What are the Five Behaviors of a Disciple?

What does a fully devoted follower of Jesus actually look like in everyday life? In this episode, we introduce the Five Behaviors of a Disciple—Connect, Grow, Serve, Pray, and Give—a simple yet powerful framework that reveals how discipleship is lived out, not just believed. You’ll discover how these five essential behaviors shape spiritual maturity, deepen your relationship with God, strengthen your connection to the Church, and activate your life for mission and impact. This episode sets the foundation for a discipleship journey marked not by partial commitment, but by wholehearted devotion.

Transcript

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Well, welcome to the Discipleship Tool Podcast. I'm Andy George and I want to thank you so much for joining me on this episode. Listen, we're going to jump into some uh exciting conversations around discipleship. And today, on this episode, we're going to do an overview over the five behaviors of disciples. So you got a good understanding and a good framework of really what the five behaviors are. Then starting in our next episode, we're going to jump into each one more and more specific to really understand why these are important. And so I'm very excited. And once again, thank you for joining us on this episode. And thank you for joining us on the journey of the discipleship tool. So let's go ahead and jump into today. So the five behaviors of a disciple. Now, listen, something that's very important for you to understand is that this is more than just a teaching series. So this is not just a teaching series around discipleship. This isn't a teaching series just around some behaviors that would say we are in discipleship. It's much more than that. This is a pathway. This is a framework. And for many of you, I hope that this is going to become a personal discipleship roadmap. You know, I like the statement that simply says everybody has a next step. What is yours? And I believe that. I no matter where you are in your journey, you have a next step. I have a next step. And what's great about what we're about to do is talk through what should my life around a disciple be? And so let's just refresh the goal of discipleship. Let's start with the goal. Very simple, very clear. The goal of discipleship is to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ, not partially devoted, not casually committed, not spiritually convenient, fully devoted. That is the goal. And again, remember, we asked the question, how do we know that that's happening? So, you know, we talked in our last episode about how it's hard to argue whether or not we should be in discipleship or we should be making discipleships. Jesus gave us the commission to go make disciples. So we know we have to do that. So the question really isn't should I, uh, or arguing it theologically or doctrinally or however else you want to argue it. We know we're supposed to do that. The real question comes down to how do we actually know that this is happening? This is where we weaved in this statement. We know to the extent that the five behaviors of a disciple are being lived out. So discipleship isn't measured by how long you've been attending church. It's not measured by how long you've been a Christian. It's not measured by how many books you've read or how many podcasts you've listened to. It's revealed by how deeply your life is being transformed. And then again, you keep pulling that back and pull that curtain back. It's, well, how do I know if my life's being transformed? Well, you look at these five behaviors that we would say these should be evident in your life. So these five behaviors, what are the five behaviors? These five behaviors describe what a fully devoted disciple does and more importantly, who they are becoming. Remember, one of the most important questions we want to ask is not what do I need to do? How long should I do it? What resources do you have? It's who am I actually becoming? So I don't want you to think that these are just checkboxes that you go through and all of a sudden you're there. No, no, no. We are becoming, we want to connect, grow, serve, pray, give. These are not religious checklists, these are not personality types, these are not spiritual electives, if you will. They are essential behaviors that form a disciple who was alive, mature, on mission. And I'm gonna throw this in here because this is so critical in how we're doing this. It is multiplication. So again, these behaviors, it's forming who we are so that we get to the point where we are multiplying. All right, we're gonna jump into the five behaviors just as an overview in this episode. And then, like I said, in the next episodes, we're gonna drill in deeper as to which uh what these actually mean. So here we go. Let's start with connect. You know, here's the bottom line with connect. We were meant to do life together. Connect reminds us that we were never meant to follow Jesus alone. We're meant to connect with God, connect to the church, and connect to the community. As we talk more detail on each one of these, you're gonna notice that each one of these has three specific areas that you could connect to or grow, serve, or pray in. But again, we're not meant to do life alone. We're meant to be in relationship with other people. Full life is found through meaningful relationships. It's found through spiritual family, it's found on shared mission. Isolation never produces transformation. Connection does. So connecting is so important that we are connecting not only to God. I think that when we think about uh discipleship or spiritual growth, we immediately just think, well, I gotta, I just gotta connect with God. And yes, you do, and yes, we do, but how about connecting uh with your church? How about connecting with your community around you in different areas? These are all also very important that we're connecting in these areas. So we'll talk about what that means and what that looks like. You know, finding the will of God intends for us to happen as we build relationships with each other. This provides a way for you to connect to other believers, to deepen your relationship and to find your place to belong. That's why connecting is so critically important. That's the first behavior. Second behavior, again, just an overview. The second behavior is grow. We never outgrow our need to grow. How about that statement? You will never outgrow your need to grow. Grow reminds us that discipleship is never static. Whether you just met Jesus yesterday, literally, or you've walked with him for decades, there are still still new depths to explore. So we grow in our faith and we grow in wisdom, we grow in our spiritual maturity, we grow in our understanding of our Heavenly Father. And here's the thing: I said this in the first episode, you never fully arrive at a full-on uh disciple because we're still being developed the whole rest of our life. Now you're gonna get better and better and better, and you're gonna get more and more mature, but discipleship is lifelong, never ending. So, in other words, there's always new things to discover about your relationship with God. Whether you're just beginning your walk or you've been a believer for many years, we continue to grow in our faith and learn more about our Heavenly Father. So growth is not accidental, growth is intentional. And I heard this statement a long time ago when I was a youth pastor, first starting