For many postgraduates, the years after leaving college are disorienting. Between moving cities, entering the workforce, or getting married and starting a family — suddenly, life gets busy. With so much change, it can be hard to form deep relationships, and it is easy to slip into loneliness, anxiety, or burnout. Between juggling new responsibilities and navigating the shifting waters of adulthood, oftentimes the priority of making disciples takes a back seat.

That’s why, in the bustling city of Nashville, Navigators are finding new ways to connect those in their 20s to mentorship and community, as well as re-engaging them to be disciplemakers right where they are. Hosting weekly meal nights and pairing young adults with spiritual mentors across the city, the Navigators 20s ministry provides a space for like-minded believers to connect, grow, and be equipped to share the gospel in everyday life.

“We are hoping that they can connect with friends in this community who aren’t just focused on survival, but who see their role in the larger story that God is writing,” Dave Bachman, the Nashville Navigators city director, says.

“We’re not lowering the bar — we are challenging them to all that God has called them to. We are asking them to not just think about themselves and how they are doing, but to press on, considering how to invest in others.”

This past year, Nashville Navigators have discovered a new and innovative way to invite postgraduates to pour into those younger than them: the Disciplemaking Volunteer (DMV) group at Belmont University — a team of postgraduates who commit to mentoring college students one-on-one.

Creating Discipleship Opportunities at Belmont University

Isaac Haight first joined The Navigators when he was invited to a Navigators 20s night after moving back to Nashville post college. A young professional working in a corporate environment, Isaac was involved with the 20s ministry for over three years before feeling called to leave his job to serve in a ministry role.

“When I was in the workplace, I was wrestling with a conviction that I felt like I was wasting my time,” Isaac remembers. “I felt like the Lord had been calling me into vocational ministry and that I wasn’t doing what I was made to do. So I ended up quitting my job after I came home from a mission trip — the rest is history.”

Having connections with The Navigators, Isaac ended up on staff and re-pioneering a campus ministry at Belmont University in Nashville — a collegiate ministry that took a hard hit during the pandemic. Over the past couple of years, Isaac and his wife, Caitlin, have been building up the ministry, and Isaac now serves as the campus director.

As the ministry at Belmont started to grow, Isaac realized that he needed some help — and an idea struck him. What if he could mobilize the young adults in The Navigators 20s ministry to step up, volunteer, and help provide one-on-one discipleship for local college students?

“Because I used to be a participant in Navigators 20s before I came on staff, I knew what the ministry was about, and it felt like a natural connection,” Isaac says. “Navigators 20s isn’t a youth group for young professionals — it’s a space for emboldening, encouraging, and giving them opportunities to actually serve and disciple others. So I knew that offering them a chance to disciple college students would be a ‘hand in glove’ type of situation.”

Presenting his idea and need for help at a Navigators 20s meeting, Isaac asked if anyone would be willing to volunteer to disciple students. Suddenly, he had a team of seven volunteers — all full-time workers who were ready and excited to give their time to mentor those younger than them. This was the beginning of the Disciplemaking Volunteer (DMV) group at Belmont University.

The Disciplemaking Volunteers’ Impact

This past year, Isaac paired up his DMV team with individual students and watched as the Lord grew their relationships with each other and their faith. Each DMV volunteer is paired and meets with at least one student, and then the group comes together once a month to gather and share how their disciplemaking journey is going.

For one volunteer, Jaden, the DMV has been an opportunity to not just disciple one student, but two. A young professional with an 8-5 corporate job, Jaden has been intentionally pursuing Jack and Zach in the midst of a busy work schedule, meeting with each guy every other week.

Over the course of a year, Jaden has walked both students through the book of Titus, and he has watched as their lives have been transformed by the gospel. Jack and Zach have each caught a vision for discipleship, becoming more involved with the campus ministry and developing a heart for passing on their faith to others. Zach has even taken the additional step to join The Navigators leadership team at Belmont, accepting the challenge to disciple someone else.

Jaden’s story is just one example of how the Lord has worked through the DMV group at Belmont, and it is a glimpse into the bigger picture of how young professionals can have disciplemaking impact in spaces where there is a need — on college campuses and workplaces alike.

As the DMV team moves into their second year, Isaac and Justin McCoy (the director of Navigators 20s in Nashville) is looking to recruit 20 more young professional volunteers to disciple college students, expanding the impact at Belmont.

“We might only ever have 10 volunteers — but if we have 10 every year, we’re teaching disciples to make disciples,” Isaac says. “That’s how God’s Kingdom grows exponentially. And just think — if other cities did this … what would it look like to have a ministry of 200 young professionals connected with 200 college students?”

Navigators 20s: Merging Community and Calling

The Navigators 20s ministry in Nashville shows what it looks like to merge community and calling, giving young professionals a space to develop alongside others and learn what it means to pursue Christ in real-world environments.

“I love the idea of starting these little fires that spread in different directions, catalyzing everyday people to minister where they live, work, play, worship, and study,” Dave says. “People tend to come to the 20s ministry with a felt need for community and connection, and we provide that, but we are also calling them to a higher purpose and mission.”

Join us in praying for the DMV ministry in Nashville as 20-somethings are discipling college students, as well as the Navigators 20s ministry across the country as they encourage, inspire, and equip young professionals to spread the gospel right where they are.

