During those trips I learned how to read a state road map. I still carry an old-school atlas with me in the car, just in case. But today we can open an app on our phones or on the car dashboard to provide us with cues for our travels. The GPS tells us when to exit, merge with traffic, and change lanes. It can provide alternate routes based on traffic, suggest the closest coffee shop, or exclaim “Recalculating route!” when you miss your turn.

But what’s the one thing necessary for a GPS system to function as it has been designed?

A Destination.

When it comes to raising disciples, we should set our eyes on the destination.

I believe that one of the reasons parents and caregivers struggle to disciple children well is that we haven’t clearly identified the destination for their discipleship and the directions that guide them toward that goal.

How would you describe a child who is entering adolescence as an active disciple? Would you choose words that describe their character: loving, joyful, obedient, self-controlled? Or would you choose words that describe behaviors: reads the Bible daily, asks spiritual questions, worships God? Perhaps you would choose words that describe their depth of knowledge and understanding about God and His Word.

Public and private education systems have stated objectives when it comes to student expectations. Lists of student learning outcomes articulate the goals for students at the conclusion of each grade level. Each child is unique and develops at their own rate, so there are those who will exceed the expectations and others who will struggle. But teachers begin each year knowing the goals and guiding students along the path toward achievement. Like a GPS, they might have to find alternate paths for some or help others get turned back around, but with a clear goal and markers on the way, teachers are able to guide their young disciples.

This is what we’ve been missing in our homes and churches — a discipleship map that states the goal for raising disciples and provides directions toward that goal.

In some Christian traditions, the goal for children has been a public confession of Christ; in others, submission through the act of baptism. In yet other traditions, it has been the completion of confirmation classes. Regardless of our tradition, our goal for raising disciples should be the same as the goal for all disciples: to become more and more like Christ every day.

For three years, Jesus taught the crowds, His enemies, and political leaders, but most often, He was teaching twelve ordinary men from various backgrounds, vocations, and experiences. When He chose the Twelve, He had a goal in mind. Jesus knew that at the conclusion of His earthly ministry He would redeem the world through His death, return to God the Father, and equip His followers with the Holy Spirit to disciple others. He needed a core group of leaders who would follow Him daily (Luke 9:23), continuing His mission “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10) and to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19).

As Jesus prepared to leave the Twelve to continue His mission, He met with them to give them some final encouragements and admonitions. Woven through Jesus’ conversation in the upper room (John 13–17), we find descriptions of what it means to become like Christ:

• Follow His example (John 13:14-15),
• Love others (John 13:34),
• Believe in God (John 14:1),
• Keep God’s commands (John 14:15), and
• Remain in Christ (John 15:4).

These descriptors provide some direction toward the goal for all disciples.

With the destination of becoming like Christ as our goal, we can utilize childhood development information from the fields of social science, learning theory, and psychology to create a map for discipleship from infancy to adolescence.* Beginning at birth, there are seven directional discipleship markers — approximately one for every two years of life — that parallel the biological, cognitive, social, and moral development of children. Just as Jesus discipled the Twelve from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity, we can use this map to raise disciples who become increasingly more like Christ.

Did you like this article? Check out Teresa Roberts’ full book, Raising Disciples, as well as the accompanying free 8-week parenting curriculum today!

Discipleship Tip:

When discipling someone, consider verbally setting discipleship goals. With a destination in mind, you can orchestrate milestones and implement accountability, making sure that you both are progressing forward in their discipleship journey.

*The faith research of James W. Fowler (Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981) and insights of spiritual development from John H. Westerhoff III (Will Our Children Have Faith?, 3rd. ed., Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse, 2012) has also informed this discipleship map.

Meet the Author

Teresa Roberts is Professor of Ministry and Christian Formation, Program Director of Children’s Ministry, and a vice president at Ozark Christian College. She is an expert in children’s spiritual formation training with more than 25 years of ministry experience.

Dr. Roberts holds a Master of Arts in Family and Youth Ministry, a Master of Divinity, and a Doctor of Ministry. She serves in children’s ministry at Carterville Christian Church where she attends with her husband and step-daughter. Learn more at discipleshipguides.com/.

