Growing in our relationship with God, knowing and living the gospel everyday, and engaging those who don’t know Christ is key to authentic discipleship.
“Our job really is to respond to what God’s doing in us and to allow that to impact other people.”
Doug Nuenke, President of The Navigators and author of , expresses the need for authentic discipleship.
As we grow deeper in our relationship with Christ, the power of the gospel will be undeniable in our lives.
“As we know Him; as we really grow to know Him, we become taken up in Him and we are drawn to Him.”
The amazing grace in the gospel, as that becomes more evident to us in our own personal life, we won’t be able to keep our mouth quiet. There will be an overflow out of our life that happens. We need to be aware that in the way that we then open our mouths.
Everyday we are given the opportunity to reach regular people for Christ.
“I think that’s one of the big barriers as we think of ministry taking place in events only. When we fill up a stadium someplace or we take a mission trip, or there’s some big event or we go serve someplace or own city, those are all good things to be able to do.”
“But the most natural places for the gospel the flow are in our everyday life with the people that God has already placed right around us.”
Having our faith overflow into our conversations is an important aspect of authentic discipleship. Doug shares a few examples,
“As we pull in the driveway we see the next door neighbor out at the mailbox grabbing in the mail, I call that the longest 20 yards in the kingdom. For some reason we have a hard time just realizing that those 5 or 8 minutes, those kind of interactions, are ones that can begin to prepare the soil in people’s lives as they get to know us.
“The interaction we have with someone that serves us at our local coffee shop, that we see almost every day: To be able to open our mouths in ways that are just natural; to build friendships first, and then to be able to bring the meaning of Christ in our life the natural ways in our friendships.
We are all given the power through Christ to advance the kingdom of God through authentic discipleship.
“We’ve been trained only in very proclamational ways that seem to be event-driven… which I’m not discounting that there’s not appropriate time for that as God leads, but most of the time the advance of the gospel happens in everyday life through families and friends that are getting know us and God opens up opportunities as life happens.”
