How to Multiply Your Effectiveness

Leslie Basham: Mentoring someone else will challenge you to live out what you believe. Here's Anne Ortlund.

Anne Ortlund: It's a very cleansing thing to disciple, because you think, “Lord, I don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't want to wear a mask. I want to be what I'm telling, what I'm teaching.”

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Monday, March 7.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: One of the things I’ve tried to do over the years since I was a young girl is to get into conversations with women or couples who are further down the road chronologically than I am. Just to ask questions to try and learn what will stand me in good stead as grow in my walk with the Lord. It's always a joy to have guests on Revive Our Hearts who are older. We can kind of sit at their feet, listen and learn, and ask questions and let them teach us from their walk with the Lord.

We have the privilege of doing that today with my friend, Anne Ortlund. Anne is no stranger to many of our listeners. She's written 26 books about all different subjects about our relationship with the Lord. She was the wife for 61 years of Pastor Ray Ortlund.

Our paths crossed when I was a college student in the church that Ray was pastoring. We've kept in touch some over the years. Anne is now widowed. As I’ve been visiting in Southern California, I’ve had a chance to connect with her and to say, “Let's just have a conversation. I want to learn from you.” We're now letting our listeners in on that conversation. Anne, it's so good to be with you. Thanks for letting your life be full and overflowing into lives like mine and our listeners. We're really grateful for you.

Anne: Nancy, you're life has affected mine more than you know. It goes both ways.

Nancy: You have such a heart for mentoring and discipleship. One of the first things I ever heard about you—I didn’t get to know you well as a student because I was involved in other areas of the church life—but I remember when I was student there in the mid-70s, hearing that Anne Ortlund, the pastor's wife, loved discipleship and that you always had a group of women that you were discipling. Ray was always doing the same with a group of men, and that intrigued me.

I realize now that for the last 40 years you've been doing this. I want to talk about this. How do you go about this discipleship, and how did you and Ray get started getting around you a small group? He was a pastor. You were a pastor's wife. How did you start these small discipleship groups?

Anne: I'm glad that you mentioned Ray, because it's not a girl thing. I think it's more important for the guys to do it than the girls, because they're the leaders. They become the leaders in society, the leaders in their churches, the leaders in their homes.

Ray was in a committee that met once a month there at Lake Avenue Church. One week when they were meeting together, he said, “Guys, I'm exhausted. It's very lonely at the top. I need people close around me that will pray for me and hold me accountable. I don't have anybody like that. Would you all be that group?”

They all with one accord began to make excuses. They were all busy men. Ray thought, “Oh boy, I’ve laid a bomb here.” Ted Angstrom, God bless him, spoke up with his chin quivering (he's a crybaby like Ray). Ted said, “Gentlemen, this is not a discussion. This is an altar call.” He went from one to the other and said, “Will you? Will you? Will you?” They each said yes. That became Ray's first small group.

They did love each other and pray deeply for each other and opened their hearts to each other. It was a completely confidential thing. I started the next year. Ray began it before I did. We discovered that we couldn’t be without them in our lives. We had as much poured into us as we poured into them, maybe more.

The busier we were, the more we needed it. The more we traveled, the more we needed it. We'd take red-eyes and everything we could to get home in time for our groups on Tuesdays. Even when Ray was pastoring Lake Avenue and traveling full time, speaking at conferences, and writing books, we counted on those prayers of those people who knew where we were and what we were doing. We knew where they were, and we would pray for then.

Nancy: So you would take a group of women, and Ray would take a group of men. How large were those groups, or how large would you recommend that they would be?

Anne: The greatest revival that the English-speaking world has seen happened under the Wesleys. John and Charles, when they were newly saved, went to the Moravian who had led them to Christ. He was out of Moravia when they were in full revival in small groups and disciplining. So Peter Buller, the Moravian, discipled the Wesley brothers. They turned around and began discipling others. That became the method that made them known as Methodists. It was their small groups and their discipling.

How many in a group, they said eight to ten. Our world goes faster these days then theirs did. We say six to eight is max. Actually, I used to have eight, and now I only have six. You know why? So I don’t have to pull out the leaf in my table.

But actually, it does give each person more time. My groups last two hours, as Ray's did. We have one wet and one dry for refreshments. We put them in the middle of the table, and they go on while we're doing what we're doing, but don't take extra time.

Nancy: How do you pick the ones who are to be in your group that year?

Anne: Jesus picked his twelve in Luke 6:12-13. He spent a whole night in prayer and then chose the twelve. These days with word of mouth, they just heard about me and learned to come and ask me. Sometimes I still do choose people I see. I see their hearts are ready, and I ask them. They're usually in their twenties and thirties, or forties at the most. We spend perfectly confidential time. All the issues that they have in wiving and mothering. We always try to mix single gals with the married, because each need the other.

We get into our deepest heart issues. It's around the Word of God, but it's not a Bible study. It's got prayer in it, but it's not a prayer meeting. Shall I name the five things that we do in a group? The five ingredients: worship, the Word, sharing, prayer, and accountability. A lot of groups have the middle three (the Word, sharing, and prayer). Often it's the Word and sharing. We like to talk so much about ourselves, we say, “Oh well, the times up. We didn't have time to pray." So we'll pray for each other, then we leave.

