If we plan on discipling people into a relationship with Christ, it is probably best that we look first at people nearby. I like to identify people in terms of circles of concern. These may be concentric circles in that you are closer to certain people than others. But they may be more sporadic than concentric in that you are probably quite close to a few people in widely varying areas of your life. These are multiple circles of concern.
Here’s an idea for us to consider. Have you heard how lifesaving stations worked prior to the development of lighthouses? It’s an interesting history.
Certain treacherous stretches of coastline took many lives until someone came up with the concept of a lifesaving station. A lifesaving station consisted of a few volunteers and a boat. These volunteers made it their business to rescue sailors whenever a storm would drive a ship onto the rocks near their homes. They operated somewhat like a volunteer fire department. They didn’t concern themselves with the whole ocean, only those struggling nearby. You might have called their territory a circle of concern.
Though fire towers and, eventually, lighthouses replaced life-saving stations, I believe the concept still retains merit for the Church.
It Really Is Personal
Your personal circle of concern does not include the entire world (though that task still belongs to your church as a unit, which means a small part of it belongs to you). Your circle includes those in your acquaintance that God shows you to be your personal responsibility.
This obviously includes friends and family. But it may also include the clerk at the grocery store whom you hardly know, or the mechanic who repairs your car. Your contact with them may be often or quite irregular.
I had an interesting experience along those lines. The lady who cuts my hair is a recent immigrant from Vietnam. Shortly after I discovered her heritage, someone else gave me a copy of Rick Warren’s Purpose-Driven Life translated into Vietnamese. I had the joy of passing it along and the fun of follow-up conversations. Your task is to inch another person toward Christ before and after they embrace a relationship with Him. This is disciple making pure and simple.
This also involves filtering out those who don’t want what you have to offer. We can’t build a fire with wet wood. This is why Jesus taught us to shake the dust off our feet when someone rejects our life message. However, even wet wood can change over time if it is exposed to a nearby fire. The issues here are prioritized relationships plus time. You focus more intently on those who seem the most ready to receive. But you also continue working with those who take a while to respond.
“You focus more intently on those who seem the most ready to receive.”
Taste the Love
Disciple making is partly about producing information but more often about sharing life with its joys and sorrows. Just be sure that Jesus comes into the picture.
Most people are hurting at their core. The antidote to that hurt is God’s love through another person. Let them taste the love and they will thirst for its source. Even the Beatles sang, “All you need is love.” That’s important, as the Bible says that love produces strong results: “Overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us” (Romans 8:37, NLT). 
We live in a world severely lacking in love. This gives us a distinct advantage when we set out to be fishers of men. People who would never respond to preaching from a pastor, or from you, open up to those that are truly interested in them and their problems.
For this reason, asking questions can be very useful, far more useful than making theological statements. Most everyone loves to talk about their favorite subject—themselves. More often than not, they will spend time discussing their problems with whoever will listen. If you desire disciple making prowess, start by learning the skills of listening well.
“If you desire disciple making prowess, start by learning the skills of listening well.”
Listen Well
Everyone wants to be heard—truly heard. We’re each a bundle of ideas, opinions, and feelings. We often feel that our thoughts and feelings are never heard, or worse, get heard by people who have no interest in them.
Try asking your friend what she thinks about any subject you choose and then listen, really listen, and you’ve helped open her soul to the light of day. Bring God, or some subject that touches on God into the conversation and hear her out (keeping your mouth shut) and you will find a window into her soul.
And it gets better. When a person feels listened to, they usually want to hear what you have to say about what they just said. Here is your open door to talk about your own beliefs and feelings about God or some subject that connects to God.
Look Down the Road
In the Bible, the apostle Paul gave some good advice to his young disciple Timothy. He said, “You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others” (2 Timothy 2:2). Did you notice the words “preach” or “witness” in that passage? They don’t appear, but the word “teach” does show up.
Real teaching is often quite informal. A wise teacher knows how to coach another person to discover truth for himself or herself. That coaching often works best when it involves asking questions and sincerely listening without judgment.
My wife watched another woman move very close to Jesus in a group she leads. It happened as a small cadre of women mostly listened to her vent. This woman joined the group along with a Christian friend. She came embittered toward another church. She declared that she wasn’t sure she could believe in God if Christians were so mean. She refused to say what had happened at the other church, but it must have been pretty bad for her to react so strongly.
“Real teaching is often quite informal.”
For several weeks, she would pretty much repeat the same things about the other congregation, always stopping short of describing what had actually happened. Then one evening, another lady suggested she purchase a daily devotional in the form of an app for her smartphone. The next week this woman came to the group beaming about how close she felt to God and how He had spoken to her through the devotional.
The group earned her trust through patient listening. The woman who suggested the devotional had held her tongue for six or seven weeks before quietly offering the help she did. Listening can be hard work, but it does pay off.
