Living the Five Cups as a Discipleship Model

“Teach these new disciples how to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:20

One of the most intimidating aspects of learning to disciple others is deciding what to talk about when you get together. Hopefully, The Five Cups will begin to give you an arsenal of topics that, once you learn to engage them, will provide you with all the “material” needed to fill your time together and truly help them grow in their walk of discipleship.

A couple of recommendations regarding how to choose what will be discussed on a meeting-by-meeting basis include:

• Before each meeting, ask the Holy Spirit which of The Five Cups will be most helpful for that day. Sometimes the Lord will highlight the needed topic, and you can go into the meeting prepared. In these instances, you can prepare scriptures and personal experiences to share. The best way to open these discussions is to let them know that you prayed for direction and felt God point you toward a specific topic.
• If you do not have a direction concerning which cup to focus on, begin your meeting by asking one of the following questions and simply listening to what is most upon their heart and mind and then sharing on that topic.
  • What has God been trying to teach you since the last time we met?
  • How are you doing in your walk with God?
  • What are you struggling with right now?
  • What’s been most on your mind lately?

Usually, as the disciple answers any of these questions, they will reveal one of the five cup topics as a central point of concern in their life. Although this doesn’t allow you any time for preparation, it is a natural way of letting the conversation flow. Just share your journey in this area with a story, a scripture the Lord has used in your life, and pray together.

This model for discipleship gives us two tools: a relational, responsive approach for meeting with people in disciple-making and the answer to the common question, “What am I supposed to talk about when I meet with people I am discipling?”

As we use this approach in our disciple-making lives, we have learned a couple of essential principles:

• Trust the Holy Spirit to guide you and them as you meet. Listen to your disciple and to the Holy Spirit, responding in the area that He or they guide you to.
• Don’t say too much. Just “fill” a cup up a little where they or the Spirit show you. You are not there to teach them everything; you are there to add a little and point them to Him.
• Always go back to the center cup every time you’re together. Point them to Jesus and their life in Him. If that cup does not take center stage, then the other four cups of daily living will always suffer, and the disciple will not mature.

Application:

1. Who is the Lord asking you to disciple?
2. Who is discipling you?
3. How can you apply the Five Cups model in these conversations?

You can find more content on this subject at prepareinternational.org. This plan is an excerpt from Prepare International's "Discipleship and Fathering" course.