Anatomy of a Discipler

Besides my quiet times alone with God, nothing has had a greater spiritual affect on me than the life-changing, one-on-one, intentional relationships I’ve experienced. These relationships have truly transformed my sense of God, Christianity, fellowship and myself. Recently my peer Bible study spent a meeting on discipleship, using the booklet Christian Disciplines, an IVP LifeGuide®. As I prepared the study in 1 Thessalonians 2, a flood of memories came back to me.

I’ve been out of college for a while now, and yet I remembered all the people during my university years who had mentored me, cared for me—“discipled” me. And I thought about those who had played an important role in my life since then. The questions I was answering in the booklet—“How did they impact you?” “What cost was it to them?” “Who are you influencing now?”—made me think more and more of their exemplary influence in my life and how I had in turn been motivated to invest in others as a result of their investment in me.

I have had many wonderful mentors in my spiritual life among friends and family, but I recall one person in particular who stands out as my first real discipler: Alice, my freshman year Bible study leader. My friendship with Alice is a prime example of the elements of discipleship that meant so much to me. And 1 Thessalonians 2 is a good scriptural anchor for this topic.

Initiative

“You yourselves know, brothers and sisters, that our coming to you was not in vain . . .” (verse 1).

Paul says “our coming to you.” That’s initiative. He and his colleagues went to meet the Thessalonians where they were, geographically and spiritually. A discipler seeks out others.

I first met Alice when I was a freshman and she was a freshman welcomer with InterVarsity. She soon became my Bible study leader that first year. She’d visit me in my dorm or at work all the time. At first I thought, doesn’t this junior have something better to do? Then I realized she probably did, but she was choosing to spend time with me, a freshman!

Generosity

“You remember our labor and toil, brothers and sisters, how we worked night and day, so that we might not burden any of you while we proclaimed to you the gospel of God” (verse 9).

Disciplers are generous with their time, and also with their money and resources. They don’t give in order to push people into obedience; they give because of the Spirit in them.

Alice would constantly drop off care packages for me and my dorm friends during finals. She’d take me out to breakfast or coffee or dinner. I knew she worked and that she led a busy life, but she gave in a way that left me feeling genuinely cared for, not obligated to do something in return. She gave out of joy.

There were two ways she was generous with me that I will always remember. First, when Armenia experienced a horrible earthquake in December 1988, Alice gave me a check to give to whatever relief agency I knew of that could help out. She was Korean and didn’t really know much about Armenia. But she knew that the situation was significant for me and my culture, so she gave. The second was later in the year when I was short on money and couldn’t afford to go to the I-V winter conference. She and her own mentor enabled me to go. These were ways of reaching out that I hadn’t experienced before—the generous ways of a discipler.

Integrity

“You are witnesses, and God also, how pure, upright, and blameless our conduct was toward you believers. As you know, we dealt with each of you like a father with his children, urging and encouraging you and pleading that you lead a life worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory” (verses 10-12).

As most freshmen would, I began looking up to Alice, thinking she was one of the coolest people I knew. She was “upright”: she always seemed to act justly, to include people, to go out of her way to be caring and encouraging.

She was a real witness to me of what a Christian should be like. She never pressured me, but always challenged me to take risks of faith, to “lead a life worthy of God.” But Alice was also quick to be vulnerable with me, to point to her own sin and the tendencies which drew her away from God. She even shared about the struggles she faced in being a Bible study leader, which I couldn’t imagine at the time (only later did I understand, when I became a Bible study leader). Alice always acknowledged her need for Jesus, and how much she relied on him. She showed herself to be not a pristine Christian but a human being with integrity who needed Jesus; a real Christian. Her openness enabled me to be vulnerable with her about the very same things.

Sacrifice

“. . . though we had already suffered and been shamefully mistreated at Philippi, as you know, we had the courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition” (verse 2).

I knew that Alice sacrificed a lot of things—her studies, her money, her time, even her peer relationships—to care for me and others. Her family was giving her a hard time for not being more studious, and I knew she had financial pressures, but she continued to put people like me at the top of her list of concerns. Ultimately, she put Jesus first.

When my first play was being produced in San Diego, Alice and another Bible study leader, Rick, wanted to come to watch it. They had tests approaching, maybe even midterms, along with a lot of work to do. But they drove eight hours down to San Diego to see my play, meet my family and get to know me better over less than two days. I later heard that some of Alice’s friends, whom I didn’t even know, pitched in money for the trip. Sure, the whole experience was fun, but I saw Alice and Rick—along with others in the body of Christ—give up their time and money for someone else.

