Impact of Discipleship: Jeannine Aigaer
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“I knew that if I was to do discipleship right, my life would be filled with the opposite of what I grew up being taught”
Throughout the time I spent in discipleship, knowledge was added to my faith, I was watered and grown, I was proven out, I was broken, I was strengthened, and I was established.
I remember first being made aware of discipleship through my parents. I had seen their discipleship books laying around the house, but it wasn’t until I gave my life to Christ and started attending Midtown that I decided to take a look inside. I remember being captivated by how much information there was. I grew up not really knowing anything about the Bible, like at all. To give you an example, I remember at the 2018 C&YA Fall Retreat, which is when I got saved, the speaker had made a joke about not knowing where the book of Matthew was and everyone around me started laughing. I just looked around awkwardly smiling because I had no idea where the book of Matthew was. So, the minute I found out that discipleship taught you stuff about the Bible, I was completely down for it. At the time, I thought of it as more of a class, and it wasn’t until I attended Cost of Discipleship that I learned what true discipleship was. This was back when they separated the class into three or four different sessions, instead of one long one, and after each session, doubt and fear began to creep into my thoughts little by little.
“I just turned 19, I’m so young... what if I mess up... young people do dumb things.” “Am I really ready to commit to something that calls me to lay down the life I’ve been so comfortable living these past 19 years?” “Everyone else has told me, ‘Do what makes you feel good.’” “Follow your heart.” “This is telling me to do the complete opposite of what I’ve known my whole life.” “I want to be honest with myself and make sure I have the right heart before committing to something so serious.”
I realized how major the cost of discipleship was. I realized that my lifestyle would never look the same as it had the past 19 years. I knew that if I was to do discipleship right, my life would be filled with the opposite of what I grew up being taught. It wouldn’t be filled with my wants, my desires, my hopes, and my plans; instead, it would be filled with God’s wants, his desires, and his plans. This terrified me because that meant that the rest of my life would be filled with hardships that included taking up my cross daily and dying to myself. It was made clear that the true cost of discipleship was my life (Luke 22:42; Phl 1:21). What pushed me to commit was weighing those hardships and struggles that were promised to me (John 16:33) with the inexplicable joy and peace that came with knowing Christ and having a personal relationship with him. So, I signed up and got paired!
“If you are taking in the information in the discipleship book as simply head knowledge, you’re missing the whole point”
The way my disciplers poured into me was unlike anything I had ever experienced from people. These women went out of their way to make sure I knew they loved and cared about me. My discipler took me with her wherever she went for the first five or six months of discipleship; she took me to live life alongside her. She genuinely cared about who I was. It wasn’t just a teacher/student relationship. She became a big sister to me. Someone I respected, someone I trusted with my life, someone I wanted to follow, someone I wanted to be like, someone I looked up to, and someone I loved.
I had already decided to be submitted to her before I even met her by signing up for discipleship, so it’s not like she had to make sure she had my heart while teaching me and leading me. But she knew that to make a disciple of Christ, she had to do what Christ did. He laid down his life for his friends (John 15:13), washed his disciples' feet (John 13:14), and loved hard and didn’t expect anything in return (2Co 12:15). Truly, the love that was invested into me was the main thing that impacted me the most throughout discipleship. I had never experienced that unconditional love of Christ, and it was more powerful than any lesson I could be taught out of a book. Even the way she loved others stood out to me; she poured out so much of herself to make someone feel valued and loved, and I got to witness that firsthand. She did not simply love in word but outwardly showed her love in deed. I remember throughout our discipleship relationship I would feel constant conviction because of how genuinely she laid down her life daily loving others.
In addition to my discipler, I got to have Julie Sidebottom as a Bible study leader. Praise God! She’s been there for me through absolutely everything. Even though I didn’t officially get paired with Julie, she was my discipler too. Discipleship isn’t simply a program where you go through the lessons with that designated person and memorize the content. If you are taking in the information in the discipleship book as simply head knowledge, you’re missing the whole point of discipleship. I didn’t go through the content with Julie, but she played a huge role in my time in discipleship. I have learned so much from her just by going to her for counsel and spending time with her.
