Jym Shorts

Jym Shorts - October 26, 2017

by Jym Gregory on October 26, 2017

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…”   -Matthew 28:19

Note: This is a follow-up to a Jym Shorts article I wrote in 2015.

When Dedra and the girls and I were serving in Costa Rica as missionaries, another young missionary asked me if I would join with a group of four other men and meet with him at 6:00am on Tuesday mornings at our language school. I agreed, and asked him the purpose of the meeting. Prayer? Counsel? Fellowship? After all, I was 35 years old at the time, and he was only in his mid-twenties.

When that first meeting time arrived, Pepper (the missionary’s interesting name) informed us that he would like to take us through a discipleship method he was developing. His goal was to be better prepared when he arrived in South America for his full-time mission assignment. The group readily agreed, and we began immediately. He handed us the book The Master Plan of Evangelism and Discipleship by Robert E. Coleman. I had heard of the book, but had never read it.  Pepper started out by asking us to share briefly our conversion experience, told us a bit about himself, and then told us his plan for discipleship. We would read the book, discuss its implications for us, and then allow Pepper to disciple us as if we were new believers. We would in turn provide him with feedback on the effectiveness of his approach and how he might disciple more proficiently.

What followed for me was twelve weeks of being discipled by a younger believer, both chronologically and spiritually, and one of the most enjoyable studies I have ever experienced. Pepper was passionate about the gospel and passionate about discipling new believers. He was specifically training men, using 2 Timothy 2:1-2 as his call: You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. It wasn’t that Pepper did not care about women and children; he simply knew that he was a single young man who would be serving in a culture where men were the undisputed leaders in their homes. In more than a few of those homes, the men were abusive and lived like dictators and gods before their cowering families. Pepper had a desire to transform that culture by reaching out to those very men with the gospel and training them to live like a Christian man should live, with love and compassion for both wife and children, not as a bully with a larger body frame and a mandate from Scripture.

As the study drew to a close, I found that not only had I been thoroughly challenged and trained, but I had watched Pepper grow in his ability to teach and train by being humble enough to ask the men in the group where, precisely, his teaching or his approach was falling short. He did not allow us to simply say, “That was good.” He knew he needed to improve, and he demanded that we be honest with him so that he could grow. He had a keen self-awareness, and was willing to have his feelings hurt if it meant he would learn in the process and be a stronger teacher and leader as a result. It was refreshing to observe.

I received an email update from Pepper last week. It was a call for prayer. He has recently been invited into a closed country to teach and train a few men who have come to know Christ. These men now want to know how to train other new believers in a culture where doing so is a crime punishable by death (and this is a country where they actually carry out those laws). His humility is still evident in his emails. Reading it made me rejoice in what God has done and continues to do in Pepper and his wife’s ministry (he was married some years ago to a young woman from Peru). Men and women are being intentionally discipled and trained in the faith in a closed country, and the training for that took place 16 years ago in Costa Rica.

This is only one of many reasons why I am so passionate about Christian discipleship. Evangelism is paramount, but discipleship is both necessary and vital as a follow-up. We are doing our best to provide those opportunities for discipleship here at LifePoint. It is my hope and prayer that you are availing yourself of some of these opportunities. If you have questions concerning what is available and when, please contact us in the church office at 317.881.4010.

Grace and peace,

Pastor Jym

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