Deeply Personal Relationships

After my last article, my uncle reminded me of something very important: discipleship requires deeply personal relationships. In all of the teacher-disciple relationships I mentioned in that article, the teacher (exemplified in Jesus) built strong connections with their disciples.

I want to point out that my uncle has been a missionary since before I was born, so he is intimately aware of how critical the component of discipleship is. As I started pursuing ministry back in 2016, he was one of the people I reached out to for guidance on the steps I needed to take to transition from a layperson to a leader in the church. He currently serves as a leader in Josiah Venture, mentoring other missionaries in the organization.

I’m glad he reminded me of the need to emphasize relationships as part of discipleship because it is something I’m passionate about. My relationships with my friends in the gaming community are what helped inspire Disciple Gaming Ministry’s mission. But I think I forgot to discuss it in my last article because I was trying to write a “practical” guide to gaming and discipleship. Even as I wrote that thought, I realized how ridiculous it is to separate relationships from the other practical actions I recommended. Relationships are just as practical as anything else we can do in ministry.

The issue is that I often separate “intellectual” activities and “emotional” activities because I’m good at the former and still feel like the latter is a skill I need to develop further. Obviously, I could stand to grow more in both areas of life, but I pointed out last time that each teacher-disciple process will be different because each person is different. This may be an intellectual observation, but the reason each person is different is because each person has their own mental, emotional, and spiritual backgrounds that require more than a checklist of activities to bring them closer to God. God made us unique, which means every intellectual activity and perspective needs to be connected to the emotional aspects of every person involved in the teacher-disciple dynamic.

As I’ve said several times before, the relationships built at the table are a big part of my inspiration, so take the time to build relationships, and in those relationships, make disciples!