My relationship with Julie has shown me how to sacrifice the little comforts. I can’t even count the amount of times she has given up extra sleep in the morning to go get coffee with me because of what I can now look back on as silly problems. But that’s the thing: no matter how small my problem actually was, it was still a problem in Julie’s eyes and she sacrificed just as much as if it was a big problem. She greatly cared about my problems because she greatly cared about me. What impacted me most from my relationship with Julie is how soft hearted and compassionate she is. God’s character is so clearly shown through her conversation. No matter how insignificant your issues may seem, God still wants to hear your heart and take on your burdens. 1 Peter 5:7 tells us, “Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.”
“Growing requires stretching past what is comfortable”
Near the end of the discipleship lessons, my discipler left MBT for a season and I had to be paired again with someone else. Although it was truly hard for me at the time, God once again showed me that his ways are higher than my ways and his thoughts are not my thoughts. Around that same time, a lot of big things were stripped away from me along with her. It was one of the hardest seasons I have gone through in my walk. I knew that God was proving me out and purifying me, but I absolutely hated it. We all pray for God’s will to be done in our lives at whatever cost and he let me see what that truly meant. I was re-paired with Havilah Guenther, who I am super thankful for and someone who God clearly used in my life.
“I've told the Lord I want to be an obedient servant, and He shot back, ‘And are you willing to face grief and pain or whatever it takes for Me to make you that?’” - Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity
Growing requires stretching past what is comfortable. Just like wanting to get stronger physically, the same is true spiritually. In order to actually build muscle, the fibers need to be damaged through higher resistance/weight to the point where it’s hard and painful. This causes the body to begin healing itself by fusing the fibers back together which increases the mass and size of the muscle. God is a good Father and he knows what is best for his children. I learned that in times when things don’t seem to make sense, God wants to use that as an opportunity to draw me closer to himself and to grow my trust in who he is.
God so graciously blessed me with Havilah. I got to experience firsthand two different types of teaching styles from two awesome, godly women. Both of the disciplers that I had made a huge impact on me, but both invested in me in completely different ways. Havilah, being pregnant with her second child at the time along with having a two year old, a husband, and a ton of other responsibilities, made time for me.
She majorly convicted me with time management. She didn’t even call me out on my own time management, but it was her testimony of being faithful in so many different things that convicted me. You will make time for the things that you care about, no excuse. And the fact that she intentionally took time to chase after my heart, even though we only had four lessons left when I got paired with her, showed me a deeper layer of the love of Christ. It is an unconditional, sacrificial love no matter the circumstances.
“I couldn’t imagine having a relationship with Christ without discipleship”
Throughout this whole process, God made many things very clear, one of those things being that everything in this world will fail me, including my own self, but he never will. 1 Kings 8:56 says, “Blessed be the LORD, that hath given rest unto his people Israel, according to all that he promised: there hath not failed one word of all his good promise, which he promised by the hand of Moses his servant.” Things that I continuously put my trust, my confidence, and my security in kept being taken away in heart-breaking ways, and it didn’t make sense to me at the time. But now I praise God for the things he allowed me to go through.
Deuteronomy 28:52 says, “And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.” He saw in my heart, even when I didn’t want to admit it to myself, that I was placing my trust in walls that I built myself. God needed to break those walls down, and he did. Those walls were demolished in the first couple of months of this year, and I felt completely broken, alone, weak, vulnerable, and insecure. At the time, I obviously couldn’t see what he was doing, but he started to become my trust. God made sure that I had nothing left to build up any type of wall against him.
Psalm 146:3-6 Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. 4 His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish. 5 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God: 6 Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever:
Since completing discipleship, I see my disciplers and my Bible study leader in the way I minister. I ultimately see that what was invested in me was Christ. I couldn’t imagine having a relationship with Christ without discipleship. How do you have a relationship with someone you don’t know? How do you have a relationship with someone you don’t learn to trust? How do you have a relationship with someone you never spend time with? How do you have a good relationship with someone you never sacrifice for?
“...I would have been a seed that sprung up but had no roots”
This passage comes to mind when I think about the impact of discipleship on my walk:
Matthew 13:5-6 Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: 6 And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away.
Without discipleship, I would have been a seed that sprung up but had no roots. My relationship with God would have sprung up for a season only to wither away. I am so thankful for my disciplers and “deep earth” that they helped lay in my life.
Jeannine Aigaer is a member at Midtown Baptist Temple and is a part of C&YA. She serves in Kidtown and is also apart of the C&YA hospitality team. She is involved FOI and is in the Penn Valley women’s Bible study.