Imagine a novice hiker setting out on a trail that leads to a mountain summit. The trail starts wide, but as the hiker ascends, it becomes steeper, rocky, and hidden under early-season snow. At a fork in the path, he realizes the hike is more than he can handle. What he needs is a seasoned hiker who has climbed up this path before—an experienced hiker to walk alongside the novice, give tips and warnings of loose rocks, and encourage every step.
Jesus taught as He walked with people, asking probing and personal questions, clearing up misunderstandings, and offering an example of what it looks like to follow. Today, helping others grow in faith means following that same pattern: getting personal, making it practical, and setting an example.
Getting Personal
The experienced hiker would need to engage with the novice hiker to keep both of them moving. He could not ignore the novice or view him as an obstacle in his way. As group leaders, we have a list of people assigned to us, and we must see them as the sheep we are called to lead, including novices to the group or those who rarely attend. To shepherd these individuals well, we must get to know them, which requires intentionally engaging with them. We can invite them to tell their stories, listening and making mental notes of clues about their spiritual journey and needs. This requires us to visit with them outside the normal group time. We may need to keep a notebook (digital or paper) to record important tidbits so we can be better shepherds.
We might look at our assigned ministry list and conclude that there are too many names to get to know everyone personally. We can organize our classes so others can carry that load, but ultimately, those in our groups expect us to know them on a personal level. If we can't do that, we may need to consider enlisting an apprentice so we can create two smaller groups to better serve everyone.
Making It Practical
Remember our hikers? The novice hiker required the help of the experienced hiker to teach him what he needed to know and how to put it into practice so they could both reach the summit safely. Application was the point. The experienced hiker could share information about the mountain, intriguing stories about others who had gotten lost on the trail but survived in a cave overnight, or details about the reasons some rocks are more treacherous than others. But what the novice hiker needed were practical actions.
We can approach teaching as an opportunity to dazzle with our knowledge or to help those in our groups put into practice critical spiritual principles. Encouraging some basic spiritual disciplines, such as biblically informed prayer and daily Bible reading, could be a start. We can provide resources and tools to help them with these disciplines, showing them how to use those resources and tools so they can pray and read the Bible for themselves.
Setting an Example
The experienced hiker needed to show the novice where to step and where not to, setting an example. As teachers, our lives may be more important to those in our groups than what we say when we teach. We set the standard by sharing our lives with them. We can share the challenges we have faced and those we are navigating now. We can show them what it looks like to fail, find forgiveness in the gospel, and take the next step back onto the path. Following Jesus is not always easy, and we need to be honest about the challenges. The challenging days may be the most fruitful for showing others what it looks like to follow Jesus regardless.