In March of 2024, we attended the Exponential 2024 conference in Orlando, Florida. Each year, several thousand church planters, pastors, and ministry leaders gather at First Baptist Church in Orlando to learn from and encourage each other in the spread of the gospel, making of disciples, and multiplication of the local church. This year's theme was ONEIGHTY - A Return to Disciple Making.
I took a lot away from the conference as always. However, I feel like we spent three days discussing something simple the church has complicated. When it comes to discipleship in the church, we define it and discuss it. We teach it and preach it. We attempt to program it and systematize it, but we so often fail to model it. I kept thinking about my mother as she so masterfully demonstrated what discipleship looked like in our own home. As a homemaker and wife to a career soldier, my mom made a ministry of loving on other military wives. I cannot tell you how many times I saw other women sitting at our kitchen table. They were there for varying reasons. Some were lonely because their husbands were on military assignment. Others were seeking marriage advice because military life is rough on a family. Many just needed the encouragement and wisdom of a motherly figure as they were separated from their own mothers.
I can't tell you how many lives were changed in our home over a cup of coffee or a dessert. My mom would throw some toys out on the floor or turn the TV on to keep the young kids occupied and give the lady across the table her undivided attention for hours. Prayers were prayed. Advice was given. Tears were cried. And all the while, each woman was loved like Jesus and moved one step closer to Jesus in their own spiritual journey. My mother taught a master class in discipleship from our dining room table. Life on life, face to face, one-to-one relationship. At a table. Over coffee. THAT is discipleship.
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