Practice #1: Relationship #1 - September 5, 2010

Discipling Relationships
There’s No Place Like Home

Deuteronomy 6:1-9 (NIV)
 1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the LORD your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess, 2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the LORD your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life. 3 Hear, O Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the LORD, the God of your fathers, promised you.

 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. 5 Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

Christians can experience lasting discipleship in their homes by relying upon four key relationships that God created in families.

Heart Relationship
-   We cannot give what we do not possess
-   We are handing off a relationship with God to others
-   Our heart is the executive center of our very being
-   Focus on behavior can miss the heart entirely

Spontaneous Relationships
-   Jesus used teachable moments often
-   Teachable moments occur when hearts are open and curious
-   Spontaneous relationships have to be spotted and accessed
-   Quality relationships spring out of time spent together

Routine Relationships
-   Routines are not bad
-   Routines build life rhythms
-   Routines can serve as memorials
-   Routine investments outweigh crash courses in anything

Community Relationships
-   Discipling the generation that is yet to come
-   Supportive relationships reinforce faith
-   Supportive relationships provide alternate modeling
-   The church is God’s family – Generations


Questions to Ponder

1.  What relationships do I think are essential for me to grow as a follower of Christ?
2.  When I think of disciple making do I think more program, system, class, or way of life? Why?
3.  How could my “home” make one step to become more of a relational environment for making disciples?
4.  Which of the four relationships am I growing in? Which of the four am I struggling with?