Mentoring & Discipleship. Pt 2

In the book Think Orange, Reggie Joiner suggest the following 5 Spiritual Growth Catalysts:

1) Personal Ministry (ie. actually being personally involved in ministry / service)

2) Spiritual Disciplines (not a word that's too popular these days!)

3) Applying Truth (not just hearing or ingesting information, but applying the truth so life change is the result)

4) Significant Relationships

5) Pivotal Circumstances

How can we apply these 5 catalysts to mentoring / discipleship / coaching?
I'd love to hear your thoughts... please leave a comment!

Mentoring & Discipleship. Pt 1

I have been reading 2 interesting books over the past 2 weeks. The first is Multiplication by Nick Klinkenberg and the second is Think Orange by Rick Joiner.
These books have stirred my thoughts once again on the topic of discipleship / mentoring / coaching... whatever term you prefer to use.

I love the Chinese Proverb that states:
"If you're planting for a year, plant grain. If you're planting for a decade, plant trees. If you're planting for a century, plant people."

I think it is safe to say we all agree with the basic concept and need for discipleship, however, it has been a complaint for long time that discipleship is a lost art.
In the West, certainly when we think of discipleship we think of a class room or bible college situation.
But how successful has this means of discipleship been?

I will leave you with the following 3 short quotes on the subject. Please ponder it and leave your thoughts via a comment.


"Over half of all Nobel Prize winners were once apprenticed to other Nobel winners."
Ron Lee Jones.

"Truth is an important part of discipleship, but our faith simply doesn't grow because we know more, it grows when we serve more."
Reggie Joiner

"If what they have heard doesn't move from their heads to their hands, it will probably never make it to their hearts."
Reggie Joiner


Thanks for leaving your comments.
I will sit on these thoughts over the next few posts... I look forward to going on a journey with you as you comment and add to my thoughts.

Me Faith?

This is our third look at the book, 'unChristian'. If you haven't checked out the other posts, I want to encourage you to take a look at them.

In this post I wanted to offer a challenge of our view of salvation / commitment to Christ.
Chuck Colson offers the following thoughts from the book unchristian:

50% of Christians when asked, 'What is Christianity?' answer that it is a relationship with Christ.
Chuck challenges us that the Gospel cannot merely be a private transaction.
Christianity is a way of seeing all of life and reality through God's eyes.
Christianity is a world view... a system... a way of life!

Jesus constantly spoke about the Kingdom coming... not a private transaction... or a personal relationship.
Our discipleship needs to center around helping people change their thought patterns to a Kingdom mindset.
Infact... its interesting that the place Jesus was crucified was on Golgotha... or the 'Place of the skull'. Our greatest battles will always be in our thinking. It is our thinking that we must address in our discipleship. (and as we have seen in a previous post... only 3% of under 35's embrace a biblical world view!)

If you think back to your faith 'upbringing'... what would have been your most significant places of discipleship / training in new thought?
I'd love to hear your comments.