The Holy Trinity is a mystery to me, with its three in oneness and its oneness in three, and I can just barely grasp the deep relational nature of how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit touch and spin and dance off each other and with each other. Hospitality — that generous making room for others and giving and receiving to and from each other from our plenty and sometimes from our scarcity but we do it anyway — seems to flow out of that communal and relational and so generous nature of God. Being holy as God is holy, if we can believe it, catapults us into relationship with others and the practice of hospitality. Holiness is relational, and that is why hospitality fits holiness like a soft leather glove.

Hospitality involves the holy practice of gratitude.

All of this is made easier alongside the holy practice of gratitude. I have this place, this food, this book; please take it and enjoy it as well. We try to believe that everything we have comes from God, and so it is ours not to own but to share. So hospitality is almost always best when it is gratitude adjacent. However, the discipline of hospitality can happen also while you are still a grouchy, miserly mess. Disciplines take discipline. Not everything is easy or feels good right away, but that might mean it’s even more worth doing, and not less.

Hospitality invites humility.

In Luke 14:12-14, Jesus tells us how to throw a dinner party. Dinner parties are, after all, what most of us think of first when we think about hospitality: “‘When you put on a luncheon or a banquet,’ he said, ‘don’t invite your friends, brothers, relatives, and rich neighbors. For they will invite you back, and that will be your only reward. Instead, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then at the resurrection of the righteous, God will reward you for inviting those who could not repay you’” (NLT). In Luke 14:8-10, He even discusses seating plans: “When you are invited to a wedding feast, don’t sit in the seat of honor … Instead, take the lowest place at the foot of the table” (NLT).

Jesus knows me so well. He predicts my thirst for status. When we practice hospitality as part of our holiness, we will come face-to-face with our desire to invite first our friends, the people we especially like or those whom we want to especially like us, along with the relatives we are most comfortable with, and, of course, our rich neighbors. We might strut around like a peacock in our own dining room and not even realize we are doing it. Again, our intentional moves toward holiness will show us how far we have yet to travel. Our efforts to do good on the outside will show us how far we are from good on the inside, and in that gap, we learn again of our need for the forgiving, restoring love of God in our own lives and hearts, and how much we need him, even when we are serving macaroni to friends.

We learn something about ourselves — and therefore move deeper into our holiness journeys — when we pay attention to whom we want to welcome in and how we want to welcome them to our homes, our tables, and our lives.

Hospitality helps us to examine our hidden motivations.

As we consider ourselves, we can confess ourselves to God and ask for help. Why am I making this so fancy? we can ask our inner hostess, in an examination of motivation that is a daily part of pushing into our holiness. What is my motivation? Also, Why am I talking about myself so much? And why can’t I stop?

Our honest answers do not bring the dinner party, the coffee date, or the open house to a screeching halt, but instead provide us another opportunity to be honest with ourselves and with God — who is the ultimate and gracious host of heaven and earth now and the new earth that is to come. Make me holy in my hospitality, we might pray. Kill off my show-off-ness, we might ask. Help me listen more than I speak, as my blunt spouse has said I need to work on.

Help me not to be so needy, I can pray as I juice blood oranges for udon noodles with fried tofu and orange nam jim from my expensive hardcover Ottolenghi Flavour cookbook propped open on the counter. Perhaps for a little while, as part of our own healing, we will make a simple spaghetti Bolognese, accept the offer of our guest to bring store-bought garlic bread and let Maureen help with the cleanup, like she always wants to do. We will resist the temptation to offer our guests a tour of our new barbeque and satisfy our thirst for thanks by turning it outward to gratitude to God. What if whenever we yearn for someone to say, “Thank you, you are marvelous for all you have done,” we accept that as a prompt to whisper, “Thank You. You are marvelous for all You have done.”

Hospitality exercises a variety of spiritual disciplines.

