I was thinking the other day about how much of the work of a shepherd is done by the sheep themselves. My son and his wife have a small farm where they are raising sheep. It is interesting to watch how the ewes take care of their lambs. I think there is a similarity in the Body of Christ. As the Day of the Lord approaches, circumstances will change in the world which will make it more difficult for believers to meet publicly. An essential part of the transition to those days has been the restoration of small group ministries in our churches. These have taken various forms from cell groups to house churches. An extension of this form of body ministry is the use of mentors to disciple believers.
In the church we pastored the longest, we established a cell group structure which had the ability to develop leaders and disciple new believers. Each cell group had a leader and a leader-in-training, who met with my wife and I on Sunday evenings. All the members of the congregation were encouraged to belong to a cell group which met during the week in lieu of a mid-week service. Discipling occurred in the cell groups. New believers were assigned a “sponsor” who met with them regularly, as they worked through the New Believer’s Course. We designed this course as a self-learning model, where the sponsor could answer any questions the learner would have. The new convert was encouraged to join the cell group which the sponsor attended.
We could have easily taught the course in a class, but that did not fit our discipling model. We did not want the church members to depend on the leaders to do all the ministry. The role of ministers is to equip the believers so they can do the ministry. We wanted new believers to become disciples and eventually cell group leaders or five-fold ministers. The church members were taught to minister to one another in the cell groups.
The goal of the New Believers course is to establish a good spiritual foundation. As Paul told the Corinthians, “no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (1Co. 3:11). The way to do that, he had previously told them, was to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He wanted to see them identified with the death of Christ and he wanted to see the manifested presence of Christ among them. It was important that the faith of these new believers rested in God’s power, not in man’s wisdom (1Co. 2:1-5). Likewise, the role of the mentor is to establish the new believers in the Lord. This course will introduce them to spiritual concepts, but it is not necessary in the beginning to expound largely on them. Rather, it is important to help them make the right choices and to put their trust in the Lord. Remember, the Lord started His ministry by preaching the gospel and saying: “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” (Mk. 1:15). Mentors must pray with them and teach them by example.
In the early Church, the believers were added to the Lord (Acts 5:14), and He added them to the Church (Acts 2:47). The spiritual home that the new believers are to become established in is very important. It should be one where the Lord’s presence is manifested, and His will is done. It need not be a large church. When we started to lay a vision for cell groups, the Lord instructed us to first develop the pattern for the meetings. This was to be “Jesus in the midst of us”. We pursued revival, not cell groups. As the group grew larger, and we were compelled to divide into smaller groups, the Lord instructed us to divide according to leaders, not numbers. The emphasis in the beginning was to build the model, and to train leaders who would do the same.
Although our little church had lot of good features, it was not all that it needed to be. There was still a great need for spiritual maturity and for the manifestations of the Spirit of God. The Early Church grew quickly and powerfully because of prayer and fellowship, and because of the teaching of the apostles with the manifestation of signs and wonders (Acts 2:41-43). The Church today must be restored to the New Testament model. It must be an Apostolic Church. I will say more about that in a future article.
At the end of this article, I will include a link to the New Believers Course we developed. You are permitted to make copies for personal use. To use this material as a mentor, I suggest you become familiar with it. Read also the articles on the Eight Steps to Spiritual Maturity.
Here is a link to the New Believers Course on Google Drive.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1x8phpcOW8K1HT7GC4ss9sSjl7IB1yct2?usp=sharing
Highway in the Wilderness 