I ended yesterday with my commentary on 2 Timothy 2.2: “Pass on what you heard from me…to reliable leaders who are competent to teach others.” (MSG)

2 Timothy 2.2: it’s so easy, anyone can do it, even laypeople! It’s so important everyone must do it, even pastors!

Here are three simple “first steps” applicable to pastors or lay people:

(1) Teach people to have daily time with God so that they are connecting with and hearing directly from God.

(2) Pray for God to give you one person to invest in. If you can’t give one person, one hour, once/week, you need to rethink what else you’re doing. This is a critical step for a pastor since the pastor needs to model for the laypeople what to do. My friend and former pastor Dr. Jim Singleton, now a professor at Gordon-Conwell Seminary in Boston, writes:

You can have a realistic expectation that a pastor could do a micro-expression of discipleship every year. I did that for 29 years. Today, we have a discipleship initiative at the seminary, and I am discipling four pastors-to-be now – plus two men in the church. 

Jim has developed his own content, but there are a lot of wonderful tools out there, as I’ve written about before. This page lists a lot of them.

(3) Begin to implement the Imagine Church message of helping everyone make a contribution where they are. Teaching everyone that they are on mission even if they’re not fully-developed “disciple-makers.” This goes to the 6Ms, borrowed from Mark Greene’s book Fruitfulness on the Frontline, which I blogged about beginning February 4, 2019.)

Those steps are doable by anyone starting today.

He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me. (Colossians 1.28, 29, NIV)