Discipleship Tip:

Isaac was able to rally volunteers to help disciple college students not only because college students needed mentors, but because 20-somethings needed a place to serve. Is there anyone around you that would be willing and interested to be more involved in ministry or discipleship, but are seeking an opportunity? Think about how you can bring others into your mission field, inviting and equipping them to make a difference.

In the early 1990s, missionaries from Mission: Moving Mountains (M:MM), now called Navigators Discipling for Development (D4D), started meeting with leaders in Muyembe’s community to teach them how to practice whole-life discipleship, address poverty alleviation, and help families experience God’s restoration in all areas of life.

At the time, faith was very minimal in the village’s day-to-day life. Though they knew they could go to church for prayer, many didn’t know anything about salvation. However, when D4D came to train the local church, the spiritual climate began to shift. Through short dramas, reading Scripture verses, and asking people questions from the Bible, the community started to accept Jesus into their lives.

“Before D4D, the only Christian was the leader in the church,” Aidah, an older woman in Muyembe’s community, remembers. “We thank the Lord that, through this ministry, we now have more than 100 people in the community who are saved.”

As more and more people came to Christ, the need for more churches grew. “When we got saved, we had to travel five miles to go to a church, so we decided to start a new church,” Nathan, a member of the community, says. “Now about 11 churches have been built because of the efforts of D4D.”

On the first Friday of every month, these churches all meet for communal prayer, with as many as 300 people attending.

Building a Thriving Community, Right Where They Are

The spiritual revival in Muyembe has not only shaped individuals’ hearts for the Lord, but it has also transformed their hearts for their families. Back when D4D first came to Muyembe, there was a lot of confusion — fighting between husbands and wives and stealing between members in the community. Now, Aidah says there is no fighting in families, and the amount of theft has reduced significantly.

“We worship God in a holistic way,” she says. “We thank D4D for this holistic gospel that has brought us to this level. We now go to other communities and spread the news so that Jesus will be accepted there, as well.”

Beyond family impact, D4D has also set up groups in the community addressing topics such as financial saving, agriculture, youth, health, and more.

For example, when D4D saw that mothers in the community were having problems giving birth, they started to refer mothers to a health center for prenatal care, teaching them how to eat balanced diets while pregnant and how to deliver a baby if a mother couldn’t get to the hospital in time.

“Death was reduced,” Aidah says. “After giving birth, the women were taught to take the babies in for immunization, and they learned how to be ready to be pregnant and where to go for their health. Now, some of these women are working in the health centers.”

Similarly, when it came to agriculture, the D4D missionaries talked about how the Bible and agriculture can go hand in hand. Where they used to grow only maize, now farmers in Muyembe grow coffee, tomatoes, and bananas. These crops help their community to earn money and provide for their families. Though the surrounding area is bare for miles, this small community now houses a tree nursery, which attracts customers from across Africa who are looking to buy seeds.

Recently, Navigator Scott Purser visited Muyembe on his trip to Kenya and Uganda. As he was sitting in a circle with community leaders, they felt a strong wind approach from the horizon. They began to wonder if they should move into a local church or home for coverage, but they noticed how the trees planted around the community dispersed the wind and provided coverage for their meeting.

“See all these trees?” one of the leaders asked. “D4D taught us these things, and they work! That wind came, and we saw how these trees withstood and protected us. What a wonderful God!”

Pray for D4D Around the World!

The village of Muyembe is just one of the many communities that have been radically impacted by D4D’s teaching of the gospel and holistic health and development. From small-scale farmers using “Farming God’s Way” methods to improve their small crops to families preserving precious rainwater to use in creative ways throughout the year, the Lord is using D4D to help villages build sustainable and thriving communities, centered around the gospel.

Join us in praying over these communities around the world, as the light of the Lord spreads from village to village and heart to heart.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor” Luke 4:18 (NIV).

Discipleship Tip:

Through the community in Muyembe, the gospel has spread from church to church, village to village. Sometimes, all it takes to have great impact is being willing to pass on the Good News to those around you. Who is around you that you can share Christ with? What are areas in your community where you could spread the gospel?

Now, 15 years later, that ministry has grown, not only at the collegiate level, but across the community. From workplaces to neighborhoods to campuses, everyday disciplemakers are rising up across Jacksonville, spreading the gospel with a holistic vision for the entire city.

“What we long to see are people that will make disciples for the rest of their lives,” John says, who is now the Navigators Collegiate Southeast Division Director. “Our calling is a long-term vision, even if that looks a little different through the seasons of life.”

Three such disciplemakers — Brian, Ahmani, and Steven — are creating impact in the unique circles that God has placed them in, making the most of their gifts and callings right where they are in Jacksonville. Their stories are just a small glimpse into the bigger picture of how God is moving in Jacksonville — one faithful disciple at a time.

Answered Prayers on Campus

When John first arrived at UNF, there was no Navigator presence. He remembers praying for eight men to show up in Bible study that first year. Now, the ministry at UNF is not only growing, but thriving, with a couple hundred students involved.

“Each of those people represents someone who could help someone else, who then could help someone else,” John says. “So I’m thrilled with what God’s doing at UNF right now.”

Today, the ministry at UNF is directed by Navigator Brian Incontrera. Brian first met The Navigators when he was a freshman in college at the University of South Florida when he passed by one of their table booths and was invited to a Bible study. Though he was a Christian, he didn’t really know how to grow in his own faith until he started getting discipled by a Navigator named Luke.

