Extend a call to discipleship
Commit to investing whatever the cost (it will involve long conversations, sacrifice to make time when life is busy, and investment in food and books you give)
Walk with him through Mastership – is Christ Lord or is his pursuit amusement, women, materialism? Unless the issue of lordship is settled, he can never be discipled.
If he won’t choose to fight the spiritual battle he was created for – submitting to Christs lordship rather than his own rebellion, process ends. I’m not talking about struggle with surrender, that can take time. I’m saying choosing rejection of HIS lordship disqualifies.
If he chooses to fight, he’ll face tests. In career, in relationships, in Christian commitment. You’ll be there as a teacher at first, later as just one advisor and friend as he matures.
Call upon him and remind him to commit to a lifestyle of discipleship: being a continual learner and taking initiative lifelong to seek out mentors.
Show him the importance and necessity of having a band of brothers not a gang of manchildren. Friends make or break you.
Do things! Accomplish stuff, challenge each other, take risks together, compete and, yes, laugh….even at each other.
Disagree, even argue – best brotherhoods likely have involved some “fighting/struggle” that made the friendship stronger.
Do these and you’ll often have men, like combat veterans, ready to die for each other
Your involvement in a brother’s discipleship may be for a season….or it may be for a lifetime.
These principles basically were given to me in Royal Rangers as a teen. Used the same ones since with over 30 guys. By God’s grace will repeat 400 times should the Lord tarry and not call me home.
Did not Jesus do this essentially with the 12 He especially poured into? The disciples were not effective because of their gifts but because of the depth of their relationship with Christ…not because of their own strength
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