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Aug
7
E Leader , F Leader , I Leader , L Leader , Paul Wilkinson

The Model Prayer

By Paul Wilkinson

In keeping with last week’s post about soul care being one of our challenges for 2017-18, I wanted to offer you a helpful tool I use to support my prayer life. I take this diagram from Mike Breen in Building a Discipling Culture, the Lord’s Prayer Hexagon:

Breen breaks the Lord’s Prayer into the 6 categories seen above. If this is the model for how Jesus’ disciples are to pray, then we can trust that utilizing these categories will give us great spiritual assurance, power, and insights. Here are three ways the hexagon might be used:

  • The Categories Birth our Prayers: Use the categories, beginning with any of them and working through all the others, to guide prayer. As you meditate and reflect on the category, the Spirit will bring to mind all sorts of people, events, behaviors, and attitudes for which you should be praying.
  • Our Prayer Filtered through the Categories: Take an issue that is particularly in your focus and pray for it through each category. For instance, say one wants to pray for their finances. Pray: Lord, you provide for your people daily. I can trust that you will provide for my financial distress. Lord, forgive me for focusing more on the issue at hand than your grace and your holiness. Forgive my lack of trust which has resulted in worry. Etc.
  • A Category a Day: Since there are six categories, you could take one per day to cover Monday through Saturday. Meditate on that category throughout the day praying specifics each time you reflect. Then, on Sunday, pray with the corporate body. Rest and reflect on the week of prayer. [Of course, if your corporate gathering is on Tuesday night, then one would just shift the 6-day pattern]

If you are up for a fun, little read, then check out Luther’s thoughts on prayer written to his barber in the midst of tragedy.
 
 

Jul
3
F Leader , Paul Wilkinson , Uncategorized

Intentionality

By Paul Wilkinson

Bobby Harrington and Josh Patrick are big on intentionality as a necessary feature for discipleship. As many a discipleship guru has said: disciples are not made accidentally. We must be AFTeR individuals that the Lord would have for us to invest in as they come to and grow in faith. They suggest Matthew 28:19-21 and Deuteronomy 6:4-9 as key texts highlighting the Lord’s intentionality in commissioning us to disciple others, raise up new generations, and make the faith known. Harrington and Patrick offer 5 guidelines for intentionality.

  • You need a plan

The essence of this idea is that people need practical steps to follow as they seek to disciple others. We must know in advance where we want to take people spiritually, and how to get there generally. Pray about each of your group members and where the Holy Spirit might be moving them over the next few months. It what ways, out of the ordinary, might you become an instrument in that movement?

  • You need tools

Tools are those mediums by which you convey your discipleship. The 7 volume Foundation series produced by Brentwood Baptist Discipleship is a great guide to core values for the Christian life. Ongoing training and other resources that you might request are our pleasure to provide to you. And of course, grounding all of what we do, is the Scripture.

  • You need to be a role model

Lecturing or facilitation during group time is only one facet of discipleship. We must also demonstrate how the faith is to be lived. Now, this does not mean that we have to “get it perfect,” rather it means that we, as disciplers, must make our lives accessible and vulnerable to those we lead. They must see how we live the faith. Invite some group members into your home, let them see the messiness of your house, let them see you discipline your children, let them see you engage your neighbors. Find those select individuals from your group that the Lord has put on your heart and show them what the faith looks like. Don’t strive for perfection or else you may paint a false picture; instead, strive for authenticity. You will be stunned how those group members reproduce for others what you provide for them.

  • You need to be discerning

Harrington and Patrick suggest that discipleship moves to the lowest common denominator, so you must set the agenda and the vision, constantly pulling people towards it. You must see people for where they are and where the Holy Spirit is moving them rather than what you think they could possibly become. Jesus pulled 12 particular disciples out of the multitudes that were following Him. He then focused heavily on 3 out of those 12. Why should we be any different?

  • Intentionality is the key to multiplication and reaching people

Intentionality is an ongoing, willful choice. We must not treat our lives and encounters like accidents or coincidences. We must always be looking for places to explain, debrief, and model the Christ-centered life for those we engage.

Our authors offer us 4 guidelines.

  • Learn an effective discipleship model from other disciple makers.
  • Pray about how you might disciple those who you discern are AFTeR.
  • Develop a meeting schedule, study routine, and relationship growth.
  • Determine that you will open your life to them, warts and all.[i]

 
[i]Bobby Harrington and Josh Patrick, The Disciple Maker’s Handbook (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 112.