THE DISCIPLESHIP CYCLE

 Discipleship is the key to fulfilling the Lord's mandate of “preaching the gospel to every creature.” The Bible says in John 15:8 “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. What does it mean to bear fruit? It means to produce the same kind. It means to replicate the life of God into other men. It means to produce (or raise) men and women who would carry the same fire, the same power, and the same anointing as we've received from Christ. The means of getting this done is what is called discipleship.

Discipleship is a cycle and it involves three stages. Let us look at these stages as found in the ministry of Jesus Christ:

#1. BRINGING IN

The first stage in the discipleship cycle is the bringing in. We see from scripture that the first thing Jesus began to do at the start of His ministry was to call people to Himself. He started with Simeon called Peter and Andrew his brother, then he met with James and John, the sons of Zebedee and so on (Matthew 4:18-22). If you want to fulfil the Lord's mandate, you must, first, be committed to soul winning.

#2. GROWING UP

The next stage in the discipleship cycle is to grow up the people you brought in to the fold. When you have won people to Christ, you don't leave them to care for themselves. You must commit yourself to teaching them the sound doctrines and wisdom of God. You must engage them in Bible discussions and pray with them regularly because if you don't, Satan will find a way of luring them back into the world and if that happens, your soul winning efforts will be fruitless. We see the after Jesus Christ called His disciples in Matthew chapter 4, the next thing He began to do in chapter 5 was to teach them; and on several occasions we see Him praying with the disciples. An example of such time was at the mount of transfiguration. In Acts 20:28, Apostle Paul admonished us to feed the flocks so that Satan will not perverse them through erroneous teachings.

#3. SENDING OUT

Finally, after you might have won those souls to Christ and have taught them sound doctrines, it is important that you send them out so that they can win other souls to Christ too. By this, they'll be beginning another discipleship cycle. Please note that discipleship is not complete without this last stage. It is the way to bear much fruits. 

When you think of discipleship cycle, think of network marketing.

I hope you learnt something here. Kindly drop your questions, thoughts or suggestions in the comment section.

You're blessed!