Effective discipleship includes skill-building …

How skilled at communication and interpersonal relationships were you the day you said, “I do!” and then found yourself waking up as a married person the next morning?

How skilled were you at being a parent when you first took your newborn child into your arms?

You may have earned a four-year degree before you got that first key job in your career field, but how skilled were you to take on the position in its fullest responsibility?

In all things, from relationships to work, we have to learn. But learning is far more than developing a philosophy or theology about something, or gaining knowledge and understanding, it must also include being equipped in the necessary and related skills. Without developing skills, you’ll fail at most of your endeavors, and that includes your followership of Jesus Christ.

Preachers love to preach, and teachers love to teach, but so often lacking in our discipleship experience is being equipped with the skills of being a follower of Jesus Christ. More than just teaching for knowledge, disciples of Jesus need to be equipped with the skills needed in living for Jesus. That’s why a key responsibility for church leaders is described as equipping of the saints …

“Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ,” Ephesians 4:12.

Rarely do we consider the value and necessity of equipping the saints with skills for discipleship, preferring instead the loftier ideas of theology, apologetics, or even philosophy. We underrate the real value of skill-building, a point captured in this simple story …

A priest and a rabbi were playing golf together for the first time. The rabbi noticed the priest was an excellent putter. He also saw that before every putt, the priest would made the sign of the cross. By the time they reached the ninth hole, the rabbi was behind by ten strokes. At that point, the rabbi asked the priest if he thought it would be okay if he, too, crossed himself. The priest said, “Sure rabbi, go ahead, but it’s not going to help you much until you learn to putt.”

My singular purpose for writing this blog post is to help us understand one fact: disciples need to be equipped in the skills of discipleship. But I’m not going to provide you with an exhaustive list of what all those skills are because your list may (likely would) differ from mine. But I think we could agree that our skill-building needs can be sorted into two key areas: skills for our followership of Jesus Christ, and skills for being ambassadors for Jesus Christ.

What kind of skills are need for our followership of Jesus? In order to know God, and hear from Him, we need the skill of how to STUDY the Bible. To have a complete and intimate relationship with the Lord, we need the skill of prayer. To obey the Great Commandment of loving God first and foremost, and the second greatest commandment of loving our neighbors as ourselves, we need to develop effective interpersonal skills like how to love unconditionally, good listening skills (listening for understanding), how to forgive, etc. What are some skills you can identify are needed for being a faithful and obedient follower of Jesus?

What kinds of skills are needed for being an ambassador (see 2 Cor. 5:18-20) for Jesus Christ? To be an effective ambassador for Christ, we need to be equipped with the skill of how to effectively share the Gospel with non-believers, a crucial skill most churches do not provide to their members. Even developing the skill of being a witness for Jesus (see Acts 1:8) is often something we do not help Christians develop — we tell them to be witnesses of Jesus, but we do little to help them develop the skill of witnessing.

One of the greatest frustrations of church leaders is to see how most of the people they lead do little to nothing with what is preached and what they’re taught. Could a major contributing factor to such poor results possibly be because we routinely fail at helping the people we lead develop the SKILLS needed to apply what we teach and preach? No one likes to fail, yet if we preach at them to do something that they have no developed skills for, people will often decide to not even try rather than face the fear of failing at something they’re not equipped for. Skill-building is an invaluable investment in the spiritual development of the people we lead!

Christian, are you taking the responsibility for yourself to make sure you’re developing the skills needed for following Jesus and for being an ambassador for Christ? Your leaders work hard to teach you well, it’s important that you energetically purpose developing the skills you need to live for Jesus and to be His representative in this world.

Scotty