The Lost Art

The Lost Art of Disciple-Making, LeRoy Eims

Our teams often have frequent turnover, with new staff coming in every year, and staff transitioning off as time goes by. This dynamic led me to create a standard several years ago; important training issues need to be repeated every four years. This is because after four years you have new staff who have not yet had direct contact with specific content, and many who did have direct contact have likely transitioned off the team. 

At our most basic essence, Campus Outreach's content revolves around being a college ministry that focuses on evangelism and discipleship. This semester our leadership team decided it was time for a specific focus on discipleship training for our team. We are reading and discussing a classic on the subject, The Lost Art of Disciple-Making, by LeRoy Eims, who served with the Navigators ministry. This book is both a theoretical manifest for the need of life-on-life discipleship, but also for the biblical basis and full of practical application. There is a lot of content on which to reflect and discuss as a team. 

I have led our team discussions and provided discussion questions for our interaction. I have enjoyed thinking about the specific applications to our context here in urban Brazil on the college campus with a local church. We have come to wholeheartedly agree with many of the author's points. We have, also, disagreed with several points and considered how to adjust in light of what we believe was Jesus' example. It has been great to see how the maxim of "more is caught than taught” can be enriched and potentialized by consuming quality content and working it out through hearty discussion. 

Our plan is to finish reading and discussing all 12 chapters and 3 appendixes by the end of November, and we are right on schedule. This has been a great reminder for me of how I originally was drawn to the opportunity to work in Brazil with Campus Outreach because of the commitment to life-on-life discipleship, and oh how I have been encouraged to see this same vision continue strong 20 years later.