Food is just one expression of hospitality. Conversation is another. When we practice holiness through hospitality, we create a space in which other pursuits of holiness can be practiced, such as listening well and not interrupting, putting others first, and offering encouragement and companionship to the person God has placed and we have invited in front of us. From the way Jesus tells us to invite, and the humility presumed in His recommended seating plan, we can assume that we don’t invite people to our table so we can imprison them to hear all and only about us. We don’t tie them to their chairs with our story and our glory.

We can stretch our ability to put others first, and to forgive.

We can practice patience, a fruit of the Spirit we get to work with, toward friends who arrive late (or even worse, early) and those who stay too long. We practice not biting off the heads of those with whom we disagree. If we do bite their heads off at dinner, we can practice the art of unequivocal apology. Apologizing is a holy act. I’m sorry are holy, healing words. Through hospitality’s gift of space opened up and time slowed down, we can “be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep,” which Paul told us to do only two verses after he reminded us to “always be eager to practice hospitality” in Romans 12:13-15.

Discipleship Tip:

Hospitality isn’t about impressing others — it’s about making space for them. This week, invite someone into your home or life with gratitude and humility, focusing on listening and encouraging rather than showcasing. Ask the Lord for opportunities to be hospitable in your community in order to point others to Jesus.

About the Author

Karen Stiller is a senior editor of Faith Today magazine and writes frequently for magazines like Reader’s Digest, Ekstasis, In Trust, and other publications across North America. Stiller is a three-time winner of the prestigious A.C. Forrest Memorial Award from the Canadian Church Press for excellence in socially conscious religious journalism. She is author of The Minister’s Wife (2020, Tyndale Momentum); co-author of Craft, Cost & Call (2019), Shifting Stats Shaking the Church (2015) and Going Missional (2010); editor of The Lord’s Prayer (2015) and coeditor of Evangelicals Around the World (2015). She lives in Ottawa and has a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Non-Fiction from University of King’s College, Dalhousie.

This article was originally published on the DiscipleMaker Blog by NavPress. You can also hear more from Karen Stiller through her book Holiness Here and NavPress’ new podcast, “Good Books, Big Questions,” where Karen hosts bold, loving, and sensible conversations about faith.

The glow of thousands of faces lights up the room, a powerful testament to the spread of the gospel from generation to generation. 

This was one of the many special moments from The Navigators 2023 National Staff Gathering.

Last month, over 1,300 Navigator staff came together in Irving, Texas. The theme of the weekend was Heartbeat: A Vital Movement of the Gospel, focusing on 2 Timothy 2:1-2: “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” (NIV).

The gathering held five plenary sessions, which were designed to inspire, uplift, and challenge staff attendees to continue the work to which they’ve been called. Staff heard insights on the Lord’s vision for grace, necessary aspects of prayer, and how He works through each and every one of us to reach the nations and spread His mission.  

Staff members also enjoyed times of fun and laughter, along with encouraging ministry stories from new and old friends, breakouts to equip and multiply disciplemakers, precious times of prayer and worship, and motivational messages from fellow Navigators and international leaders. 

For many, the National Staff Gathering was a reminder of why they became Navigators — to be a part of a vital movement of the gospel by connecting, resourcing, and developing everyday disciplemakers. 

Though this conference looked back over the past four years since our last National Staff Gathering, we also took time to look forward to the work that is ahead of us as a ministry. You can partner with us as we continue this work for years to come! 

Pray that the Lord works through The Navigators to reach the unreached and create new disciplemakers. Come alongside us to spread the gospel and disciple those in your circles, from family members to coworkers to neighbors and beyond.

Whether you serve on staff or through your everyday life, we are excited to see how the Lord moves through this next season of ministry!

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV).

Discipleship Tip:  

Pull out your phone and find a photo of someone you’re discipling or have discipled. Pray for that person and reach out to offer them encouragement.

When we read the gospels and observe Jesus’ life and ministry we most often notice what he did for the crowds.

He taught them, fed them, healed them, and even John noted that if every work Jesus did while on this earth was written down, the world could not contain the books that would be written (John 21:25). There’s no question that Jesus had and still has a heart for the world! 

