Lately I’ve been thinking through how Jesus made disciples, based on my observations of scripture. I’ll post one insight per day here. You can find all of them by searching “How Jesus made disciples” on my blog.
Jesus skewed discipleship toward the practical rather than the academic.
Although Jesus did teach, he based most of his discipleship on modeling and on spontaneous life situations that arose in the moment. Consider casting out demons and the feeding of the 5,000 as examples. We are to be hands-on people, involved in the practical day-to-day life around us. Whenever you want to teach something, consider how you might be able to teach it in a concrete way.
What’s the take away for us? Whenever you have a choice between hands-on learning and classroom learning, go with hands-on learning. It sticks better anyway.
Biblical passages to consider: Mark 9:14-29, Mark 9:33-35, John 9:1-41, Matthew 14:13-21