As Christians, we understand the importance of balance. Balance in our lives, our family, our prayer time, and even our health. Do you ever stop to think about balance in your discipleship plan?
Being a group leader, there is nothing more daunting than picking out the next study for your group. If you start by searching for small group Bible studies in your search engine, you are immediately given 57,300,000 results. It’s going to take some time to sifter through those results to find the perfect Bible study for your group.
Our goal as the Lifeway Groups Ministry is to help the Church in Her mission of making disciples. This applies to small group ministry. Having a balanced discipleship plan should be easy, but it can oftentimes be difficult to remember and keep up with.
In an effort to make it easy for small groups and their leaders, we have the Balanced Discipleship Pathway. This pathway, or plan, is built on three characteristics of Bible study: centered on the Gospel, expanding in scope, and displayed in real life.
Lifeway research has done studies to find out what would be included in a balanced discipleship plan, and these steps on the pathway are lifestyle patterns that ought to be growing in ever-increasing measure the longer a person walks the pathway of discipleship.
The eight signposts on this pathway are:
- Obey God & Deny Self
- Engage with Scripture
- Share Christ
- Exercise Faith
- Seek God
- Build Relationships
- Live Unashamed
- Serve God & Others
By choosing a study from each of the following categories (signposts) over the course of a year, you will ensure your group is taking a balanced approach to attaining spiritual maturity.