As a college student, Brian watched as discipleship transformed his walk with the Lord. Now as a Navigator, he passes on what he learned to students at UNF, and he’s watching as the spirit of disciplemaking is taking flight on campus.

“On campus, our students are really focusing on their relationship with the Lord and learning how to make their faith a priority,” Brian says. “Then that will affect them in their walk with the Lord when they graduate and go off in the world. When they have families, jobs, whatever ministry they are doing — they will know how to make Jesus a priority, as well as continue to make disciples wherever they go.”

From the beginning, the collegiate ministry at UNF has been a result of prayer and dedication to the Lord’s work on campus, for John and Brian alike.

“John came and prayed and started something here,” Brian says. “Now, coming all this way, I’m the director. And it’s been really cool to see God continue to answer those prayers.”

Sharing Hope in the Workplace

For Ahmani Joseph, being a therapist and social worker is a calling the Lord put on her heart from a young age.

Growing up, she watched her dad as he did outreach in the city. Working at an urban clothing store in downtown Jacksonville, he started hosting Bible studies in that space for youth in the community.

“They would tell him things that were going on in their lives, and he was able to provide hope for them,” Ahmani remembers. “So I was younger and seeing this, and was like, man, this is something that I want to do. It’s interesting how God places things on your heart when He has a purpose for you.”

Ahmani started getting involved with The Navigators when she was a student at the University of Central Florida. However, her journey as a disciplemaker really kicked off when she decided to join Navigators staff for Edge Corps at Florida A&M University. Now as a therapist for kids in foster care in Jacksonville, she takes what she learned and shares the hope of Christ in the midst of hard situations.

“I see some of the most broken situations and places, and it can be pretty overwhelming,” she says. “But my time involved with The Navigators — that experience really taught me how to disciple people, how to walk alongside people, and ways to pass this along to the next generation.”

Through her job, Ahmani’s role is to show compassion, care, and intentionally pray for those God has placed in her path.

“These kids don’t have people who are praying over them by name, so I do,” she says. “I pray for them that they would feel God pursuing them.”

Faithfulness in the Neighborhood

Going into college at UNF, Steven Weatherford didn’t know how to interact with other Christians, share the gospel, or pray. He felt lonely, and he prayed that God would send him someone to lead and teach him about faith. Through The Navigators, God answered his prayer.

“I was taught by The Navigators and being discipled in the collegiate ministry,” Steven remembers. “I was shown deep care, and my life has been transformed through that. Now I make disciples at my church, my work, and my neighborhood because of what I was taught.”

A high school math teacher, Steven intentionally lives out his faith by meeting with coworkers for Bible study and being available to answer students’ questions about life and God. Beyond the school building, Steven has a passion for showing God’s love to his neighbors through acts of kindness or hospitality, opening the door to deeper discussions about faith. From hosting monthly barbecues in his front yard to inviting neighbors into Bible study at his church, he is investing in relationships.

“In my neighborhood, it seems like everybody’s from a different country,” he says. “It’s amazing. After I graduated college, the Lord had broken my heart for the nations, and I prayed the Lord would bring me to a neighborhood where there were lots of people from different neighborhoods. After we started talking to our neighbors, I realized that the Lord had answered that prayer to have intentional relationships with people from different backgrounds.”

Holistic City Discipleship

Over the past 15 years, God has nurtured the seeds of faithful prayer and intentional discipleship in Jacksonville through dedicated disciplemakers across the city, each of whom are leaning into the spaces God has placed them to build relationships and live lives that point to Christ.

“Whether you are Brian or Ahmani or Steven or me and Melissa, the idea is that all of us can make disciples,” John says. “All of us can be good neighbors, love others, and help people know Christ and make Him known.”

Join us in praying over the city of Jacksonville, that believers continue to rise up and work together to make disciples, exactly where they are.

Growing up in North Africa, Omar and Amira were raised in the same church and were both discipled by The Navigators, giving their lives to Christ when they were 14. Observing Navigators around them — including Omar’s uncle — they learned from a young age how to practice a God-centered life and how to live out everyday ministry.

Omar and Amira got married in 2005, and they continued to share the gospel by volunteering and training with The Navigators in nearby countries. Developing a heart for the nations, they went on short-term mission trips, and felt the Lord calling them to people from a particular Middle Eastern country.

“Our long-term plan was to live and do ministry there, but it didn’t work out because of the war taking place there,” Omar says. “But the Lord opened an opportunity for us to immigrate to the U.S. in 2011, and we started to do independent ministry among refugees from that country.”

In 2015, Omar and Amira got connected with The Navigator city leader in Raleigh, North Carolina, where they had moved. At the time, around 10,000 refugees from that country had entered the city, and The Navigators were praying for someone to lead a refugee ministry.

“I shared with him my heart for them,” Omar says. “I was surprised how the Lord had led us to be here, specifically for the people to come. I joined The Navigators Nations Within ministry in 2016, and we’ve been working with refugees from that country since then.”

The Power of Relationships and Prayer

Omar and Amira’s ministry in Raleigh is centered around two key ingredients: relationships and prayer.

At the beginning of their ministry, Omar and Amira started a prayer group in their apartment every Wednesday night, where they would come together with believing neighbors and pray for opportunities in their community. Week after week, the Lord sent them new people to connect with — most of which had backgrounds from a different world religion — and they would share the gospel and invite them into their home for prayer and a meal.

