A year ago in October, Piero made a commitment to follow Jesus. He has been pursuing that commitment, but his growth has been slow. This has made me ponder again and again what discipleship should look like for new believers. How much do you push someone to grow, and how much do you just let them make their own choices? Do we lose people for lack of intense or aggressive discipleship?
We asked these questions at a discipleship study this month. I was somewhat surprised to hear that the ladies think we need to be more aggressive with visitors, especially with Piero. Esmeralda said we ought to be picking Piero up for every service and bringing him to church for at least a time until he has developed enough growth and strength to keep going on his own.
I confess, my heart quailed within me. Do I have the time and/or energy to keep after Piero that closely? I do think that that sort of more intense accountability would be helpful for Piero’s growth; in fact, we’ve already been seeing a change since we implemented this a couple of weeks ago. I know that daily study would go even further toward strengthening his foundations and giving him blocks to build with. So, why don’t I do it?
Some days, I feel like I’m getting stuff done, being productive and efficient. Other days, I feel like all I do is put out fires. And still other days, I’m sure that I’m the laziest and least productive man I know. Probably all of those things are true of me at moments, but what is true on average is that my hours have been mostly allocated to family, farm, school, store, writing work, and church, in no particular order. How can I add more time for discipleship?
Well, now that the store is gone, that will free up some time, and school closes for vacation at the end of this month. I do think that I’ll have time for discipling Piero more so in December. But the baby is supposed to arrive soon, and we are planning for a surgery for Steph. She has some problems with her stomach wall that the doctors say need to be reconstructed, which will leave her recovering for a few weeks, at least. Having Robyn here will help with that time.
Caleb will still be here in December, and he has said he wants to stay active as long as he can. I plan to take advantage of his time here and will try not to feel too guilty about that.
Piero works at Rafael’s store from 7:00 a.m. until 7:00 p.m., per his contract. Unfortunately, they are not very considerate of closing on time, and we have found them with the store still open at 10:00 at night. Piero is not free to leave unless they say he is, and the threat of losing his job is always looming over his head. We’ve floated the idea with him that he should find work elsewhere, but we don’t want to be responsible for him losing his job, either.
Caleb and I have both offered to come study with Piero early, say at 6:00, but he says he needs his sleep. And I get that because he does work hard and long hours. So, that leaves us with Sunday.
We’ve started a special study for Piero that is going through a book on Christian basics. We do that Sunday morning in place of devotions every Sunday that he is with us. We hope this will be at least one way we can help. I’ve offered to study with him after lunch, but he usually says he doesn’t have time because it is the only day he gets to visit his mom, and they plan to make supper together each week.
This is a bit of a rambling update, but I wonder what you would do. What do you think Piero needs in order to grow from an ignorant new believer to a growing student of the Word? How would you go about it? What would you recommend we/I do? Another question I have is how could we use Alicia and Esmeralda better, considering there are no other men to help?
I know these are fairly personal(?) questions about specific things, but it’s something that concerns me. I want to make the most of the opportunity to help Piero, and I fear I’m going to bungle it with my busyness. Please pray for us as we work through these things, and if you have any feedback, I’ll look forward to listening.
Juan David 