Truthfulness

“We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers” (verse 13).

What Alice did most was to point me to God. Besides our freshman Bible study, we spent time one-on-one every week, studying Scripture or reading books such as Becky Pippert’s Out of the Saltshaker. I began to see how the internals and the externals of the Christian life are integrated, with Scripture at the core.

Alice could weave Scripture into our coffeehouse conversations as easily and unforced as people quote movie lines or jokes to prove a point. At first I thought it was odd, but then I realized that the word of God was simply embedded in her life, and it showed. She gently challenged me to live not by how I felt, but by the truth of God’s word. When concepts in Scripture “clicked” for me, I knew the difference in my heart and I could see the joy on Alice’s face. Truly, the Word was at work from the beginning of our relationship.

Love

“We were gentle among you, like a nurse tenderly caring for her own children. So deeply do we care for you that we are determined to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you have become very dear to us” (verses 7-8).

Notice the words: gentle, tenderly caring, deeply, share, dear. These words strike to the heart of real discipleship. Love, above all else, motivated Alice to care for me and open up to me. And I opened up to her. We shared many secrets and confessed our sins. We faced conflicts here and there, but we could work through them because we had submitted our relationship to God. As the years continued in our friendship, we participated in prayer groups where we each experienced emotional healing in key personal areas. It would have been easier to distance ourselves from the discomforts of such an intentional friendship. But we couldn’t because there was real love.

In a discipling relationship, there is a sharing “not only of the gospel of God but also of our own selves.” It’s more than just a casual mentor-mentee partnership—it’s a God-centered friendship that fuels learning, training and spiritual shaping.

Replication

“For you, brothers and sisters, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, for you suffered the same things from your own compatriots as they did from the Jews” (verse 14).

In my sophomore year, Alice and I led a Bible study together. There was a God-given security about our friendship which made us more like equal partners, and I found myself reaching out to freshmen in the way that Alice had with me. They were asking questions that only a year before I had asked myself. After a while Alice graduated, and as a junior and then a senior I led other Bible studies and discipled other younger students who in turn are close friends and partners with me today.

Replication is a sure sign of successful discipleship, even if it seems to take a long time. Even now, in my late twenties, I still reach out to college students as a leader at church. I don’t know if Alice ever expected this, but her initiative with me as a first-year student resulted in many more Jesus-followers than just me. I am my own person, of course, with my particular God-given gifts, but I took on the model that Alice lived out with me and lived it out among others, facing and overcoming similar challenges with God’s grace. She had been cared for as a freshman, and then she had cared for me. We were continuing the legacy God had planned for us.

Motivation

“For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please mortals, but to please God who tests our hearts” (verses 3-4).

Ultimately, discipleship is not a process of a discipler impressing and overwhelming the would-be disciple with Christian pizzazz. Nor is it the disciple winning their mentor over with their fresh charms and coolness. Rather, the mentor is motivated by a desire to see a precious child of God grow closer to Jesus. I could tell that Alice was for real.

As we were growing up, most of our families have modeled at least some of the traits I’ve mentioned. Such qualities arise in families naturally out of love, and sometimes are practiced out of a deep love for God. But disciplers live out these traits intentionally among other people to draw them lovingly into the kingdom of God and to challenge them in turn to care for others, even if it means taking risks the world does not understand. Our goal is to glorify God, not to “please mortals,” and his approval is all that needs to motivate us.

Fruit

“For what is our hope or joy or crown in boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? Yes, you are our glory and joy!” (verse 19-20)

There is tremendous joy in watching others grow, as Paul shares here. There is joy in seeing the fruit of our labor, joy in watching a young believer reach out to someone else. Even today, as I work with young college students at my present church, I am reminded of the privilege of this role, and how God uses the examples of older and wiser believers to draw us closer to him. Jesus, of course, is the greatest example of all. His interactions with his disciples throughout the Gospels shed endless light on how we can care for those in his kingdom around us now. It’s worth taking a closer look.

Ultimately, the students we invest in should not see us in a glorious light, but rather should see Jesus in us. That’s what these life-changing relationships are all about. Thanks, Alice, and thank you, Jesus!

Lisa Kirazian is a freelance writer living in San Diego. An alumna of the Stanford University InterVarsity chapter, she is a frequent contributor to SLJ.