Below is a post from 2/16/17.
Where Are Your Guys?
Very shortly after I came to Christ in college, I was blessed to have a man pour his life into me through discipleship. He invested major time teaching me spiritual disciplines, holding me accountable to fighting sin and conforming to Christ because of the gospel, and he modeled how to reproduce my life in others. After the time we spent together, he challenged me by saying that for the rest of my life I better have a small group of guys that I'm investing in. In fact, he said if I ever see you and ask the question, "Where are your guys" and you don't have an answer for me, there's going to be problems. There was an expectation for reproducing discipleship. Come to find out through conversations later in life, the person who discipled my mentor years before I ever met him gave him the same exact challenge. That's what legacy looks like.
It's been said that you haven't made a disciple until the person you've invested in makes a disciple. That concept grounds us in the exponential growth that disciple making aims for. Consider the words of Paul to Timothy.
"The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust them to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." (2 Timothy 2:2)
Paul invested in Timothy with the expectation that he would entrust what he learned to others. But further still, he said those faithful men should be able to invest in others as well. In other words, Paul said don't just make disciples. Make disciples who know how to make disciples. Or consider the invitation of Jesus to Peter, Andrew, James, and John in Matthew 4.
"While walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And He said to them, "Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." (Matthew 4:18-19)
In His very invitation to be His disciples, Jesus says essentially "I'm going to teach you how to make disciples." There was an expectation for reproducing. All of us who are leading D-Groups or investing in others have 2 challenges before us. The first challenge is to always be able to answer the question, "Where are your people?" We should always for the rest of our lives be able to point to a small group of people that we are investing in. Our second challenge is to invest in those people with the tools and expectation that they will reproduce their lives in others the same way.
Paul often uses the language of being a spiritual parent to others. (1 Thess 2:7-8, Titus 1:4) Making disciples is essentially spiritual parenting. But when we do that well, there's going to come a day when we become spiritual grandparents. It will be a joy to see when someone whom you labored to invest in through a D-Group has reproduced a D-Group of their own. What a legacy!
Grace & Peace, Scott