As their community grew, Omar and Amira began investing in their new connections through Life-to-Life^® discipleship and meeting practical needs — taking them to doctor’s appointments or grocery stores, teaching English, and helping them apply for jobs. “That was our focus: how to help them and become their friends,” Omar says.

Over time, they saw the Lord work powerfully in the lives of their friends. From casting out demonic presences through prayer to simply being an example of how to joyfully and lovingly live a life for Christ, they witnessed as, one by one, families started to know and accept Christ for the first time.

“Things started to happen in their lives, and we felt that the Lord had something greater planned than we ever thought through our simple weekly prayer meeting,” Omar says.

Aisha’s Story

For a woman named Aisha*, Omar and Amira’s ministry was truly life saving.

A couple from another Middle Eastern country, Aisha and her husband, Hassan*, had met Omar and Amira a decade earlier when they had first moved to the U.S. After two years of not being in contact, Hassan reached out to Omar one day, desperate. “He told me that his wife was under attack,” Omar remembers.

Aisha had been plagued by demonic attacks, and after being hospitalized twice with no physical conditions confirmed by doctors, she had hit a point where she was no longer able to eat or drink for 10 days. Scared his wife was near death, Hassan asked if Omar would be able to pray over her.

Omar and Amira came over to their place and shared the gospel with them for three hours, and then invited Aisha and Hassan to come to their church to be prayed over. A couple nights later at church, they worshipped and shared the gospel again. Omar invited Aisha and Hassan to pray to receive Christ. They prayed together, sitting and crying, as they committed their lives to the Lord. Then, Amira prayed over Aisha for healing and for her to be free from the demonic presence that had been burdening her.

“We asked her how she felt, and she said she felt joy and peace and was so happy for what she received from the Lord,” Omar says. “We asked if she was able to drink, and she finished two bottles of water. The next day, she woke up feeling comforted and peaceful, and she had her first meal in 10 days.”

With her spirit lifted, Aisha shared with her family about how the Lord saved her. After months of losing hope and preparing for death, they felt free! In their joy, Aisha and Hassan prepared a feast, praising the Lord and giving Him glory. Since then, Omar and Amira have continued to disciple them, encouraging them to read the Bible on their own and continue growing in their faith.

“For the first time, Aisha understood that God was her father and that He was for her, not against her,” Omar explains. “Where before, she was terrified and scared, she knew she couldn’t go back to the life she had been living before. The old creation was no longer dragging her back.”

Crossing Barriers for Christ

Through Omar and Amira’s ministry, the nations are being reached powerfully here in the U.S. They’ve seen families praise the Lord for the first time, and have witnessed the Lord build a community centered on the hope of Christ and loving each other as He first loved us. The impact has been generational and transformative: one relationship and prayer at a time.

“When we pray, we allow the presence of God to come to people, and they will experience His presence and the freedom He provides,” Omar says. “We don’t have to go through apologetics. It’s prayers that have crossed barriers because we have given them an encounter with God himself.”

*Names changed for privacy

Discipleship Tip:

One way that Omar and Amira built community and shared the gospel is by meeting the needs of those around them. Look around you — are there any practical needs that you can meet? Think about people in your community that might need resources or help, and consider how you can step in to serve, using that as a building block for relationship to flourish.

Back when Mark was in college, he remembers seeing his Navigator campus director pack his bags to move his family to do ministry in Thailand. The willingness to leave behind the familiar to pursue the nations resonated with Mark, and it struck a passion in him for cross cultural ministry.

Over the past 20 years, the Newells have seen how building relationships with Hungarian students has led to steady growth in their community — but it takes much patience and perseverance. As Hungary is a country where most people do not have any connections to Christians, it has been crucial for the Hungary team to share their lives with Hungarian students so that they can see with their own eyes what walking with Jesus looks like.

“I think a challenge we have faced is regarding the perseverance that’s needed working in a more secular culture — the years that are needed to journey with friends,” Mark says. “As they grow in trust, they grow in curiosity, and they become open and trust Jesus. What we really long for even more is to see the gospel moving through families. And it’s a joy, a joy to see that the gospel is moving to siblings, to parents, even to grandparents.”

Being an example for how to live in Christ

This was the case for Benni Illes, who met Mark as a Hungarian student in university in 2014. As Mark built a relationship with Benni, he started to talk to him about faith, helping him understand how to read the Bible and memorize Scripture.

“That was very significant for me, to have someone who could not only help me get into the Word and understand it, but also to see what faith looks like,” Benni says.

Now, Benni has been on staff with The Navigators for 10 years, and he is passionate about passing on what he’s learned to others. “Our students don’t really have a Christian community around them — people who they can look up to for examples to see how they live their lives with Jesus,” Benni explains. “I had that example, and I want to follow that for them.”

For The Newells and The Navigators Hungary team, 1 Thessalonians 2:8 has been at the heart of their ministry: “…we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well” (NIV).

By doing life with students — teaching them English, serving together, and coming alongside them in everyday moments — The Navigators team in Hungary is establishing a picture of what life with Christ looks like, and how students can experience the fruit of the gospel in their own lives.

A foundational generation of Hungarians

The Navigators Hungary team has been excited to see the next phase of their ministry: watching God raise up a foundational generation of Hungarian believers. Now, it isn’t just Americans bringing the gospel to Hungarians; it is Hungarians to Hungarians. Friends, classmates, families, and neighborhoods are being touched by the gospel as this generation of Hungarian Christians seek “to know Christ, make Him known, and help others do the same^®.”

