Author, Leroy Eims tells this story: I was visiting a foreign mission field and spoke with a veteran missionary. He told me a story that still haunts me; I can’t get it out of my mind. It seems that he went overseas some fifteen years before we met and began the usual programs. About the time he arrived on his field, he met a young man named Johnny, who was involved in something quite different. Johnny was a committed disciple of Jesus Christ, but he was going about his ministry in all the wrong ways according to the “book.” In contrast to the typical missionary approach of the time, Johnny was spending the bulk of his time meeting with a few young men in that country. The veteran missionary tried to get Johnny straightened out, but the young man kept on with his “different” approach. The years passed, and the veteran missionary now had to leave the country of his service due to new visa restrictions. As he sat across the coffee table from me in his home, he told me, “LeRoy, I’ve got little to show for my time there. Oh, there is a group of people who meet in our assembly, but I wonder what will happen to them when I leave. They are not disciples. They have been faithful in listening to my sermons, but they do not witness. Few of them know how to lead another person to Christ. They know nothing about discipling others. And now that I am leaving, I can see I’ve all but wasted my time here.” He continued, “Then I look at what has come out of Johnny’s life. One of the men he worked with is now a professor at the university. This man is mightily used of God to reach and train scores of university students. Another is leading a witnessing and discipling team of about forty young men and women. Another is in a nearby city with a group of thirty-five growing disciples around him. Three have gone to other countries as missionaries and are now leading teams in those lands who are multiplying disciples. God is blessing their work. “I see the contrast between my life and his and it is tragic. I was so sure I was right. What he was doing seemed so insignificant, but now I look at the results and they are staggering.”

1. Biblical Examples Of Discipleship Training
   1. The Principle of Selection 
      1. The men who Jesus selected we ordinary men.  Different from one another politically, socially and intellectually.
      2. His ministry touched thousands, but He trained twelve men. He gave His life on the cross for millions, but during the three and a half years of His ministry He gave His life uniquely to twelve men.
   2. The Principle of Association
      1. 1. Every person must count the cost and enter into discipleship training willingly.
         2. Those who would train men must be willing to spend time with those men in hours of conversation, association and the normal affairs of life.
         3. Paul carried on his ministry by training by association. Acts 20:4  And there accompanied him into Asia Sopater of Berea; and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus; and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus; and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. Paul always had men with him that he was discipling by association.
   3. The Principle of Instruction
      1. 1. 1. When training others let them know some of the hardships in working with people
            2. Three things are a must for the person who would help others become stalwart, loyal, productive disciples in the ministry of Jesus Christ
               1. Have clearly in mind what you want them to know and understand of the things of God; you must know what are the basic ingredients in the life of discipleship
               2. You must have a clear picture of what you want these disciples to become. You must know what bedrock elements of Christian character must be their’s and what kind of people they should be. 
               3. You must have a vivid vision of what you want them to learn to do and a workable plan to help them accomplish it.