As well as focussing explicitly on equipping Christians to share their faith churches should all the time be encouraging believers to live a life of discipleship. The most contagious Christians are those who are walking close to Christ!

There are so many books and DVDs on the topic and out of my last Sabbatical in 2008 I contributed another “Making Disciples One-To-One” (ISBN 9781844265411) which looks at the ways we can encourage each other in discipleship through  “Spiritual friendships”    “Soul friends”   “Prayer buddies”  “Spiritual direction”   “Spiritual formation” and  “Mentoring”. It includes “Twelve Great Reasons for Meeting One-To-One” and an 8 week course for meeting “One-To-One With New Christians”.

Fan The Flame

A major part of “Making Disciples One-To-One” is a guided course in discipleship for mature Christians meeting regularly with a Guide, entitled “Fan The Flame”.  This combines daily personal Bible readings with notes and questions for reflection on the following topics.

 1) Knowing God better
a) Loving God and enjoying your relationship with God
b) Devotional Bible reading and understanding the Bible, doctrine and ethics
c) Worship
d) Your devotional prayer life
e) Intercessory prayer

2) Becoming like Jesus
a) Repentance and Holiness
b) Christian Victory and Overcoming Temptation
c) The Renewed Mind
d) The Fruit of the Spirit and Mastering your Emotions
e) Total surrender to the Lordship of Christ

3) Living in Christ’s body
a) Amazing Grace! Forgiving yourself
b) Forgiving other people – wounds needing healing
c) Loving other Christians and sorting out relationships
d) Church – Living in Fellowship and Community
e) Belonging and Accountability

4) Becoming a servant
a) The Cross as our example of sacrifice
b) Serving in the church
c) Being a faithful Steward
d) Loving our neighbour
e) Our Witness to the World

5) Be filled with the Spirit
a) Sharing Christ’s resurrection life – the empowering Spirit
b) The gifts of the Holy Spirit – Serving in God’s strength
c) Signs and wonders – the surprising Spirit
d) Passion for God
e) “Be filled with the Spirit” – experiencing the Holy Spirit

POSTSCRIPT: How you being a Guide can help other Disciples

At least than a hundred Christians have now worked through Fan The Flame in half a dozen churches. More details of Making Disciples One-To-0ne including extracts of each chapter can be found online at http://pbthomas.com/md121.html If you think these materials might be useful to you  please get in touch peter@pbthomas.com