Because of that, it comes as a surprise to many that amidst all that Jesus did for the masses He spent approximately 85% of His time with just 12 men.

It wasn’t because of a lack of care for the masses that Jesus focused on the few…but rather quite the opposite!

Jesus focused on the few for the sake of the many! His method for reaching the world was through building deeply into a select few and teaching them to do the same.

Jesus loved everyone, helped many, but invested in just a few. If we hope to take the gospel to the ends of the earth His method must also become our method.

“Ask God to give you one.” The same challenge that Dawson Trotman gave to Les Spencer in 1933 that started The Navigators can be our starting point today.

“I do what any disciplemaker would do—to find a way to bear witness to the Lord and disciple in any situation,” Scott says. “Just because we have restrictions on visits with friends and relatives now, that doesn’t mean that discipleship opportunities are over.”

For Scott, age 90, this outreach and discipleship extends to the aides who work at the assisted living facility where he has been a resident for almost two years. He realizes that the aides have to be efficient with their work, and he doesn’t want them to get in trouble with a supervisor. He is always ready to ask a question to move the conversation to spiritual topics. He has seven questions* related to John 3:16 that he asks. He may discuss one question each time an aide returns to his room, or he gives the aide a card with all the questions for them to consider.

Scott’s zeal for God is evident. “It is exciting to see what God does when we use our God-given willingness to be used for the greatest work we will ever have in this short opportunity of life,” Scott says.

By using technology, he has been able to stay in touch with former students and Navigator staff in Tanzania, where he served years ago. Even though he says it is unlikely he will ever travel there again, he stays in touch with the country director of The Navigators in Tanzania and prays for God to continue the good work of the gospel for many years to come.

Praise God for those who are life-long disciplemakers! Bless and encourage their desire to serve God all of their days.

* The seven questions Scott uses are derived from Jim Downing’s pamphlet called “Can You Answer These Questions About The Best-Known Verse in The Bible?”

1. According to this verse, what did God give?
   • Answer: His only begotten Son.
2. Why did He give Him?
   • Answer: Because He loved the world.
3. To whom has He given Him?
   • Answer: To whosoever believes in Him.
4. Does that include you?
   • If they hesitate on this, change the question a bit to reflect Ephesians 1:7 and John 1:10-12 and ask the next questions.
5. Do you have assurances that your sins are forgiven?
6. Do you have eternal life?
   • Depending on their answer, ask the next question.
7. What does a person have to do to receive an offered gift?
   • Ideally, they will respond that they will “take the gift” and with your help, you can lead them in a short prayer that they can follow along with:
     • Example: “Heavenly Father, I thank you for offering your Son. I do here now receive Him, and invite the Lord Jesus to come into my heart, to forgive me my sins, and to give me everlasting life.”

While Lou and Xiao Mei stayed in touch, their communication became infrequent. Last year, Xiao Mei reached out to Lou, saying “I have retired from my job at the bank and am praying and asking God to lead and use me in His harvest field. For now, I am staying home and preparing myself so that after the COVID virus shutdown ends, I can share the gospel with more people.”

Recently Xiao Mei texted Lou a specific prayer request. She had an appointment to meet with a former coworker and his wife. “Pray that the Lord will use me as His channel of blessing in this rare opportunity to get together in person. Pray that God will loosen Tong Shi* from Satan’s grip and he will be freed to accept the gospel. Please also pray that his wife will be willing to accept the gospel and will not be a hindrance to his faith. Thanks for your prayer support.”

The very next morning, Xiao Mei sent another text.

“Thank you so much for your prayers. Praise the Lord for His almighty power and guidance last night! Both my colleague and his wife invited Jesus into their hearts and lives! Thank God for preparing his heart so that he has almost no hesitation to accept Christ. His wife literally followed him. Previously he had a strong belief in a traditional religion, and he thought he would have bad luck if he discarded those beliefs and followed Christ.”

Now Xiao Mei is following up with this couple to help them grow. They meet by zoom, because of the continuing COVID restrictions in their city, but Xiao Mei is planning on seeing them in person when possible for closer fellowship and intentional discipling.

