How Ordinary Christians Can Help Others Follow Jesus

Ask a handful of Christians to define “discipling,” and you’ll probably get a handful of different answers.

Some may mention meeting with another follower of Jesus for an hour each week. Another might say it means attending the weekly Sunday school class on discipleship. Someone else says it involves teaching another Christian how to make disciples who disciple others.

But ultimately, discipling others means giving someone access to your life. That’s how Jesus did it. 

Jesus’ whole life was a teaching moment for his disciples. Not only the miraculous parts of his life, but the ordinary ones too. The times in between: walking, talking, eating. This approach is often inconvenient, but it was the key ingredient to Jesus’ discipleship plan.

I want to propose a simple principle for discipling: bring someone with you. Sure, there’s more to discipling, but you won’t disciple anyone if you don’t bring anyone along to what you’re already doing as a follower of Jesus. Call it discipling as double-duty. 

Imagine what it could look like. 

By doing something as simple as sitting in worship with someone, you may learn how to serve your own family better. Perhaps you’ll see how a young father serves his wife by taking the baby out so his wife can focus on the sermon or prayers. Perhaps you’ll be able to model your own worship habits. 

Corporate worship is a form of discipling. In fact, it’s the center from which all discipling flows. We learn to worship Jesus privately as we learn from other Christians publicly. Don’t miss on what you can teach or learn by observing Christians around you before, during, and after worship services.

Or perhaps you can bring someone along to a community group to sing, pray, bear each other’s burdens, and apply the sermon more deeply to their lives. By bringing a person you’re discipling or being discipled by, perhaps you both learn new forms of hospitality. Maybe you learn how to disagree more lovingly and patiently. You learn to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. 

You could also bring someone along as you evangelize. Often, Christians don’t know how to evangelize because they’ve simply never seen another Christian do it. Does the person you disciple have a chance to see how you might share the gospel with someone?

Even if you do all these things, someone you’re discipling must be able to see your walk with Jesus in order to replicate what they see in everyday life. The disciples didn’t just see Jesus preach the Sermon on the Mount. They saw the moments in between. They saw not only how he taught, but what he did after he taught. 

Jesus did say: “Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19).

Discipling as double-duty will mean bringing someone along with you to the most ordinary moments of life. It will involve both teaching and doing what Christ commands. On the grocery run. The walk around the neighborhood. The car ride when you’d rather listen to music. 

As you bring other followers of Jesus with you into your existing rhythms of following Jesus, don’t underestimate what God might be teaching others. All of life following Jesus can be an opportunity to disciple others.

Maybe the question shouldn’t be: “How can I make more time to disciple others?” But instead: “How can I use the time I have to disciple others?” Everybody does not have time for everybody, but everybody has time for somebody.