The Ministry of Discipleship

Anyone who's heard us talk about our life and ministry in Kenya knows how passionate we are about training the next generation of African doctors. This is why:

This current map from the World Health Organization shows the global distribution of physicians, showing the number of doctors per 10,000 people. The darker blue areas have the most doctors while the lightest blue areas have the least. Here's the fact that stirs our hearts to action: the continent of Africa has, on average, less than 1 doctor per 40,000 people.

The reality is stark. Simply put, Africa needs more doctors. It also needs healthcare systems with an infrastructure that can support doctors and the supplies and equipment necessary for treating patients.

Our main role in improving healthcare in Africa is to train Family Medicine physicians. I've written before about why we train African doctors, but I haven't yet written about another aspect of what we do, which is equally important.

Not only does Africa need more doctors, but it needs doctors who are Christian leaders.  How do we aspire to achieve this goal? By training them in every facet of the job – how to be a compassionate healthcare provider who seeks to meet the spiritual needs of the patients as well as their physical needs, and how to be a Christian doctor who fights for just and merciful healthcare systems.

What is our method for training them to not only be doctors, but Christian physician leaders?

We disciple them.

What exactly is discipleship? It’s learning how to be disciples, and Christian discipleship is specifically learning how to follow Jesus.

Typically, discipleship doesn’t just happen in a vacuum. Nor does it happen overnight. In truth, it’s a lifelong process. We’re all on a journey of learning to love Jesus back and to follow Him throughout the course of our life. But it’s a process. And it’s a process modeled by Jesus.

Jesus came into the world to save us from our sins. He is the Good News. But not only did He make the sacrifice required to rescue us from sin, He spent time teaching people the truth of God’s love. He spent time proclaiming a message that there’s a better way to live this life than what our sinful hearts are inclined to think and do. We are meant to love God back, and to love each other too.

But Jesus came not only to deliver a message. He came to live out that message with the purpose of demonstrating His love for us and serving as an example for us. Jesus spent time building relationships with people, walking alongside them to help them understand Him and His ways better, and to guide them as they learned to apply His principles.

And that kind of process takes time. Jesus chose twelve specific people to be His disciples – as a starting point – and He spent three years in close proximity with them, intentionally investing in them and helping them grow in knowledge and wisdom and spiritual maturity.

For example, He taught them parables about faith as small as a mustard seed, and he also healed a woman who’d been bleeding for 12 years because her faith was the size of believing that if she could just touch His cloak without being noticed she would be healed – and she was – which served as an example of what that kind of faith looks like. Jesus wanted His disciples to learn from her. Jesus also taught His disciples about prayer, then exemplified prayer for them, both praying in public and removing Himself from everyone and everything in order to pray alone.

Jesus brought a message and He lived that message day in, day out, for His disciples to learn firsthand what it meant to love the Lord wholeheartedly and follow Him.

And the process of discipleship takes time.

Years. Decades. A Lifetime.

We know very well from the Gospels that even though the twelve disciples spent so much close time with Jesus, they were continually confused about a myriad of things throughout that time. They were watching the humble example of Jesus...and were still choosing to speak pridefully. They were listening to His parables...and still had no idea what He was talking about. They were hearing Him say that He would die and rise again three days later...and were clueless that He was speaking literally and seriously. The disciples were bumbling their way through understanding Jesus and trying to follow Him (which I love it because it provides a sense of camaraderie in all of my own bumbling!).

The point is this: learning the ways of Jesus, learning His Word and how to apply it in our daily lives, is an ongoing process. It’s a lifelong process, and somehow along the way, by God’s grace, the journey of maturing spiritually will result in us bearing good fruit.

Jesus spoke about this to His disciples shortly before He was crucified. At the end of their 3-year journey together, the end of their in-person, day in, day out time together, this was one of the things Jesus said to them:

“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples” (John 15:8).

What a clear and striking picture of discipleship! Disciples of Jesus are meant to bear fruit, which in turn glorifies the Father.

As noted, discipleship is a lifelong process for all of us, but there are seasons of life in which discipleship can be particularly intentional – times when we allow ourselves to be poured into, and times when we pour ourselves back into others.

As Eli and I have undertaken the ministry of discipleship, we’ve come to realize that’s really what it is: taking what has been poured into you and choosing to pour it back out. Our offerings can take many forms – knowledge, education, resources, life experiences. The Lord uses all manner of things so we can both be discipled and do the work of discipling others throughout our life.

As we live and minister in Kenya, we’re trying to be intentional and strategic in how we use the four years we’ve been given with each Family Medicine resident. We teach them and try to model how to be disciples of Jesus. We do this in hopes that they’ll be well prepared to bear good fruit when it’s their time to leave Chogoria and move on to the next place God has called them to, giving glory to the Father wherever they go.

We've been in Kenya for eight years now and have seen five graduating classes emerge from the residency program. We're in a marvelous season of seeing what God is doing with these graduates after they leave the program and pursue medicine and ministry beyond their residency training. We're seeing them understand the Bible more (thanks in large part to Eli's commitment to discussing How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth as part of their spiritual curriculum), we're seeing them step up to host Bible Study, we're hearing them consider mission work for the first time, we're seeing them take on leadership roles at hospitals around the country, we're seeing them move far away from family to pursue ministry among non-Christian patient populations, and we're seeing them make concrete plans to move back to their home countries in order to build up the healthcare system in some of the poorest places on the planet.

These men and women are disciples of Jesus, and they are bearing good fruit. What a privilege, what an honor, what a joy to participate in training and discipling the next generation of Christian physician leaders for Africa!