Lou continues to pray for Xiao Mei, encourage her in her evangelism and discipling relationships, and provides discipleship materials for her to use with this couple.   

While many miles and years separate Lou from those she discipled in Asia, she and Ken continue to interact with many Christians in their former city. In this season of life, as part of Navigators Encore leadership, they encourage, equip, and pray for those God is still using to bring new life and generations of disciplemakers to an influential closed city and country in Asia. They are also involved in recruiting and preparing new missionaries who want to serve in various countries around the world.

Pray that the Good News will continue to multiply, even in regions where there is limited freedom to share about Jesus. Praise God that the Holy Spirit is active among so many disciplemakers!

*Names changed.

Booker T. Washington, the founder and president of Tuskegee University in Alabama, was convinced scientist George Washington Carver would add significant value to the young people at his school. Washington hired Carver to run the school’s agricultural department in 1896. But the value Carver added went well beyond the classroom. Unbeknownst to Washington, Carver was also a renowned Bible teacher who taught a group of 70-80 students every Sunday night in the 1930s.

While serving at Tuskegee, Carver was a much sought-after speaker at white and Black colleges and church conferences. He also became a favorite speaker at YMCA conferences in Blue Ridge, North Carolina. When The Navigators asked my wife, Jane, and me to begin a discipleship ministry at Tuskegee in 1970, we knew nothing of the prayers, faith, and fruit of George Washington Carver decades earlier. Only after meeting two elderly women from Carver’s Sunday night study did we realize that we were about to stand on the broad spiritual shoulders of a true disciple of Christ.

Knowing very little of how to develop a campus ministry, we simply began to evangelize and follow up with the new Christians and get the students involved in Bible study growth groups. We recruited Charlie Speight and a few others to help with the work of discipling students for Christ. We attended the campus Sunday school led by the school chaplain. While the chaplain was doing the best he knew how, I knew the class needed student leadership. We were convinced that the best way to serve the campus was to encourage students to attend the Sunday school, teach, and then encourage students to come. Before long there were almost 100 students who were growing and connecting with each other.

For The Navigators, the 8:00 a.m. Sunday school was the meeting place. During the week, students began meeting in their dorm rooms to study the Scriptures and being led by other students. The students soon assembled a prayer group who committed to meeting three times a week at 5:30 a.m. to pray for the new converts. Every Friday evening was evangelism through the dorms and on Saturdays there was a gathering at our home appropriately called a “Jesus Rally.”

The ministry reached its highest level in 1972 when the late well-known evangelist Tom Skinner preached for three days on campus and three hundred persons were saved. The Tuskegee Navigators group initiated the Design for Discipleship (DFD) studies and followed up with around 100 of the converts.

We served at Tuskegee for only three years and then Charlie Speight took over the Sunday school ministry. Eddie Broussard eventually assumed leadership of the ministry who then passed it on to Alex Anderson (Intervarsity). Finally, Alex passed the baton to Byron Johnson with Campus Outreach. We believe it was about 27 years that the Sunday school ministry continued with evangelism, follow-up, and discipleship through the DFD. Today there are about 90 persons in a group on Facebook who grew in Christ because of the ministry. They are missionaries, pastors, elders, deacons, and Sunday school teachers. We also believe the people, the families, the churches, and the ministries who have been impacted by the Tuskegee ministry cannot be numbered.

This topic is of great importance to us as believers, especially since the way we accomplish the Great Commission to make disciples can sometimes feel awkward or intimidating. In years past, the Church’s evangelism strategy focused more on a “reaping” mentality versus one of “sowing.” But the world is filled with millions of people who are on a spiritual journey. Many are not yet ready to attend church or make a decision to follow Christ, but they are open to relationships and to making small decisions that will move them closer to Christ.

I believe that if we redefine evangelism to mean leading each person we encounter a step closer to Jesus, we would approach outreach with more gentleness and confidence.

