I can remember a time when disciple-making sounded more doable. My days had more margin for late nights, spontaneous meals, and extended fellowship. Fewer responsibilities demanded my time. Discipling others in a life-on-life way didn’t sound easy, but it did sound more manageable than it does now.
Businessman, husband, mother of young ones — you probably know what I mean. You used to say yes to nearly every invitation. You used to send those invitations. Now saying yes often means saying no to some part of life that seems nonnegotiable. And for as much as you’ve tried to invite others into your normal routines — aiming for overlap, not addition — the fact still stands: Discipling others is harder than it once was.
Yet you still hear your Lord’s command: “Make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Evangelize and baptize. Teach and train. Invest your life in others so they grow up into Christlike maturity.
“Yes, Lord,” you say from the heart. But as you look up from your overtime schedule, overdue projects, or overloaded sink, you add, “But how?”
Go and Make When?
Of course, something would be wrong if we heard Jesus’s command to make disciples and thought, Simple. I can make disciples in my sleep. The command should make us stagger a step or two.
Indeed, not only discipleship but also disciple-making comes with a cost. We reckon rightly with Jesus’s command when we start rearranging life to more regularly welcome the unbelieving and less mature. What hobbies might we give up? What lesser priorities might go? In what creative ways might we take others alongside us and teach them to observe more of what Jesus commanded?
But as we feel the weight of the task, we should also beware of adding more weight than what’s there. “Go and make disciples” does not require us to neglect job or family. In fact, the same Jesus who told us to make disciples also told us, through his apostles, to work and parent heartily (Colossians 3:18–4:1). So, those who shortchange family or employer in order to make disciples do so at the expense of their own discipleship. And a disobedient disciple-maker is a walking contradiction.
Somehow, then, we need a vision of life-on-life discipleship for lives with little room.
Discipling Differently
As a first step, let’s clarify what we mean by disciple-making. David Mathis, taking his cues from Jesus’s own example in the Gospels, defines disciple-making this way: “the process in which a stable, mature believer invests himself, for a particular period of time, in one or a few younger believers, in order to help their growth in the faith — including helping them also to invest in others who will invest in others.”
This definition offers a few irreducible elements of disciple-making. First, disciple-making requires some degree of spiritual maturity, at least compared to the person (or people) being discipled. Second, disciple-making is an investment of your very self: You offer not only a message but a model, not only your speech but your life. Third, disciple-making pursues growth in faith or practical obedience to what Jesus commanded. And fourth, disciple-making aims to multiply disciple-makers.
Recently, however, I heard someone helpfully observe that, within these parameters, the New Testament commends more than one model or method of disciple-making. In the Gospels, Jesus disciples twelve men in all of life for three years. In Acts, Paul disciples Timothy in a similar way (2 Timothy 3:10–11), but then at other times he walks with new believers over a shorter period and then continues teaching them through visits and letters (Acts 14:21–22).
Of course, Jesus and Paul were unmarried men who devoted their lives to ministry. They had no spouse or children or full-time jobs. So, do we have any examples of disciple-making moms or dads, managers or bondservants? Yes, we do.
Life-on-Life Within Limits
Though Paul doesn’t mention disciple-making in Titus 2, his calling to older women aligns well with the definition we’ve been considering:
Older women . . . are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2:3–5)
Here we have the basic elements of disciple-making. Mature women invest themselves in younger women, pursuing their growth and implicitly aiming to multiply mature women who can do the same for others. But within this framework, notice one significant difference between these domestic disciplers and the patterns of Jesus and Paul: Instead of focusing on the breadth of life over a long period, they take only a slice of “all that [Jesus] commanded” (Matthew 28:20), striving to train others in a particular area of maturity God has granted to them.
If these women had tried to disciple others just as Jesus and Paul did, they may have given up in despair — or they may have neglected their own homes to do so. But disciple younger women in the basics of being a godly wife and mom? That process might still be costly. It might call for some creative restructuring of normal routines. It would certainly require the Spirit’s power. But even within significant life limits, it would be possible.
Titus 2 invites us (older woman or not) to dream a little differently about disciple-making. It invites us to see that even a limited life can have room for others.
One Aim, Many Models
This more limited, topically focused method of disciple-making does not remove the need for longer-term, broader discipling relationships. Jesus and Paul went that route. And even those of us with families or full-time work would be wise to consider how we might disciple more like they did — perhaps by inviting a younger believer to live with us for a time or finding a job alongside a brother or sister. But in busy seasons, thinking in a more limited way may open fresh possibilities.
Alongside Titus 2, our own experience and the New Testament’s broader teaching seem to encourage this approach. As far as experience goes, think back to your own most formative times as a Christian. How did you grow? Perhaps you can point to one incredibly influential person who invested deeply in you — a Paul who made you his Timothy. But probably most of us remember several people who each contributed significantly to our maturity. His example taught me how to pray. Her hospitality modeled the evangelistic life. His friendship helped me defeat that sin. Her morning habits showed me how to meet with God.
If that’s how God often matures us anyway, why not make the process more intentional? Why not take another believer alongside you and say, “Can we get together for the next few months so we can talk about fatherhood?” “Do you want to come with me as I share Jesus on the streets?” “Can I show you my budget and walk through some principles of Christian stewardship with you?”
As for other biblical teaching, Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 3:21–22 that all the church’s leaders, not just one, belong to God’s people for their upbuilding. Later, he pictures Christ’s people as a body whose members each contribute to the health of the whole (1 Corinthians 12:14–20). Indeed, as we mature, we come to see not only what we have to offer others but also the limits of what we have to offer. So, like Barnabas in Antioch, we may give others what we have and then grab a Paul so he can give more (Acts 11:22–26).
The one God-man has given many models to his church. So, sometimes, we may disciple best by offering someone the best of what we have and then encouraging him or her to keep learning from others.
Share What You Have
So, fellow busy believer, how might we get started with this kind of disciple-making? Let me share two next steps I’ve learned from others farther along.
You can begin by taking a careful look at your life and asking where you can say with integrity, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:1). As you consider all that Jesus commanded, in what areas has God granted you a particular measure of maturity — in habits of grace, or husbanding, or evangelism, or workplace diligence? Alternatively, as you consider others in your church or small group, can you discern any specific discipleship needs you might be able to meet? Even if you’re a newer believer and wouldn’t consider yourself mature overall, might you be more mature in an area where someone else needs help?
Then you might develop a basic proposal for what the discipling relationship could look like. Prayerfully consider what would fit within the limits of your life right now. What would stretch you without breaking you? What would push you to depend on God but not press you beyond measure? Instead of proposing something indefinite (in duration) and undefined (in topic), consider getting specific:
- “Let’s practice praying God’s word together on Monday mornings for the next three months.”
- “Let’s study these passages about eating and body image, meeting every other week over the summer.”
- “Let’s have your family over for dinner on Saturday nights this semester so you can see how we practice hospitality.”
In other words, in a limited but sacrificial way, take some Christlike treasure God has given you, and share what you have.