Four Basic Discipling Questions

Photo by Mikey Parkin on Unsplash

In my work with the young men I meet each week, I like to ask a few basic questions to discern where they are going spiritually. They serve as a guide for our conversations. As we meet over time, I hope to see their answers deepen and grow more outwardly-focused.

1. What are you hearing from God?

I ask this partly to discern whether they are, in fact, making Bible reading a habit. That is the most basic purpose for this question. The habit of taking in the Scripture (reading, studying, listening to Scripture being read, etc.) is essential for any growing Christ-follower. Until Scripture intake is a regular, daily pattern, a man or woman’s spiritual growth is going to be stunted. As I have said more than once in the pulpit, if the only Scripture you’re getting each week is what you hear on Sunday morning, you are on a spiritual starvation diet. For a disciple to grow, he or she must be in the Scripture.

But that is only the most basic level. I also want to know if they are reflecting on what they are reading in God’s Word. Are there questions and applications that occupy their minds? Are they able to connect the dots, able to talk about how what they are learning from God’s Word and how it can bear fruit in their lives – in their priorities, their relationships, their daily and weekly habits, their ambitions, the way they deal with temptation and sin?

The more they grow spiritually, the more thoughtful and more personal their reflection on Scripture will be.

2. What is something you are trusting God for?

This question gives me the opportunity to talk about their prayer life. At the beginning, I expect the answers to this question to center on personal needs and needs of their family. And it is right and good that the men I disciple should begin at the beginning, with their own lives and the people closest to them.

But over time I hope to see more trust in God and more of an outward focus, as they realize that God has bigger things in mind for them than success in their jobs and health and security for them and their families. I will want to hear them talk about trusting God for big ministry objectives, a growing burden for the unbelievers in their sphere of influence: their workplace, their neighborhood, their families. I will hope to hear them mention the names of co-workers, neighbors, relatives for whom their hearts are burdened.

You know what it’s like to be around someone whose prayers are big, someone who is pleading with God to draw people to faith, someone who is trusting God to do things only God could do. That’s where I want my own prayer life to go and where I want my guys to go.

3. How is God using you in other people’s lives?

Here again, the first answers will revolve around family. And that is as it should be. After all, our families are the people God has placed us with; we have an obligation before God to minister first to our spouse and our children.

But if that is the entire scope of our concern, we don’t yet have God’s heart. I think about this sometimes when I drive by my neighbors’ houses: these are people who need to know the Gospel. They don’t know that God loves them so ferociously that He gave up His Son. As I said in a recent post, our primary motivation for sharing the Good News with our neighbors is the Second Commandment: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

As my guys grow in their faith, I want to hear them answer this question in an ever-expanding circle of concern and attention. I want them to more and more reflect God’s heart for the lost, for the nations.

4. How have you seen the faithfulness of God?

I ask this question because I want to help my guys cultivate a heart of gratitude. But the faithfulness of God is almost always more obvious in retrospect than it is in the moment. It’s often when we look back over our shoulders, not when we’re in the testing fire, that we can discern the wisdom and goodness and power of God in the way He has graciously provided: His impeccable timing, His generosity, His power over all things.

Asking this question routinely will, I hope, create an alertness in them to more quickly discern the Good Shepherd’s provision in the moment.
 
There’s no reason these questions must be reserved for one-on-one discipling relationships.

Small groups can use these questions to challenge and encourage one another. Friends can use these questions to sharpen their iron-on-iron relationships. These three questions are another way we can “one-another” well.

May God’s Spirit continue to draw us close to one another and close to His heart as we question one another faithfully.

Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Pastor of Discipleship