Are You Ready?

In a pop-culture world where it seems that every other movie is about a supercharged hero with some cool ability to fly or shoot lasers out of their eyes, my two biggest heroes are a geophysicist and a lawyer! Those are their Clark Kent roles. As far as I know, neither one of them can walk up walls, turn green, or command lightning. Nevertheless, they have great power. In 1997, David Glenn and Mark Collins flexed their superhero muscles by engaging in my life, discipling me, and imparting kingdom love and wisdom into my soul. In my other-than-Jesus list, these two men are megaheroes to me.

I was working in the contract engineering division of a contract staffing company, calling on potential clients. My group specialized in providing engineers, software developers, and technicians with temporary assignments. David was a petroleum geophysicist at a midsize oil and gas company, and he had the authority to hire contractors. He agreed to meet with me.

Our meeting started. Somewhere along the way, he mentioned church or Jesus. Ah, here was my connection! As we talked, I learned that he went to my church. (It was big enough that we could both go there and never run into each other.) I also learned he led a Bible study at his company. It’s something that he has a long history of doing wherever he is on assignment: Houston, Indonesia, Perth, Australia—you name it.

I showed up for his Bible study the next week. Afterward, David invited me to a Friday morning prayer group at our church. The next Friday, at 6:30 a.m., I found myself in a room with four other men, praying for an hour. When I say we prayed for an hour, I don’t mean we talked for fifty-five minutes and then stuck a prayer on the end and called it a prayer meeting. I mean, we prayed. For an hour!

It was in that room that I began learning how to pray.

One of the men there that day was Mark Collins. Mark and David had been friends for fifteen years by the time I met them. Mark was passionate in his prayers. He would walk around while he prayed. He would get emphatic. He would get quiet. David, while more physically reserved, was equally intense. They both prayed from a place of strong belief. And I was watching, soaking it in, learning.

David and Mark have been discipling me ever since. I’m the man I am today because God our Father blessed me with two men who showed me and taught me how to walk in a relationship with Jesus. I was so affected by their love for me that my wife and I named our son, Collin, in honor of Mark Collins. So my life is a lit-up, living billboard for the power, effectiveness, and riches of personal discipleship.

Jesus invited individuals into a relationship with Him, and through that relationship, He trained them. The apostle Paul replicated Jesus’ pattern, exhorting the Christians in Philippi to “join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.”

Are you ready? Are you a veteran Christian who isn’t quite ready to share your knowledge and spiritual maturity with other believers? Hold on, there’s hope.

My book MAKE: Unlock People will help train you to do what Jesus called you to do—make disciples. Are you ready? If you are grab a copy of MAKE and dive into the most exciting ministry imaginable.