It¹s my first intentional meeting with my disciple. What do we do?
In answering this question, I have to back track because you know how serious I am about planning and being intentional. However, don¹t make the mistake of developing a plan for your disciple before getting to know your disciple.
During your first meeting I strongly suggest that you spend a short time rearticulating your expectations (see Discipleship Primer). Make sure you own the mandate to make disciples and make sure your disciple knows that your expectation is that they will own Christ’s mandate and eventually when the time is appropriate, they will be making disciples as well.
Then spend most of your time together getting to know each other. Become a student of your disciple. Begin to think through questions you can ask which would free them to express their heart to you. Let your disciple do most of the talking during you first meeting. Let them have the floor and seek to understand. Begin communicating love through listening well.
Also, begin to develop the norm that you are training them for a life of kingdom service. You might think how does one do that by simply hanging out? Well, you tell them. Let me explain, the guy who is most influential in my growth as a young believer did a great job always letting me know that he was training and preparing me even when I didn¹t know he was. So in this scenario, at the conclusion of our meeting, he would say something like, ³Notice, during our time, we briefly discussed our expectations and mostly just connected. Eventually, when you are discipling someone, they should never feel like a project. They should know you love them and that they truly matter to you”. Just that quickly the person will have seen it not only modeled to them but the concept modeled to them was also explained clearly. I propose they will not forget what they have learned and will do the same when they train others.
Have a great first meeting.
Love Y’all
