What is it about?

Introduction

This is a discipleship course for the young (and not so young!), geared to the needs of today.

God has blessed the use of this course. It has proved effective both for new Christians and those who have been Christians for a long time who’ve wanted a closer walk with Jesus. Rather than moving directly into the demands of Christian discipleship, it starts with an emphasis of coming to know and to trust the disciple’s Leader, Jesus Christ - to know and walk with Him in a more intimate daily basis than ever before.

The course encourages life-long habits of meeting with Jesus each day. Experience has shown that Christians who daily come to Him and His Word do not fall away. Rather, they go on to grow, mature and serve. The Keystone Scripture the Lord gave for this course was, “Come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” Mark 1:17 (NIV)

Using this scripture the course divides into 4 Phases (5 Units for the youth course - see ‘What we offer’):

Phase 1 “Come follow me”
Learning to hear His voice every day
Learning to be able to trust Him
Learning to follow Jesus
Learning to let Him lead and control your life
Phase 2 “I will make you”
Letting Jesus make us what He wants us to be
Phase 3 “Fishers of men”
Letting Jesus make us a blessing to others – the privilege and joy of ‘mission’
Phase 4 The Call to Perseverance
Understanding the ‘bigger picture’ of our lives as a ‘pilgrimage’ with all the challenges and ‘ups and downs’ of life and learning to face them with Jesus
The course runs for some eight months. The length is deliberate. It is to give time for course members to develop those consistent habits of meeting daily with the Lord and hearing daily from Him and His Word.

The aims of the course

The course starts by developing love and trust for Jesus. This is the prerequisite that makes the disciples ready and eager to accept His will and let Him be Lord of their lives.

It then goes on to help the members distinguish the Lord’s voice - to know and follow His guidance and standards.

Following on from that, an introduction to being a blessing to others by sharing what God has done in their lives, gives a sense of ‘mission’– the call to reach out to those who don’t know Jesus.

The course concludes by understanding the ‘bigger picture’- seeing our lives as a ‘pilgrimage’, and learning to deal with life’s challenges through an ever deepening walk with Him, ready for the life to come.

Style of course

  • It is an interactive dialogue-based course.
  • The studies are not designed as a monologue or a lecture!
  • They are designed to encourage dialogue and participation.
  • They seek to turn as much as possible of the course’s study time into question form - to constantly make group members think out for themselves and to come up with Scriptural answers.
The course starts gently, gradually becoming more challenging, but should be fun and fellowship too!

For the first 60% of the course, members are given short daily passages (five each week) with notes and questions to enable them to find out what God’s Word is saying and to apply this to their day. They are not encouraged to treat these as “homework” or “assignments”, but to consider them as special “Appointments” with Jesus.

As they continue with these “Appointments” through the course, they learn to be able to feed themselves and carry on their own personal devotional Bible study as a lifelong habit - and to enjoy doing it!

This sets the foundation for their continued growth in Christian discipleship.

About the authors

Stuart and Phyllis King worked for many years as missionaries in Africa. Stuart also served as an elder in his local church for 23 years. He is President Emeritus of Mission Aviation Fellowship International.

Stuart, supported by his wife, pioneered and headed up the work of MAF-UK for 40 years. (See “Hope has Wings” published originally by Harper Collins and now by MAF.)

Through many years of experience of teaching, of leading small home groups, and running discipleship and leadership courses, they felt burdened to develop, not just a ‘course’, but to encourage a lifestyle that enables Christians to  experience a close daily walk with the Lord; that they should desire to know His standards; to find out and to follow His purposes; to become disciples who make disciples and who enjoy and glorify their God.