ILLUSTRATION BY rose wong
Though many women understand the exhortations of Titus 2:3-5 about older women teaching the younger women, many believers feel intimidated about putting these ideas into practice. Young women fear they will be a bother to an older woman. Older women doubt that they have any wisdom to impart and worry they will disappoint their mentees.
How exactly do women DO discipleship?
As a former women’s ministry director and The Gospel Coalition’s (TGC) director of women’s content, Melissa Kruger sees the hesitation most Christian women feel about discipleship. Her new book, “Growing Together: Taking Mentoring Beyond Small Talk and Prayer Requests,” is a practical guide to help women engage together in the Christian faith’s spiritual disciplines.
Discipleship 101
A 2014 Pew Research Center study found that 30% of PCA members participated in “prayer, Scripture study or religious education groups” on a weekly basis. An additional 14% participate once or twice each month.
A 2019 LifeWay Research survey found that only 48% of churchgoers said they “intentionally spend time with other believers to help them grow in their faith.” With other LifeWay surveys showing a drop in time reading Scripture, sharing faith, and praying, opportunities for discipleship abound in the church.
But in Kruger’s experience, women in mentoring relationships usually spend the majority of their time together engaging in small talk. When their time together is nearly finished, they quickly swap prayer requests without ever getting into the practical matters of growing in faith and applying biblical wisdom to everyday life. But it’s not that women don’t want deep relationships, Kruger said. Many simply do not know how to get there.
Excellent resources already exist to make the case for discipleship among women. Kruger points in particular to work by Susan Hunt, the former PCA women’s ministries director. But “Growing Together” is designed as a resource to get discipleship pairs started on their journey.
“These are Discipleship 101 topics that everyone can deal with. No matter what life stage you’re in, two women can get together and talk about these things,” Kruger said.
Kruger wrote her book as a handbook that women can work through together. The nine chapters — addressing keys to spiritual growth such as Scripture study, church attendance, evangelism, prayer, family relationships, temptation, contentment, and service — have reading and activities to complete in advance of meeting together, discussion questions for your time together, and suggestions for ways to study and work until your next meeting. The format lends itself to nine meetings, and the mentoring could finish with the completion of the book. Kruger also includes recommended reading for learning more on each topic.
If I’m going to meet with a younger woman, I want to invest in her, not just be friends. Friendship is a byproduct of discipleship and will grow when it’s focused on the other.
The book’s goal is to take away the anxiety and get women focused on growing together in their faith. After all, discipleship isn’t about what we can offer to others, but pointing women toward God and Scripture.
“When we talk to someone about the Word, then we have something to offer,” she said.
While corporate worship, Sunday school, and small groups are all forms of discipleship, the intimate nature of one-on-one discipleship is an ideal setting for drilling into the gospel’s application to everyday life. There’s specificity in these settings that cannot be achieved when more people are added to the mix.
Mentors in the Pew and on the Page
As a student at a large North Carolina public high school, Kruger first tasted discipleship from a math teacher who also served as the school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes advisor. Kruger said the witness of this teacher changed the entire feel of the school and taught Kruger that there is no area of life where the Christian faith is off limits.
Now she points to books such as Donald Whitney’s “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life” as great resources for helping others grow in the faith.
“So often we talk about doing and producing and miss the spiritual disciplines. We want to live lives of endurance but don’t want the daily path to get there. It’s pretty simple, but hard to do on a daily basis. Time in the Word, time in prayer, walking in obedience to his commands,” Kruger said. “Making disciples and doing what God has commanded — these small steps are a big step toward a healthy walk with God.”
But what about for women who do not have an obvious mentor in their lives? Kruger admits she has had seasons of life when she didn’t have opportunities for one-on-one discipleship, especially early in her marriage when she and husband Mike, now Reformed Theological Seminary Charlotte president, moved each year for five years.
But even during these seasons of transition Kruger found role models in the lives of saints from previous eras. An avid reader of narrative nonfiction, Kruger leaned on stories of Christian women such as Amy Carmichael and Corrie ten Boom to strengthen her faith during times when she could not put down deep roots.
TGC recently published “12 Faithful Women: Portraits of Steadfast Endurance.” The e-book was offered to women who purchased tickets for TGC’s women’s conference, which was postponed until 2021 because of COVID-19. Kruger edited the essay collection that includes profiles of living saints such as Joni Eareckson Tada, well-known women such as Corrie ten Boom, and stories of faithfulness from around the world, such as that of Esther Ahn Kim, a Korean missionary to Japan in the first half of the 20th century.
Kruger calls these profiles examples of “faith with flesh on it.”
Now Kruger can serve that role for other women. Recently TGC launched “Let’s Talk,” a podcast featuring Kruger and co-hosts Jasmine Holmes and Jackie Hill Perry. Each week the women talk about aspects of their own discipleship and applying biblical wisdom to everyday life.
In the era of quarantine and social distancing, the lack of being together makes everyone long all the more for deep, meaningful relationships. And when the time comes to reunite, intentional discipleship can help believers not to take for granted growing in their faith.
“When we talk about the things of God, we know it’s a beneficial conversation. If I’m going to meet with a younger woman, I want to invest in her, not just be friends,” Kruger said. “Friendship is a byproduct of discipleship and will grow more when it’s focused on the other. Why not make it about the best subject we can talk about?”