My son Matt has always loved fishing (like his grandfather, not his father!). A few years ago, he arranged (and June paid for) a guided fly-fishing trip for all the Ewell men on the Red River in Arkansas. It was a wonderful time: I’ve never caught so many fish. 

Afterward, I recorded these observations comparing the guide’s approach to teaching fly-fishing and disciple-making:

• The guide’s purpose was not to catch fish. His purpose was to help me catch fish.
• He provided training. Not a lecture but a demonstration. IDEA: instruction, demonstration, experience, assessment. 
• He was not afraid to introduce technical terms: cast, mend, strip, but he also used learning devices, “Coca-Cola” for rhythm, for example.
• He expected me to be able to do what he taught, but he also was not upset by mistakes. He was always encouraging. He never put down.
• With respect to evangelism, we decided that we didn’t “miss” a fish, “the fish didn’t want to play.”
• Also with respect to evangelism, we have to go to where the fish are. They don’t come to us. 
• One more observation on evangelism, we have to speak the fish’s “language.” We have to provide bait that looks like food the fish likes. Not what we like.

There were a lot of things about fly fishing that I didn’t learn:

• How to drive the boat
• How to operate the remote-controlled trawling motor
• Where on the river the fish are, how the water depth affects what we do, etc.
• What kind of flies to use
• How to tie flies

In fact, he said, “There are a hundred lessons in fly-fishing; this is lesson 1.”

More observations:

• We didn’t talk about fly-fishing; we fly-fished. Teaching/learning was in the context of doing.
• The guide fishes by himself some days. He’s a practitioner, not just a guide. In order to be a good guide, he must also stay in practice.
• The disciple-maker helps people be disciples and make disciples themselves. The disciple-maker’s role is to help others succeed and “do ministry.” Not just do all the ministry themselves.
• The disciple-maker trains, but he trains in skills, not just technical knowledge. He teaches how to have time with God, how to make disciples. He doesn’t merely tell people what to do, he shows them how to do it:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28.19, 20, NKJV, emphasis mine)

• The disciple-maker introduces enough Biblical language for the disciple to get started, but he doesn’t burden the disciple with a bunch of technical theology, a lot of which is outside the Bible and not necessary for real life.
• The disciple-maker develops easy-to-grasp tools to help disciples learn quickly (e.g., the wheel, the bridge, The Navigators’ 2:7 Series, etc.)

We could learn a lot from Greg, the fly-fishing guide!

And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. Then He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4.18, 19, NKJV)