Discipleship in the School, Part 1: An Introduction

What is discipleship and how does discipleship happen in a Christian school? Like most good questions, we must begin by defining our terms. What is discipleship? According to Mark Dever, a pastor in the Washington D.C. area, we can define discipleship simply as helping someone follow Jesus. As an expanded definition, he writes that discipleship is “…deliberately doing spiritual good to someone so that he or she will be more like Christ” (Discipling, p. 13). Greg Ogden, a pastor who served for many years in the Chicago suburbs, defines discipleship as “walking alongside other disciples in order to encourage, equip,

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Paul’s School of Mentorship

Classical school leaders often emphasize the centrality of mentorship in the educational process, particularly in grades 6-12. They have wisely observed that the junior high and high school years are a pivotal phase in a person’s development. As students gradually spend more time with peers in settings without their parents, small yet formative opportunities emerge for these students to make decisions for themselves. Overtime, these decisions will form nothing less than their personality and character. Thus, the presence of wise and intentional mentors who can offer advice to these students becomes all the more crucial. In a similar way, the

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