Roaming Tennessee Girl

Discipleship at Work

I love ministry of almost any kind. I enjoy being able to spend my time building relationships with others in order to show them and tell them who Christ is. I firmly believe that is the only why you can make disciples like we are told to do. For the last few years I have struggled with the fact that my life is once again surrounded by Christians. Okay I know that sounds negative but that is not my intent. Before I moved overseas I can honestly say my contact with non-Christians was limited to people who I worked with that I never really talked to because they were non-Christians or when I worked summer camp and was forced to talk to non-Christians. I never realized that I had padded my life with people who knew and believed in God and Jesus. I didn't realize that is not how Jesus wanted me to live my life. Then I moved to France and had 5 or 6 Christians friends and several non-Christian friends. Non-Christians who for the most part didn't believe in Christ or God at all. When I moved back to the states I refused to jump back in that Christian only bubble again and fought hard to stay away from it for a long time.

However for the almost two years know I have done the same thing. Part of it was not by choice and some of it was. But ministry doesn't always have to be with non-Christians and lately God has been reminding me of that. For about a year and a half I have been teaching sunday school at my ultra-traditional southern baptist church. I became an unwilling participant in the class around february of 07. I had avoided it like the plague because I always felt it was not beneficial to my spiritual walk at all (in fact I feel that way about church in general....humble of me I know:) Guilt had pushed me into the class and teaching the class became a task that was dropped in my lap. A year and a half ago, my class consisted of about 6 people , 4 of which were related. Now we have about 15 who come all the time and more who visit. I am not a numbers person and that is not the important part of the blog...My sunday school class has grown spiritual in the last year and a half.

Christ comanded us to go and make disciples. I struggle still with what that looks like. But I am kind of starting to see that in my class. When I first started teaching the class, they would never answer questions, and it was struggle to get them to just read the scripture. Anytime I wasn't there 1 of 2 people were forced to teach in my absence. Forced truly is the the word, neither one wanted to and they argued over who had to. Now they are teaching bible study themselves. We have started meeting once a month outside of church, and everyone is taking turns teaching the bible study. Our extra lessons last for over an hour most of the time. We struggle to dismiss class on Sunday in time to get back into big church. They are talking about their faith and discussing how they can live it in their day to day lives. They are asking questions about what things mean in scripture. They are learning things on their own. They are talking to each other during the week in order to hold each other accountable and to check on each other. They are all amazed by what as been happening...I keep telling that is fellowship and what Christ wanted the church to look like. It is discipleship at work.

I struggle with understanding why God has me here and why I am still at the church I am at. Then something like this happens and I am reminded that maybe it wasn't me that God was as worried about. He wanted the class to grow and change. And the good thing is that it is my current ministry and they make me grow and learn in the process...

posted by deanna @ 9:13 AM