Several years ago, my wife, Pam, and I decided to pattern our lives in a way that would cause frequent and organic interactions with people in various stages of their faith journey. Rather than frequenting five different coffee shops, three grocery stores, and seven different restaurants, we brought focus to where we spent time. Now, we are “regulars” at a handful of places where we sow relationships through regular interaction. These small, casual interactions lead to real relationships through which we connect about meaningful matters of the heart.

We’ve also made a concerted effort to be “sowing” through acts of love and hospitality in our neighborhood. This has led to a number of fun relationships that are moving people toward Jesus!

1 Peter 2:12 commissions us to “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” Perhaps the best way to accomplish Peter’s command is to reach out to serve and connect with those in our community. As we naturally befriend those yet to know Jesus Christ, we draw others closer to Him.

What would it look like if our outreach was less agenda-driven and more characterized by love, patience, and confidence that the Spirit knows the right timing? Every encounter we have with another person, believer or not, has purpose. Through patient sowing, we can see people wooed ever closer to the Kingdom of God through the presence of Christ they experience through us.

Many of those Jack and Joann discipled have started new churches and denominations in Spain and Africa over the years—churches that are focused on sharing the gospel, and helping people grow in Christ and pass on what they’ve learned to others. In addition, the adult children of people who started following Jesus more than 30 years ago are now being used by God to reach their generation of Spaniards with the gospel.

Some of the disciples have no churches in their areas, but remain faithful. One man said, “My wife and I have Jesus and we read the Bible daily.”

While Jack was there, he reminded his many disciples and friends that it was all God’s doing: “I told them that it was the heart of Christ to seek and save them, because God loves them. It was God who had reached out to them. God moved through The Navigators to send us out.”

In addition, their ministry was supported with a strong prayer foundation. As they prepared to serve in Spain, Jack and Joann enlisted 300 people who promised to regularly pray for them and their ministry. Jack calls this prayer team (now numbering 700), “the invisible force behind all that we did.”

Praise God for His faithfulness in growing disciples who have multiplied over many years. Pray for the next generation of disciples in Spain and around the world. Your prayer matters!

I began to reflect on two men I had been discipling for a couple of years. The first was a man from England. He emailed me and asked if I was the Jack Blanch who had ministered in Manchester, England, in 1969. He remembered three messages I had presented to a group of students when he was a new believer. The last message, on spiritual multiplication, still burned in his heart some 49 years later. How amazing!

He felt very alone and discouraged in his desire to make disciples. I began to pray for him regularly.

A few weeks later, he sent me an email saying, “Somebody must be praying.” After 49 years he finally has two men who want to be discipled. One is Nepalese. As we continued corresponding, he shared that he has had no success in evangelism. Last Sunday someone in his church approached him and asked him to explain the gospel!

The second man I have been discipling is a Canadian whom I had met while leading a Navigator training camp in Nebraska in 1967. We became reacquainted while he and his wife served as summer volunteers at Glen Eyrie. I have been helping him learn how to share the gospel. Last year he accompanied me on a trip to Spain to visit my son and people I had ministered to during my years there. He was astounded at what he learned about prayer and evangelism as we traveled together.

With these two in mind and Jay’s comment about my gifts, I asked myself how many people I thought I could impact at this stage of life. I decided that I could disciple 10 people and wrote that number on my daily prayer list. They started seeking me out, and now I am actively working with nine people.

I have become convinced that those I disciple need to know I love them, they need a lot more people praying for them, and they need hope for both the present and the future. I have asked them to read and think about John 15:1-17 to give them hope. I am also using John 7:37-39 to encourage them to believe God for “rivers of living water” to be flowing out of them. I am recruiting new prayer warriors to energize their efforts.

Recently one of the people I disciple emailed me: “I am having great conversations with some friends about the Kingdom of God. This has been an amazing thing and I am very encouraged by it. Your prayers are being answered!”

Not only does this fruit encourage my heart, it also compels me to press on in Life-to-Life discipleship!

Where are you in your journey with God? Do you have gifts you are not utilizing? Pray for God to show you how you can be used fully for His glory. No matter what season of life you’re in—younger or older—God can use your gifts!