Growing closer to God won’t happen without intention, and without others helping us grow and holding us accountable.
Pastor, teacher, coach, and author Jim Putman discusses the keys to spiritual growth and the mandate of the church—to make disciples. Jim draws several principles from his book .
Jim’s own story is a transition from disillusionment to engagement. When he first became a Christian, he thought “I’ll take Jesus, but no church.” But, he came to view the church as a coach would – a broken team rather than a losing team.
“God calls us to train and coach each other in righteousness.”
How do you train others in righteousness?
We look to Jesus, as the greatest disciple-maker in history, for our model and practice. In Jim’s words, “We can’t take the teachings of Jesus and divorce them from the methods of Jesus.”
Jesus intentionally chose twelve men to train, and He built relationships with them over three years. From His methods, we can draw an acronym – SCMD:
- Share His message with others
- Connect those with a small group
- Train them to minister in the church and world
- equip them to disciple others.
We are called to make disciples, not converts.