“We are praying for a foundational generation of Hungarians who are committed to the Lord, to one another, and to our calling,” Mark says. “We find ourselves praying the words of Jeremiah: ‘Our Lord, God, you have created the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm, nothing is too difficult for you.’ We want to trust God for what only He can do.”

Discipleship Tip:

Benni grew in his faith through Mark coming alongside him and helping him understand how to read the Bible. How can you come alongside others in your life? Consider the example you are setting in your relationships, and how you can give others a better picture of who Jesus is and His Word through starting gospel conversations and simply doing life with those around you.

As his friendship with Jason grew and he saw the impact of discipleship in his own life, Joel started to feel called toward discipling others. Joel discovered a heart for the nations after doing summer missions in Malaysia, and was surprised when he felt the Lord leading him to do missions full-time in the Netherlands through the Navigators iEDGE program.

“I actually have a lot of family who’s from the Netherlands. A lot of my history is from there,” Joel says. “And even though it was not what I envisioned when I thought about cross-cultural ministry, the Lord ultimately led my heart to decide to go to the Netherlands.”

Ministry in the Netherlands

In 2016, Joel moved abroad to work with international students in Amsterdam. Through his time there, Joel met his wife, Libby, who had also had a similar calling to the Netherlands. Together, they moved to continue their ministry full-time, eventually heading to the city of Leeuwarden where Joel’s grandparents had grown up.

While Amsterdam had more of an international feel, with a variety of students from other cultures and countries, students in Leeuwarden were more difficult to draw out and reach. The Dotingas were nearly the only Americans in the city, so building friendships in a new culture was a big hurdle. Yet, God placed relationships in their path to help them get connected and reach new people with the gospel.

After joining a church in Leeuwarden, Joel and Libby quickly got to know a family who had a daughter who was the same age as their own. As Joel and Libby got to know the parents, Noah* and Hannah*, they found out that both of them had only recently given their lives to Christ.

One day, Joel asked to meet up with Noah, hoping that they could talk about doing a Bible study called Every Man a Warrior together. As they were getting coffee, Joel brought up the book, asking if Noah would be interested. To his surprise, Noah in turn pulled the same study out of his bag, saying, “I was going to ask you if you wanted to do this with me!”

“It felt like such a God moment, that in God’s kindness and sense of humor, He brought us together with the same idea of wanting to go through a relatively little-known study,” Joel says. “It was like the Lord saying, How obvious can I make this?”

As Joel got to know Noah, he not only got to see Noah grow in his walk with the Lord, but he gained another friend to walk together through life. “I was able to see how Noah grew in his faith over the following years, but it also grew me to have another peer my age,” Joel says. “We were both new fathers together, and we were able to walk through a discipleship pathway together.”

Running for Relationships

Joel also saw the Lord bring relationships through unexpected, creative ways.

As an avid runner, Joel had always had “running buddies” in the past with whom he could stay active and have deep conversations while running. Thinking of a way he could make new connections, he decided to try to find running buddies in Leeuwarden by posting on a Facebook meetup page.

Through this, Joel got connected to a young man named Alvin*. Running together, they had deep conversations about the gospel, and Alvin began attending their evening Bible studies. While Alvin has not put his faith in Christ yet, he continues to reach out to Joel about spiritual questions.

“I was struck by the amount of ground that we were able to cover through doing a shoulder-to-shoulder activity like running,” Joel says. “I got to see God slowly poke holes, using Alvin’s curiosity to dive deeper into what was going on in his heart.”

A Lasting Impact

Though Joel and Libby are now back to doing ministry in the U.S. after several years abroad, their ministry in the Netherlands is a powerful reminder of how important relationships are in the work of discipleship and sharing the gospel with those who are without Christ.

By committing to make yourself available for Life-to-Life^® discipleship — whether in Amsterdam, Leeuwarden, or the U.S. — God can create amazing opportunities for the gospel to take root in people’s hearts.

“The place I saw the most fruit was through doing life together,” Joel says. “So the question is, what are the relationships God is giving us? And how can we follow those relationships?”

Discipleship Tip:

Sometimes, the best thing you can do to start a discipleship relationship is to simply extend an invite. Whether it’s grabbing coffee with a neighbor or asking someone to go running with you, there are so many creative ways to create close, Life-to-Life relationships. Consider activities you are already doing in your life. Where can you extend an invite to someone around you?

*Names changed for privacy

However, at the end of the week when they return home, campers are left with a more lasting and powerful impact — a stronger, or sometimes brand new, relationship with Christ.

The Impact of the Gospel at Camp: One Camper’s Story

This was the case with a camper from this past summer named Zayan. Growing up in a nonreligious home, Zayan had limited exposure to church growing up, only attending occasionally when his older sister, Jasmina, would take him.

Jasmina, who has worked at camp for the past few years and is now on staff with Eagle Lake’s Emerging Leaders Program, had been praying for her brother to gain more exposure to Christ. She asked Zayan if he would like to attend camp for the upcoming summer, and when he said yes, she prayed that he would receive the funding to go.

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“He wrote a camp scholarship letter, and in the letter, he wrote that he wanted to attend camp so he could spend a week with his sister,” Jasmina says. “And then he was fully funded. It was an awesome opportunity to see the body of Christ come together and give for a kid they’ve never met to go to camp and hear the gospel for the first time. It was so impactful.”

