Delegating for Discipleship: Lessons from the Early Church
When the church was in its infancy, the twelve apostles were in charge of every aspect of the ministry. I suppose you could say the pastoral team consisted of 12 people. Despite this large group of pastors / apostles overseeing everything, a dispute erupted about the way the daily food was being distributed.
Even though they were many in number, the apostles determined that they did not have the time, energy nor expertise, to solve the problem. To manage a kitchen and feed the people, you would think the most important skill would be the ability to cook and the ability to spread the available food evenly among all the people. Undoubtedly, the people chosen for the task probably had some of these skills but, more importantly, they were men who were filled with the spirit and wisdom.
From the earliest days of the church, it has functioned best when people who are filled with the spirit and wisdom, take up duties and responsibilities in the church and free up the pastors for prayer and preparation, to teach and preach and minister to a core group of people who are giving oversight to the ministries of the church.
It is critical to the success of a discipleship ministry that the responsibility for implementation and execution not rely on the pastor. Discipleship is hard work and it is very time consuming work. In addition to being a person who is filled with the spirit and wisdom, the director of discipleship ministry should have these skills:
Be a gifted facilitator. Discipleship is similar to mentoring. A facilitator leads and teaches through example and demonstrates that any Jesus follower can be a disciple-maker.
Have a teachable spirit. By being teachable and a student themselves, others will not be intimidated and resistant to engage and emulate the discipleship director.
Be a good organizer. Imagine the complexity when one or two discipleship groups grow to multiple groups, participating in four different books, and meeting in triads and small groups across multiple locations.
Able to delegate. The organizer point above indicates the fast track to burnout if the discipleship director does not delegate duties to others in the church.
Passionate about disciple-making. This should probably be the first qualification but I have put it last because discipleship is hard work and, if it becomes only work, the reason for doing it is lost and disciple-making will become a drudgery and chore.
Nothing beats choosing people who are full of the Spirit and wisdom for every ministry in the church including disciple-making.
