"witchraft?" we'll get there.
Yesterday (Wednesday), marked the beginning of our last week in Monterrey.
We went on many adventures, but it began with Cerro de la Silla, which is a mountain overlooking Monterrey. It's shaped like a giant saddle and is a famous landmark for the city (College Station-ites, there is a restaurant, La Botana, off of Villa Maria that has a picture on the sign). We started at around 8 in the morning and went to climb up to a cool lookout spot about a quarter of the way up (we didn't have time to legitimately climb the whole thing), where we prayed and looked out over as much of the city as we could see.
"witchcraft?" calm down.
People keep asking me if i'm ready to leave Monterrey. I really think i am. I have been for a while and i don't know why. I like it here, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't feel right right now. All i can think about is what i want to do for homegroup and for our January Mexico trip. I don't know if that reflects any on my perpetual existential question "what am i supposed to do with my life??" but i don't think so. This feels weird because i'm a 2-month guest. I have no semblance of independence here... i wake up most days and don't know what we will do that day...it's like i lack a direction or vision; though i understand what we're doing here (encouraging the church and helping it grow). Maybe it's the lack of ability to make my own plans. I feel like (as the Bible says) an old man, led around, fed, etc... maybe it's pride, maybe not.
"witchcraft??" my, how you do harp on that.
After we hiked, we went to H.E.B. and got some donuts and ate them at Perla's house... they were lovely.
"witchcraft?" you're going do be disappointed, you know.
After we ate our donuts we went to a Cathartic Therapy session to which Lulu's dad invited us. "A what??" Exactly. I made up that name because i don't know what it was. We were helping with the session. Here's the way it worked: A husband and wife were having trouble with their 18 year old son or something like that. We (around 10 people that they didn't know) all went into a room and basically did roleplaying. They chose people to represent themselves, then chose someone to represent their son (any guesses who that was? yea, me). They positioned their surrogate selves and then positioned me. The guy running it then chose other people to represent things (he didn't say what) and told them to go stand where they felt they belonged (they didn't know what they were). Then he identified them and used their positioning to explin "my" (the son's) desires and priorities. Schooling was standing right in front of me and i couldn't see past it to where Life, Love and Career were standing. He introduced another character, the dead son of the couple and had me say (this is all in Spanish and i barely understood) that i couldn't live for both of us and a bunch of other stuff. Then he had the real parents step in for their surrogates and say all kinds of stuff and the mom was crying and there was some powerful catharsis... but, the whole thing felt very strange to me. It was some form of European therapy, but it felt like a modern shell-tossing or intestine-reading. Javier and i decided it was witchcraft. (tada).
Anyway, Lulu's dad (who doesn't trust people) was really grateful and he likes us and all that an it's really good for Lulu being able to come to the church.
After that we ate pizza from an Oxxo, then headed to the Marco (Museo de ARte COntemporaneo) to meet with Liz (who didn't come) and some friends from the church (who did come). We saw the Hyper-realism art of some guy (giant people, super-lifelike) and got in trouble for sitting on the ledges and generally had a great time.
Tomorrow (Friday) Sheryl and i are teaching again, this time on discipleship. So, i'm going to organize all of my thougts here. I'm going to say some preliminary stuff, then Sheryl will say everything she has, then i'll say the stuff i stole from...NLT (new leaders training, offered by Fellowship).
Important things to remember:
-No one is my disciple. I don't want a bunch of little Sams running around doing things the way i do them. We are disciples of Christ. My goal is to help people younger than me in the faith become more like Christ.
-The ultimate goal is maturity. I do not want someone to be forever reliant upon me to feed them. Just like with a kid, we teach them to feed themselves and, eventually, feed others. Not that we don't need each other. The goal is not independence, but interdependence.
-For the discipler, as for the evangelist, it is crucial to remember our roles. We are not causing spiritual growth. Like in 1st Corinthians 3, we are planting and watering seeds, but God is the only one who can make a person grow.
-Discipleship is a form of leadership. When we disciple someone, they are giving us a measure of authority over our lives. Because of that, even though we rely on the Holy Spirit for our success, it is important that s discipler have a certain amount of spiritual maturity.
-As a discipler, the single most important thing for you to do is maintain your relationship with God. This is the case for any leadership. Your relationship with God has to come first. If that relationship suffers, what does it matter what you accomplish?
Then Sheryl will talk awhile.
Ok, the goal of discipleship is spiritual maturity, how to we get there? There are four main areas of growth in a person's life. Character, Doctrine, Ministry Skills, Devotion to God.
Character, simply put, is what you are made of. What traits do you have? Things like the fruit of the Spirit... how a person lives their life. If we don't grow in character, the result is hypocrisy in our lives.
Doctrine is what you believe. Do you believe what the Bible says about the world, about God, about yourself? The last one is often the hardest; our identity in Christ is the thing the enemy attacks the most. If we do not grow in doctrine, the result is heresy in our beliefs.
Ministry Skills is basically how well you do "Christian" things. Can you share the gospel? Can you lead a discussion? Can you disciple others? If we don't grow in ministry skills, we will be less helpful in advancing God's kingdom.
Devotion to God is the most important. It's our motivation, why do we do what we do? Why do we do anything? For God. For God's glory. If we don't grow in devotion to God, we will do things for selfish reasons.
Ok, how do we help people grow in these four areas? The three main tools we have are Spiritual Disciplines, Relationships and Responsibilities.
Spiritual Disciplines. These are all the things that we are always told we should do. Prayer, reading the Bible, praying, tithing, fasting, scripture memory... Go through them, practice them together, investigate what scripture says about them... it isn't about legalism or duties we are required to do, God gave us these disciplines as gifts to help us grow.
Relationships. The way we treat people says a lot about who we are. As we become like Christ, we grow in love for other people. How do people treat their families? friends in the church? friends outside the church? people who aren't their friends at all? God cares alot about relationships, we should too.
Responsibilities. Giving people jobs to do is a great way to stretch them. Start small with one-time small tasks: "can you bring ____ to the group?" Move up to bigger and more frequent responsibilities: "can you make sure that ________ happens every week?" Don't be afraid to challenge people, but don't scare them by giving them too much too soon.
As a discipler, it is important that you act out of love for whoever you are discipling. Like evangelism, if it's not in love, it's a project; it's self-centered. You need to be willing to give your time for the person; they will need you to be there for them. It is also crucial that you are honest with them. You have struggles, you have problems... be honest about them. If you don't, they'll be less comfortable being honest with you. Also, they'll have an unrealistic view of you as super-holy and this will prevent them from seeing that God can use them as he uses you.
So that's what i want to say... hope i remember it all.
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