Zayan came to Colorado from New Mexico to attend a week of Eagle Lake’s high school overnight Highlands camp. When he showed up, one of Jasmina’s friends gave him a Bible — his first Bible. Though Zayan enjoyed the week’s outdoor activities like rafting and camping, his favorite part of camp was the connection he made with the other campers in his cabin and his counselor, Zach.

“At first I was nervous because I didn’t know anyone,” Zayan says. “But I got used to it right away because of the cabin of guys I was in. It was the first time that I had a group where we could talk about God, and that was good.”

When Zayan’s parents came to pick him up from the week, he expressed that he had fun and learned a Bible verse, and then recited Romans 6:23 to his family. “I had prayed for months for God to expose him to the gospel and prepare his heart to know Christ when he got to camp,” Jasmina remembers. “And there he was, memorizing Scripture, holding his first Bible.”

Serving the Next Generation Through Crew

Now, Zayan is returning to Eagle Lake this upcoming summer to serve with Eagle Lake’s Crew team, which is a 5-week service program where high school students come to serve other campers through cooking, cleaning, and working in the camp stores. During Crew, campers get to be in a Bible study with their small groups, diving deeper into the Word and their relationships with Christ.

“The Crew program at Eagle Lake fosters such a unique environment,” says Andrew Brown, Eagle Lake’s director of recruiting, marketing, and communications. “The campers make lifelong friends, and they make huge steps in their discipleship and sanctification. And the counselors who walk alongside them really equip them for a lifelong pursuit of Christ.”

Having done the Crew program herself as a counselor, Jasmina is excited to see her little brother return to camp to continue growing and developing his relationship with Christ.

“At home, he doesn’t have a parent who encourages him to walk with Jesus or take him to church on Sunday,” she says. “But then there’s this place where he can experience God, and he can be in Christ with community. And he’s developing that on his own, and I’m entrusting him to the Lord.”

For Jasmina, seeing her brother come to camp has been encouraging and a reflection on her time as a counselor, where she has similarly poured into kids who are like Zayan and experiencing the gospel for the first time.

“Being a counselor, I’ve had the opportunity to steward relationships with campers, where Christianity is not important in their home lives,” she says. “And they just came because they love camp, and they love the community. What an opportunity we have to be a reflection of who Christ is.”

Continuing the Cycle

Zayan’s story is just one of the many campers that come through Eagle Lake’s overnight and day camps. As he comes back to serve on the same program his sister did, he is an example of the generational effect of discipleship and impact that campers experience at camp.

“We see this happen a lot, where campers receive the benefits of Crew as a camper and then they want to return to be that for other kids,” Andrew says. “And then many of them want to come back to actually become a counselor like others have done for them. Then, the generational cycle starts over and over and over again.”

Join us in praying for Eagle Lake Camps this summer, for the thousands of kids like Zayan who may attend camp for the first time, will hear and receive the gospel, and will keep coming back year after year to grow and develop as disciplemakers.

Discipleship Tip:

Jasmina was able to impact her brother’s faith by being willing to bring him to camp and pass on what she’s learned to the next generation. Consider — who might be the next generation that you could impact? What are ways that you’ve been impacted, led, or discipled that you could potentially do for someone else?

At least, this is the case for Navigator Bill Voisin and his wife, LesLee. After two decades of being missionaries in Latin America, the Voisins are now reaching a new international community — in Houston, Texas. Working with The Navigators through The La Vida Network and Nations Within ministries, Bill and LesLee are using ESL (English as a Second Language) classes to meet needs and shine the light of Jesus to a global audience.

Life as Missionaries in Venezuela

Growing up, Bill split his time between Mexico and Texas, attending two years of high school in Mexico. Because of his bicultural and bilingual upbringing, he developed a heart for Latin America and a desire to return one day.

Moving back to Texas for college, Bill was introduced to The Navigators as a freshman — kicking off a decades-long journey with Navigators ministries. After he graduated, Bill started to work for the Navigators Collegiate ministry in Texas, and during his summers, he would help with summer programs in Mexico.

When Bill and LesLee got married, there was a new Navigators ministry in Venezuela being started. Because of Bill’s Latin American background, they were chosen to be part of the launching team. In 1975, they packed their bags and trusted the Lord as they entered into full-time missions.

“I had originally planned to go back to Mexico and work in agriculture — what I got my degree in,” Bill says. “But God changed my course. We went back to Latin America to plant a different kind of seed.”

In Venezuela, Bill and LesLee started working with university students in Caracas. Many of their students came to know Christ, and as they graduated and moved to the other side of the country to work in the oil industry, the Voisins realized that they wanted to follow them to continue doing Life-to-Life^® discipleship with the relationships they cultivated. Heading to Maracaibo, they got involved with a local college ministry and continued to help their young disciples grow.

“Many of them got married, and the only examples they had were their fathers who came home drunk and beat up on their family,” Bill recalls. “So we helped them walk through different phases of their lives, guiding them through life and discipleship and biblical principles.”

Bill and LesLee spent over 20 years in Venezuela before the government announced that foreign missionaries were being expelled from the country. Unable to return to their home, the Voisins had to step into a new chapter of their international ministry: teaching ESL in Houston.

“God was gracious,” Bill says. “We have over 55,000 Venezuelans living here in the Houston area, and right now, some of our key connections are Venezuelans. God brought the mission field to us.”

