Discipleship End Goals
Discipleship is a life-long journey for everyone. Our founder recounts a story when a 93 year old widowed missionary, held his hand and said to him, “I am not there yet, but I am on my way.” She was referring to her own discipleship journey. A journey she had been on since she was a little girl, that had taken her to Bible College, the mission field in Africa for over 50 years serving, widows, orphans, and the sick; and as conformed to the image of Jesus as this wonderful woman was, she was still wanting to learn and grow in her relationship with Jesus and love for others. The heart of this woman is the heart we want to have at Neighbours Church, satisfied in Jesus, but not settling in, not feeling like we’ve arrived, but always wanting to know Him better and learning what it means to love others.
To help us in our journey, we have created a list of discernible characteristics we feel describe maturity in the faith. Characteristics to grow in and mature. This list has been developed and shaped over 20 years by our founder along with the people and leaders at the churches he has led, and global missions organization he was a part of. (Thank you to the staff and board of the Gathering, WMB church, and Multiply that invested countless hours in developing many areas of this tool with our founder for the furtherance of His Kingdom in their versions of this discipleship tool.) Our hope with our unique list of described characteristics that people at Neighbours Church would have the heart of that 93-year-old woman in their relationship with Jesus; wanting to continue to grow over the years. Our hope is that as each of you work through this list over and over again, through the years, the Holy Spirit will captivate your heart and challenge you to take discernible steps to become more like Jesus. May these characteristics stir you to grow your faith and not just settle for where you are.
The characteristics are broken down into the two relationships Jesus said were most important: to love God and love our neighbour.
