Challenge 10: Help Other Guys Find the Path to Spiritual Growth
All of us are involved in the mission of disciple-making. This mission is about evangelism, yes, but also about helping believers mature in faith. Men need other men who will grab them by the shoulders, shake them, and say, ‘Join me on the daring quest to know and serve Jesus!’
So far you have spent 9 months thinking (mainly) about your own personal spiritual growth. Now it is time to prepare yourself to be able to recruit others and lead them forward in faith and obedience. How will you do this? For this challenge we will be using my book, The Way Forward: a Road-map of Spiritual Growth for Men in the 21st Century (Christian Focus Publications). I wrote this book for one reason: to help men break through low-ceilings of spiritual growth. This book is an itinerary for guys who want to cut through the noise and distraction of the 21st century and take definite steps toward maturity in Christ. Count this challenge as an opportunity to find a role in the great ministry of ‘warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus’ (Col. 1:28).
Week 37:
Assignment: Figure Out the Problem
Read pages 1-58 of The Way Forward. This is a careful diagnosis of the multiple factors that combine to stifle the spiritual growth of men. Too often men are given simplistic accounts for why they struggle (e.g. laziness, apathy, inability to prioritize, etc.). The truth is that men struggle for a lot of different reasons. Understanding the nature of an ailment is an important first step toward arriving at a cure. This week we will limit our attention to thinking about the question, why are so many Christian men spiritually stuck?
Additional Coaching
Week 38:
Assignment: Figure Out the Solution
Read pages 59-124 of The Way Forward. This section is a description of the solution to the problem. If the aim of section one is for a man to think to himself, ‘Yes, that’s me; that’s why I struggle,’ the aim of section two is for the same man to think, ‘Yes, that’s where I need to be; that would make the difference.’ Understanding the solution is a prerequisite to implementing the plan.
Additional Coaching
Week 39:
Assignment: Figure Out the Plan
Read pages 125-168 of The Way Forward. This section connects the dots from problem to solution. By reading this section you will gain a clear sense of the kinds of activities that condition spiritual growth, that is, the kinds of activities that you have been doing over the last 10 months. Although you may have been thinking of the decathlon primarily as a means of personal growth, in truth, the decathlon has been preparing you for something more. You now have a set of tools that can be used to disciple other men. Whether reading Pilgrim’s Progress or completing The Topical Memory System, whether exploring a sense of calling or deepening spiritual friendship by asking better questions, from now on you can pick one challenge and use it to help another believer get moving in the direction of maturity in Christ.
Additional Coaching
Week 40:
Assignment: Recruit a Small Group and Lead them along The Way Forward
You may be expecting a graduation ceremony right now, but in the Christian life, we don’t graduate until we die. We get deployed; we don’t retire. Thus the end of this journey is the beginning of a new assignment. Now that you have a deeper framework of discipleship and a better grasp of a few spiritual disciplines, go out and recruit a small band of brothers and lead them along The Way Forward using the leader’s guide.
Go, labour on; spend, and be spent,
Thy joy to do the Father’s will:
It is the way the Master went;
Should not the servant tread it still?
Go, labour on; ‘tis not for nought,
Thy earthly loss is heavenly gain:
Men heed thee, love thee, praise thee not;
The Master praises; what are men!
– Horatius Bonar