Who is Your Timothy?

I recently talked with a local leader who had been praying for opportunities to multiply herself into the lives of some high school girls. She was feeling overwhelmed with trying to figure out how to disciple some middle school girls. She challenged one of her senior high girls to disciple some younger students. The young lady didn’t think she could do it. The Local Leader continued to pray. The student came back to her this fall and said that she would like to lead a group that would include her younger sister and her friends.
Another one of the leaders I coach had asked the soccer coach if they needed help and offered to assist. Her college soccer experience was valued by the coach and she now uses that window of opportunity to meet girls at her school and help Christian young ladies reach their schoolmates for Christ.
There is a high school student at one of the schools that I help lead, who has been discipling middle school boys for more than a year. He has seen at least six boys indicate that they have trusted Christ as their Savior and the group has grown to fifteen plus boys meeting each week.
So my question for you is: who is your Timothy? Where is their Ephesus? And how are you going to make sure they succeed?
Handing over the ministry to someone else so that you can make sure the whole job gets done is one of the hardest lessons for workers. It seems to fight against the deep passions of our heart. Most of us signed up to “do” the work with high school students. We don’t want to let someone else “do it”. It is our passion for the work that got us here in the first place and turning that off to turn it over to someone else seems rather foolish to us.
Let me help you think about this from a different angle! What is the nearest and dearest thing to the heart of God on earth? The Sunday School answer is Jesus. The full answer is that God desires His name to be exalted in the hearts of all men (and women). So more than anything else, He would like to see Jesus resting on the heart of everyone at your school. That is a tall order for us as movement leaders. It is like throwing a non swimmer into the deep end of the pool, not knowing how to swim and without a life preserver.
Here is the life preserver! In 2 Timothy 2:2 the Apostle Paul instructs his disciple, Timothy, how to lead the church in Ephesus.
“The things you have heard from me these entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.”
Did you catch it? Paul is talking to Timothy and encouraging him to find the next generation of multipliers who will in turn find others to do it again! There are 4 generations of faithful followers in that one verse (Paul, Timothy, Faithful and others). The Apostle John gives perspective here that has helped me in this process:
“I have no greater joy than this, knowing my children are walking in the truth.”
Do you see that! John says, better than doing it myself, I have the humbling privilege of equipping my spiritual children to reach out and equip others who will one day do the same. It may be difficult for you to appreciate this right now, but one of the coolest things about being a father of teenage children is seeing them embrace the mission that I have been so passionate about since before they were born. I get so excited to hear my junior daughter tell me about the eighth grade discipleship group she leads. These girls have been so impacted by her that they are all talking about starting their own discipleship groups with middle school girls when they get to high school. I get more excited seeing her in action than I have ever been in my own work! It brings tears to this salty old ministry veteran to know that God is at work multiplying my faith through my children!
What if the group of students that are most excited about the ministry meet with you each week and you teach them some basic material (remember the goal is for them to be able to repeat whatever it is that you use to train them). This flies in the face of how we normally teach – typically we have the students walking away from our meetings saying, wow, that was good or deep I don’t think I could ever do that. We want them to instead say, that was easy, I could do that! We have some very transferable materials on our www.gocampus.org that are great for helping them be a multiplier in your ministry.

Extra Credit!
Employ the “With me” principle! You should never do any ministry activities by yourself. It may take a bit more work and planning ahead, but always bring a student along with you when you do ministry with another student. They can learn by watching and praying. You can have them tell a little about their spiritual journey or they can be responsible to teach a part of a lesson so that they can eventually do the whole thing for themselves.
Time with a student after a ministry activity is often fertile teaching time. Recapping the ministry event and asking them what they learned, or what they would do differently, will provide a great window for you into their thinking. This may eventually lead to them opening up to tell you what is really on their heart. Now that is prime life on life discipleship!
If you want help in developing and empowering multiplying disciples, maybe we can help. Contact The Coaching Center today by phone 1877-gocampus or email us at coach@gocampus.org. Check out these related articles at www.gocampus.org for starters!
Transferability
A Discipled Student Profile
Creating an Environment for Evangelism and Discipleship
Things I Always Do Part 1 | Part 2

Scott Livermore

1-877-GoCampus 1-877-GoCampus
http://www.GoCampus.org