Using ESL to Create Cross-Cultural Bridges

In Houston, the Voisins have made it their mission to reach the nations through their diverse neighborhood community.

Houston is known for being one of the most multicultural cities in the United States, with the tagline: “Visit Houston and you’ll see the world.” 44 percent of Houston’s population is Hispanic, and almost 30 percent is foreign born — making the city a prime location for forging intercultural relationships.

Upon arriving in Texas, Bill and LesLee kicked off their new ESL outreach ministry. Though their focus is the Hispanic community, they’ve also been able to reach ethnic groups and immigrants from across the globe.

“ESL opens the door to reaching distinct populations regardless of religious backgrounds,” Bill says. “Currently, I am involved with members of several other major world religions, and even secular folks from Russia.”

Leading groups twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a team of six volunteers from their local church, Bill and LesLee use teaching ESL as a pathway to sharing the gospel and building holistic relationships. Bill uses a program — material published by NavPress called English in Action — that goes through the Bible, while his wife leads a group of international women to read through portions of the Bible.

“We go through the Bible, and we teach them the story of God,” Bill says. “Many of them have become Christians and are now attending local churches.”

Beyond teaching English, the Voisins have been able to show God’s character and love by meeting the present needs of their community and building friendships. From helping with legal problems to assisting couples with finding jobs or inviting families over for dinner, their ministry is personal and relational as they are actively involved in each other’s lives.

“We want to find out where they have a need and show them how God can meet that,” Bill explains. “Many people don’t understand the gospel immediately, but they do understand someone helping them. So we minister through real life situations, and that opens the door to present the gospel.”

A Global Impact

For Bill and LesLee, reaching their neighbors in Houston is reaching the world. As they watch their friends’ lives being transformed for Christ, they’ve seen the impact of spiritual multiplication as these new disciples spread light to their networks, sharing the gospel with their families and homes around the globe.

“God has brought the mission field to us — it’s on our back door,” Bill says. “You could work with any people group here; there’s all kinds of opportunities to reach out. So we’re going to the nations right here in our home.”

Discipleship Tip:

Whether you feel called to go overseas or be present in your home community, you can reach the nations wherever you are. Consider your neighbors and the city you live in — are there unreached people groups in your backyard? Pray about how you can expand your circles and get involved in your community, inviting others to know Christ, make HIm known, and help others do the same^®.

What inspired you to write the book Raising Disciples: Guiding Your Kids into a Faith of Their Own?

Over the last decade, I realized that while there are plenty of great books on Christian parenting, none really map out the stages of discipleship from infancy to adolescence. That’s why I wrote this book — to give parents a clear pathway to help their kids grow spiritually at every age and stage.

Drawing from 30 years of walking alongside parents and 15 years as a professor, this pathway weaves together scripture and childhood development to identify key discipleship markers. My hope is that this book becomes a practical resource for parents and anyone who works with kids, making it easier to nurture spiritual growth each year.

Could you share about who discipled you growing up?

I’m very fortunate that I was raised by Christian parents. My father is a mathematics professor and my mom is an accountant, so there’s nothing highly spiritual about them. But my parents were intentional to put us into a Christian community from the time we were infants. I was raised in a church of about 200 people in a small town in Illinois, so I had spiritual aunts and uncles and grandparents that were part of that church community. I believe this is why my two brothers and I are all serving in ministry today.

How would you encourage parents looking for a spiritual family for their kids?

Some of the best ways to create a spiritual family is to have people from your church community over to your home or accept invitations into their homes. Allow your families to get to know each other and be intentional about this time.

There is also another way to approach finding those spiritual family members for your kids: ask. When you find someone you trust, make the invitation: Would you come to my son’s soccer game; or my daughter’s musical performance; or would you mind reaching out to my daughter or son who is struggling right now? I think there are a lot of godly people who would love the opportunity to invest in and disciple children.

For example during my years on staff as a children’s minister, I was single. It was natural for families to invite me over to their homes. Also, I had time to show up for soccer games and dance recitals and loved those opportunities.

I encourage families to not forget about two potential groups that can come alongside your child in their discipleship. Single adults (and also couples without children), can become spiritual aunts and uncles to your children. Second, retired men and women, especially those who may not have family nearby, have so much to offer as spiritual grandparents.

Years ago, my parents became spiritual grandparents to a family in the church. This semester, one of those children is now a student in my classroom, studying for ministry. These are the kinds of relationships God intended.

Could you give the audience a taste of your book?

The primary premise is that every child is being discipled. However, the question is, who or what is discipling your child? To help parents think about that, I’ve identified seven stages of a child’s spiritual development, from infancy to adolescence. For each of the seven stages, I provide a variety of suggestions of how a parent can encourage a child’s spiritual growth along this pathway.

The pathway begins with laying a foundation of trust during infancy – trust with you and trust with others in your church community. Then children can be surrounded with God’s love, introduced to God’s story, and recognize they are a part of God’s community, the church. As they grow in understanding, they can be led to believe in God’s truth found in scripture and guided toward obedience of God and following Jesus. Our hope is that by the time they reach the age of 13, a child would understand who God created them to be, who they are in God, and that they belong to the community of faith. If we can build a framework of faith centered on Christ, Scripture, and community before the age of 13, then they will be more likely to live according to that framework their whole lives.

How would you encourage parents today who are seeking to disciple their kids?

