Discipleship in Every Season with Melissa Kruger

Discipleship looks different in different seasons. We don’t always have the same capacity, schedule, or set of circumstances as our seasons of life shift and change. In this episode, Hunter talks with Courtney Doctor and Melissa Kruger about the practical elements of discipleship and pointing others to Christ in all of life.

We love hearing discipleship stories, and we’d love to hear more!

If you have a good discipleship story to share, please record a 30-60 second voice memo and send it our way at info@journeywomen.org.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. How does discipling women look different now that you have married and college/married kiddos versus when you had little kids?

2. What do you do when you’re in a season of suffering or intense stress (like the newborn phase or when you've lost a loved one)?  

3. What was it like for you when Dr. Kruger was in seminary/teaching? Courtney, what was it like when Craig was climbing the corporate ladder? 

4. What encouragement do you have for younger women looking to be discipled?

5. How ought we think about older women and extend grace to them in their current seasons? (Perhaps speak to aging parents, the challenge of having teens, etc here?)

6. How have you found women to mentor in different seasons of life? How did those relationships begin?

7. What are some practical examples of the benefit/fruit of cross-generational discipling?

8. Why do discipleship relationships sometimes fall apart? What things have you learned along the way that might help us avoid that?

9. Who has had the greatest impact on the way you disciple others?

NOTES & QUOTES

• Everything's formative–praying before a meal, that kind word or saying, sitting with somebody in their tears… You have an opportunity to press into that moment with the gospel. - Courtney Doctor 

• Discipleship is always happening at different layers. - Courtney Doctor

• On nights you are home alone, you have two options: You can spend them really upset that your husband's not there to help. Or you can say, "I'm going to be on my own three nights this week. Maybe I can invite this younger woman over to hang out with me during that time." - Melissa Kruger

• Are your kids in school? Are you homeschooling? What does your day look like? Are you working outside the home? What does the time of your day look like when everybody is either gone or capitalizing on those moments? On the nights that Craig was gone, I liked having people there and inviting people in. The challenge was requiring the conversation to be a gospel-centered conversation and not just a vent session.  - Courtney Doctor

• It's helpful for you and your husband to consider how we can foster discipleship in our home.  - Melissa Kruger

• People want to have deeper discussions; they just don't know how. Part of what we can do to disciple others is to help foster places where those conversations can happen between older and younger women. - Melissa Kruger

• Asking myself, how does the gospel inform this conversation? And then bringing that to bear. How does the gospel impact this particular topic? Invite them into that process of this is what we want to be doing. - Courtney Doctor

• We want to move towards a gospel-centered conversation because it's very different from the conversations that we have that are devoid of the gospel. - Courtney Doctor

• If a younger woman asks me to get together, I think it's really great if [the younger woman] can think through some questions for why she wants to get together? That's always nice for her to do. - Melissa Kruger

• When I'm going into a group setting with younger women, I should think through, what are a couple of questions I could ask to spark some good discussion. Even if it's just, “What are y'all doing for Bible study right now?” Just to throw some questions out there that might lead to deeper conversation. - Melissa Kruger

• Take that step of awkwardness and see how the Holy Spirit uses that question and then wait in response. - Hunter Beless

• If we're not willing to say the harder things, then we might be trying to receive something from that relationship that was not meant to be there. - Courtney Doctor

• The person who's investing in you is going to have strengths, she's going to have weaknesses, and there is much to be learned from both. - Hunter Beless 

• [The woman discipling you] is just like you, she’s just been not knowing what to do with their life for longer. - Melissa Kruger

• My answers get more simplistic because the only ones I believe anymore are the Bible. So you might be very unimpressed with my wisdom because it's going to be, “Well, we should really read the Bible; we should really pray about this.” Because here's what I know–I know enough to know when I hear your circumstance, and I haven't lived it; I really don't know. - Melissa Kruger 

• The importance and significance of continually guiding women back to the biblical principles that inform our practice. - Hunter Beless

• Put on that hat and say, “I'm giving some advice here. This is what worked for me, and have the humility to say, "Here's something I tried that worked. Try it. But if not, let's keep talking about the biblical principles.” - Courtney Doctor

• You want to meet with someone whose Bible is just worn out. - Hunter Beless

• There's this whole category for advice-giving, and I think that is different from spiritual mentoring. Wisdom from a life lived is really important, and those relationships really do matter. But there are going to be certain women in our lives who really come alongside us and leave a spiritual deposit that we are thankful for in a different way. - Melissa Kruger

• Sometimes [discipleship relationships] are lacking, and we have to trust God with the lack. - Melissa Kruger

• Sometimes, a mentor can almost be idolized: " If I just had a mentor, I'd grow spiritually.” It's God who is shaping and growing me. And so He's going to do that through what He provides and what He doesn't provide. - Melissa Kruger

• Helen Roseveare was a missionary; she was a doctor. [In Count It All Joy] she tells about her failings and how she has learned from them, and this book is how she wrestled for joy. She lived years and years ago, but her example of turning to Scripture and letting it confront her and letting it do the hard work helped me do the hard work in my own heart. - Melissa Kruger

• We have to be honest enough to acknowledge that we are discipling people as we go through suffering. People are watching. Suffering is so often a megaphone for the gospel. Our suffering actually magnifies the truth of the gospel in one way or another. - Courtney Doctor

• There are times we do have to pull back and ask others to disciple us in this, to meet us, to comfort us, to minister to us. There's freedom in that. Invite people into the suffering. - Courtney Doctor

• We think we need to be in a good place to be discipling others because we want them to follow us. But no! When we're in a season in which our dependency on the Lord is so tangible, it's a wonderful opportunity for us to continue to encourage those who we are investing in to be fully and wholly dependent on the Lord. - Hunter Beless

• Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). - C.S. Lewis

• [In Christian friendship] we have Jesus that we're beholding together. And so then it's this shared, just this shared foundation. - Melissa Kruger

• The first friendship you have to fight for is your relationship with Jesus. - Melissa Kruger

• Every friendship and every relationship we have can't be enough. It can't be enough. Jesus is the only one who can say, I will never leave you or forsake you. His love is the only one that can say there is no height or depth. I couldn't get through this life without gospel friends, but it's because they're constantly pointing me to the better friend. - Melissa Kruger 

• In order to make disciples, we have to be a disciple. - Hunter Beless

RESOURCES

Count it all Joy by Helen Roseveare

Titus: Displaying the Gospel of Grace by Hunter Beless and Courtney Doctor

Discipling: How to Help Others Follow Jesus by Mark Dever

Growing Together: Taking Mentorship Beyond Small Talk and Prayer Requests by Melissa Kruger

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What are some opportunities you have in your current season to invite a younger or older woman into your home? (After kids’ bedtime, lunch after church, etc.)

2. How can you be intentional to make your conversations with Christians look different from conversations in the world?

3. Before you enter a group or one-on-one discussion, what are some specific questions you can take time to think through beforehand?

4. What are some healthy expectations for discipling?

5. What might you do or implement based on what you learned in this week’s episode?

RECENT CONVERSATIONS

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Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.

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