Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>>Gallaty: Yeah. People ask me, “How long should you meet with people in a discipleship
group?” I would say 12 to 18 months. Some groups, you can learn faster, and you develop
a closer relationship; some it takes a little bit longer. But I would say no more than two
years. And the reason is, is you want them to see that the goal of this is not just to
be filled with information, but you’re trying to experience transformation in their life.
When I left my former church to come to Brainerd in Chattanooga, one of the things that happened
was, I had a group of three guys that I had stayed with for two years. These guys were
so indebted with me, they had known me well, they loved me, and I appreciated them as well.
And when I left, I sat down and told those guys, first, that the Lord was calling me
to Chattanooga. And with tears in their eyes they said, “What are we going to do? We
don’t know how to do this without you. We don’t know how to disciple. We don’t know
how to mentor.” And I said, “Guys, you do.” And they still didn’t believe that
until I left. And I’ll never forget, I was here about two months and they called me on
the phone and they said, “Robby, you’re never going to believe this. All three of
us are now mentoring three or four guys ourselves.” And they got it.
It’s kind of like Jesus saying, ‘Listen, Peter, you can walk on water. You’ve just
got to get out [of] the boat and try to do it.’ And that’s what they did. They got
out of the boat and now they’re mentoring others as well.