Your discipleship of your children should flow naturally out of the overflow of your own continued growth as a disciple of Jesus. But also, choose something to be intentional about with your kids and their spiritual development – whether that be nighttime prayers or praying on the way to school, or perhaps a specific focus of Bible reading for a period of time. Choose something for this season and dedicate yourself and your family to it.

We started a practice in our home a couple years ago, that in the month of November, before we eat dinner together, we each write down one thing we’re thankful for that day, and we add it to a bowl. It’s a simple practice that has a lot of meaning for my family.

What is one simple next step parents could take to encourage their kids in their journey with God?

Something helpful is asking your kids open-ended questions — those that require more than a “yes” or “no” answer. Then find which of those questions your kids really respond to. Here are a couple examples: What did you feel like God encouraged you to do today? What was something that was really good about your day?

I’ve found that when you cultivate these types of conversations with your kids with simple questions, it creates a seed bed for when the harder questions come along.

Teresa Roberts is a Professor of Ministry and Christian Formation, Program Director of Children’s Ministry, and a vice president at Ozark Christian College. She is an expert in children’s spiritual formation training with more than 25 years of ministry experience. Dr. Roberts holds a Master of Arts in Family and Youth Ministry, a Master of Divinity, and a Doctor of Ministry. She serves in children’s ministry at Carterville Christian Church where she attends with her husband and step-daughter. Learn more at discipleshipguides.com.

Larry was alone the day Christ saved him. He had gone to church one Sunday morning, and as he later drove away from church by his university, he thought, “God, look at me — what a sinful man I am. Would you please take away the guilt for all of my sin?” He felt a shift in his heart that he couldn’t explain — but he began thinking about God and praying to Him fervently every night for the next several days.

Without a strong religious background, all Larry had was a Bible and a newly formed prayer life, neither of which he fully understood. Without someone to guide him in his new Christian faith, Larry began to wander. He moved to Kansas a few months later, and for two and a half years, he lived a mostly fleshly life before the Lord turned him on a different path.

Larry felt the hunger for a spiritual mentor, but didn’t know where to find one. At the time, he lived with roommates, and one of them would meet with an older Christian once a week at their home for one-on-one Bible study. Curious, Larry would sit at the top of the stairs and listen in to their meetings.

“I thought, ‘I need that,’” Larry remembers. “‘I need somebody to walk alongside me, teach me the Bible, and help me understand how to live the Christian life.’ I didn’t know where to go to find someone that would help … until I met Don.”

Don Henry, a Navigator, was teaching a Scripture memorization class that Larry was in. Knowing that Don was an active disciplemaker, Larry asked Don if he would be willing to meet and disciple him. Once the class was finished, they began to meet one-on-one, and Don encouraged Larry to continue having daily quiet time with the Lord and sharing his faith with others.

Equipping disciples in everyday life

Through discipleship, God helped Larry establish a foundation for his faith, learning how to walk and move forward in his Christian life. But his journey did not stop there. Since then, Larry has devoted the past 40 years of his life in Wichita, Kansas to meeting one-on-one and in small groups with men and passing on what he has learned, helping them grow as disciples of Christ and share their faith with others.

“I will never leave another orphan behind,” Larry says. “If I know somebody is new in their faith, and I see their need, I’ll adopt them. I understand the cost of not having someone come alongside you.”

Larry began meeting men wherever he could to help establish them in their walk with Christ and equip them to do the Lord’s work in everyday life, whether that was in his work in the aircraft manufacturing business, his church, or his neighborhood. He remembers how when he and his wife moved into a new home in the 1990s, they met a couple down the road. “I told my wife that it doesn’t get more obvious than this — they were deliberately dumped in our laps,” he says. He and his wife started meeting with the couple individually to do one-on-one Bible studies, and the Lord saved his wife; the husband was already a Christian, but very young in his faith. Now, the Becks and the next door couple are still close friends, serving in church together.

Reaching the Next Generation

Sometimes, Larry has had the pleasure of seeing multiple generations of believers come out of those he has discipled. One such man is Carson, a young man Larry met through church. Carson was expressing dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of the ministries he was involved in, so Larry started to disciple him over his summer break home from university. Larry passed on the knowledge that Don taught him years before through Life-to-Life^® discipleship, and encouraged Carson to share what he was learning with others.

The next school year, Carson started to meet with another student, Russ, to help Russ grow as a disciple of Jesus. Carson was already meeting with a small group of other students and asked Russ to join them. Together, Carson, Russ and the small group began developing deeper relationships with Christ and sharing the gospel with their classmates. Even though Carson has now graduated and moved back home, the ministry he kicked off by investing in Russ continues today on that campus.

“Faithful men may be hard to find,” says Larry, “but the investment you make in them will go on when you are no longer there. And that makes it all worth it to give ourselves to raising up lifelong everyday disciplemakers for Jesus.”

Adopting others into God’s kingdom

Larry is the epitome of an everyday disciplemaker: someone who dedicates their life to raising up disciples, no matter where they are. Larry has never worked on Navigator staff, and yet, through living faithfully in his everyday life, he has adopted a multitude of spiritual orphans into God’s kingdom, one relationship at a time.

“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” 2 Timothy 2:2 (NIV).

Discipleship Tip:

Look around you. Do you see anyone who is new to their faith, who might need someone to come alongside them? Seek “spiritual orphans” in your life and consider how you can adopt them as a disciple.