Director of Discipleship Jeremy Larson reflects on a year of small group discipleship on the FLBC campus:

Discipleship is a word that gets thrown around a lot within the Christian community. Correctly understood it is a broad term that encompasses all of the ways people are being made followers of Christ. When we started D-groups on the FLBC campus this past fall, we had a narrow focus on what we wanted to accomplish. I’ll share four principles.

Fellowship:

Breaking students into groups of 3-4 allows for a small group to establish trust more quickly than a larger group. We want to encourage relationships that can go beyond surface-level issues. The theme for the year was “Refined by Fire.” Everyone goes through refining, and when that happens, we need people to walk alongside us who can encourage us.

Reinforce:

FLBC is a unique place. Normally, a small D-group can serve as an oasis in a land that is dry spiritually.  It is often a place where students’ souls can be nourished instead of standing alone against the stiff winds of the culture. Here, students are already receiving a steady dose of God’s word, but this small group time reinforces what they are being taught. It also provides an opportunity to share what they are applying to their lives.

Enlighten:

When someone thinks of evangelism, our minds can automatically drift to thoughts of speaking to large crowds or street evangelism to people we have never met before. These are two ways of evangelism, but it is enlightening to some that these small groups of 3-4 people can also be a way of evangelism. I asked the students to pray that when they left FLBC, God would send them two people (for two years) who did not know Christ. Spending two years investing in a few people may start slow, but sometimes “slow is fast” when a solid base is being established.

Apprentice: 

We exposed the students to a curriculum that covers many topics helpful for a new believer. Additionally, the students begin to rotate in as leaders so that the fear of leading is removed. This is all done under the direction of a leader who models for them how to facilitate a meeting, how to pray for one another, and how to care for one another. The goals for our leaders were to simply do three things: pray for the students, love them, and share God’s word with them. At the end of the year, several students shared that they had the desire and confidence to start their own D-group once they left FLBC.  

Thanks be to God.