off. And I love it. It's like grow daily or die gradually. That has stuck with me for 30 plus years. You either grow daily or you will die gradually. And that is so true. It's true in our relationships, it's true in our friendships, it's true in our spiritual walk. And so growth ensures that we're moving in the right direction. Here we go. The next one, number three, the third behavior is serve. Serve. Love always shows up in action. So no matter how big or how small the task, serving reaches people with the love of Christ. That's very true. There are opportunities to serve others in our local church, in ministries, in our communities, and even overseas. And when you meet the needs of others, you reflect God's love and grow toward becoming fully devoted in Christ. So serving reminds us that following Jesus always leads outward. It's always shown by our service. Jesus said, I came to serve and not to be served. So no matter how big or how small the role, finding a place to serve in the church, serve in the community, serving on the mission of God. This is so important because as we do this, I believe that as we serve, we mostly reflect the heart of God when we serve. We know that Jesus came to serve us. So when we do that, we are reflecting his heart to the world around us. There's a statement that you probably heard before, but saved people serve people. Part of my hope is that those of us who are in Christ, one of the major showings outwardly needs to be that we are serving people around us. Serving reshapes our identity, where it's not just about me and my needs and this whole me, me, me, me, me, now, now, now culture that we're in. Serving begins to break that in so many areas of our life. All right, here we go. Number four, the fourth behavior is to pray. This is the power source. This is where we get all of our fuel. Pray reminds us that intimacy with God fuels everything else. And I tell you what, we believe in the power of prayer and the power of the God who hears and answers. And just as you get to know one another through our personal conversations, you also grow closer to the Lord by spending time and talking with him. And so prayer uh reminds us that this intimacy with God is so critical in our life. And just like these relationships we talked about develop through conversation. I mean, this is the same thing with God. My relationship with God develops further and further as I converse with him. It's talking with him, it's listening to him, it's depending on him. This is what our relationship with God deepens. It deepens my communication with God. It deepens me knowing and hearing his voice well. It deepens my dependency on him. Prayer ultimately keeps us aligned and surrendered and spiritually alive. This is the power of prayer. I I don't feel like I have to pray, even though I do. I really do feel like I get to pray. I get to talk with the God of the universe. And I shared this maybe a maybe a Sunday or two ago at the time of this recording. I I stopped for a moment just during our sermon, and I said, Have you ever thought about that the God that we're worshiping today, the God that you're praying to today, the God you're talking to today is the same God that Moses was talking with with the staff in his hand as the Red Sea parted. Moses was talking with him on top of the mountain. You go through all the all the Old Testament and New Testament, all these heroes of the faith that did amazing things for God. They talked to the same God that you and I are talking to right now. There's so much power in that. When we believe that, truly believe that. Okay, so connect, grow, serve, pray. The fifth behavior is give, give. Trust expressed through generosity. One of the ways we show our love for God is through sacrificial giving of our time, of our talent, and yes, of our treasure or our money. When we trust God with our finances, we believe He will meet the needs and use our generosity to impact others with the love of Christ and the message of hope. So giving reminds us that discipleship touches everything we steward. It's our time, it's our talent, it's our treasure. And discipleship, becoming more like Jesus by following his teachings and his ways should affect our time, talent, and treasure. Generosity, by the way, isn't about pressure. It's not about I have to give my time, I have to use what God's giving me talent-wise, I have to give my treasure or my money. It's really about trust. Do I trust God with those things? That is what is critical. I need to trust that the God of the universe has everything I need. You know, it's amazing to me how we will trust God with our very soul for eternity, but we won't trust Him with our wallet or with our calendar or with our own talents that we have. So connect, grow, serve, pray, and give. And I just want to encourage you in all those areas, what we're gonna do over the next five episodes is each episode is gonna be uh dedicated to each one of these behaviors. Because I really do. I want you to fully understand how you can really grab a hold of and tell if we are living the right way and becoming the disciples we're supposed to become. So why does all this matter, by the way? Well, the problem today isn't that people don't necessarily believe in Jesus or believe in God or know of God or know of Jesus or been to church or read a Bible from time to time. The problem is that many believe, but really few fully follow him. I'm gonna say that again. The problem is that many people might believe in God or in a God. Many people might know the name of Jesus or know who he is, but very few people fully follow him. So these five behaviors, they bring clarity to discipleship. It's really important. It provides a personal growth pathway, it creates alignment across the church, it moves believers towards that mission and maturity and the multiplication. And this is what fully devoted actually looks like in motion. This is why this is so important. So let me ask you a simple question. How are you growing in all these five areas? Are you growing in these five areas? Or are you just growing in one or two of them? Because partial engagement produces limited transformation. Again, we can we could go all day long and think about what it means to be partially connected or partially growing or serving or praying or giving. The goal is not to be partial, it is to be fully, because that is what transforms our lives. And when all these behaviors come together, this is when discipleship becomes uh very, very powerful. It becomes a second nature to us, it becomes so close that we're walking with him in this. So again, I just want to thank you for joining us on this episode as we talk through just a again, just a very, very high level around what these five behaviors are. And as we move forward in these coming episodes, we're gonna talk through one at a time connect, grow, serve, pray, and give. And each one of these episodes are gonna help give you a little bit of a biblical foundation, maybe some application, some practical next steps. Because remember, this isn't about information, this is about formation and transformation. You weren't created uh just for spiritual survival, in other words, you and I were created for spiritual significance, and we are going to do that together in our next episodes. As always, thank you for joining us, and I can't wait to have you join us on the next episode as we talk about what does it mean in more detail to connect with the money.