Discipleship // covenant relationships

Today is Wednesday, though hopefully you already knew that, unless you are reading this on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday or any of those other ones that end in ‘day.’ For me that means discipleship day. A good portion of my day in cut out and devoted to meeting with two very specific people. And I believe that when one relationship changes, I’ll probably replace those hours spent with one individual with another individual.

The first relationship time I have is with someone that I sit and listen to and then pour my life into. We are not all that different as far as where we are on the journey, and so this is a unique relationship where both of us make conscious efforts to help each other grow. We are both allowed to say what we want without condemnation or fear.

The second relationship time I have is with someone that I set and listen to and am poured into. This guy has a very intentional structure of issues that he walks through with me and then it’s open forum time. I purposefully asked this man to open up his life to mine and gave him permission to speak freely whatever he felt he needed to about my leadership and my journey.

That’s my pattern of discipleship for Wednesdays. Other days of the week look different. For instance, I am constantly watching and listening to several other leaders in my life for how they live and grow to help shape me, like Lee for instance. We meet for an hour or so here or there, I follow him on twitter and his blog, and the stuff he says I take and see if its going to work for me. Some might say, well that’s your job, your life is in the church business. To you I would say that when I was not in the ‘church world,’ I did this. In fact for the last two years of my life before coming to Auburn, I made the same intentional efforts. It looked a little different in those two years as far as the structure went, but I made certain to take steps.

This idea of discipeship is consuming right now. Which is a good thing, because we have a tendency to be consumers in our culture. All this will lead into another post coming later in the day. But for now, I want to know what steps you take for discipleship. What is it that you grab hold of that helps you grow?