and biblical
truth. There is no need to worry about whether God will take care of him or not
because Nate is a child of God. I’ve realized through all this how much Nate needs
someone life me, and yet how much I need someone like Nate. He has given me
the encouragement that discipleship is truly worth spending hours and hours of
precious invested time into, and not only gives me an overwhelming sense of joy,
but it furthers the kingdom of God. It has blessed me and my life in so many ways
that I desire to continue this process and help Nate in any means necessary to
continue growing in his faith. If that means I take a trip down to his college,
which isn’t that far from Cedarville, every once in a while to have a chat about his
life and his walk with God, I will do that. It may not seem since we only met a few
times that we could have grown this type of relationship, but with Nate being
apart of our youth group and worship band I have been able to spend a lot of
time with him at church and during practices. He is such a great kid and truly has
a heart for the Lord, and it must have been hard to be honest with me about how
he was nervous about falling into sin at college and loosing his faith. But I know
that with a consistent devotional life this kid will make it, and during this
summer I will continue to do everything that I can on a weekly basis to make
sure he is equipped with a strong foundation in Christ.