But the first and fifth are so important. For one thing, we are accountable to each other for the dreams and visions that we have. Most of them won't happen if we fly solo. We meet, for instance, from September to June. By January we make three or four goals that will be accomplished, the Lord helping us, by June. We give copies to each of the gals. Continually through those six months, they're holding a loving dagger in our backs.

They're saying, “So you wanted to memorize five verses of scripture. What's your latest scripture?" or "You said you wanted to clean out three closets. How far have you gotten?” And so on.

A lot of groups don't have worship. We don't want to be others-centered. We want to be God-centered. We spend time in worshiping, not at the beginning, but throughout we are sometimes on our faces or on our knees. Ray did the same thing in his groups with guys.

Nancy: So you pick gals who are hungry-hearted.

Anne: I pick “fat” ones. F-A-T: faithful, available, teachable. You think about who Jesus did not pick for his small group. He didn’t pick Nicodemus, who loved him very much and had great influence in the high secular circles. He didn't pick Joseph of Arimathea who had a lot of money. He could have financed all of those travels. Those two must have been too meshed in their various important lives to be free enough to go wherever Jesus went.

Jesus picked available people. Faithful. Available. Teachable. There are some people that know a lot and want to tell you all that they know. They're not listening because they're talking. If they talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, as one did a couple weeks ago, I know that they’re not going to fit, because they need to fit in with the other five.

You just look for those meek and quiet spirits that the Lord loves. It makes beautiful women. Second Timothy 2:2 says, "Timothy the things that I've taught you, teach to not just anybody, not just warm bodies, but to reliable men who will teach others also" (paraphrased). And the reproduction means everything. If they think they're just in it for a year and that's that, I don't take them. They come to me with the promise that they’re going to disciple for the rest of their lives. Girls, who will disciple girls, who will disciple girls, and so on.

Nancy: That's so critical. How many Christians sit there in church, or in Sunday school, or small groups, or Bible studies week after week, month after month, year after year taking in, but never giving out, never reproducing.

Anne: Or maybe not taking in. They're planning next week's menus or who knows what they're doing. If they're not accountable and not responsible, they don't even have to take it in.

Nancy: Then, once you have been taking it in, there's an accountability of stewardship to reproduce that in the lives of others. I think some of our listeners—this is going to sound maybe a little crazy—need to get out of Bible study because they've taken in so much, and now need to be training, mentoring, and discipling others.

Anne: It makes all of the difference when these women come into my groups knowing that the next year they're going to pass on that material. They don't have to. It's not copyrighted. It doesn't have to be Anne Ortlund stuff. But at least they know that much, and can give that if they don't know anything else.

Nancy: For one year they're going to be in a group with you. Then the understanding is that the next year they will disciple a group of women themselves.

Anne: Absolute commitment. They can't come into the group unless they're going to do that. It's not just for the next year, it's for the rest of their lives, God helping them. The next year they're going to pick girls who will do the same. They guys are up to exactly the same thing.

There is a church in our area that was founded by one of Ray's dearest disciples who clung to him like a son to a father. He and several others planted this church. It's been ten years now, and there are 8,000 of them because they've discipled and multiplied and multiplied and multiplied.

Nancy: I imagine there are some listening who are older women and mature Christians who are thinking, “I cannot imagine. I wouldn't know what to do. I don't think I could lead a small group. I don’t think I could disciple women.” How do you get started?

Anne: They are of my generation. When I was growing up, I though disciple was a noun, I didn’t know it was a verb. They were these twelve men that walked around with Jesus in sandals and robes. It wasn’t until we came more into an understanding of the body of Christ that people began to take discipling and small groups seriously.

When you first begin, I'm sure I didn’t do a very good job of it. You just tell what you know. Let me give an illustration. Here's Suzy, and she accepts the Lord. She's a brand new believer, and somebody has told her about discipling. She thinks about Dotty down the street who doesn't know Jesus. Suppose somebody led her to Christ with John 3:16, so that's all she knows. She calls up Dotty and says, “Are you free next Thursday? Could you come over for coffee and a little Bible study?”

Dotty may say, “Okay.” And she comes and she teaches her John 3:16. That's all she knows. When Dotty goes away, she may say, “Thanks a bunch,” and that's the end of that. Or she may say, “That was cool. Can we meet again next week?” Then Suzy has got seven days to learn something new to tell Dotty the next week.

Nancy: When you pick these women, you say you're going to meet with them for a year. What's your objective in the course of that year? What are you hoping will happen in the lives of those women?

Anne: Colossians tells what we're going to do. Colossians 1:28, “We proclaim Christ.” That's what we're for. Admonishing and teaching. Admonishing is not the fun part, but it is important. When you plant a garden, you not only have to water and feed, you have to pull the weeds to. There are always times when I have to correct somebody's doctrine if it's false. I don’t want the rest of the girls to think that I let it go and that it's okay. Or if something is a bitter spirit that all the girls are sensing and she may not see it well, it's my responsibility to help her sweeten up and to talk about that.

“Admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom [here's the goal], that we may present everyone perfect in Christ. To this end, I labor” (Colossians 1:28-29, NKJV). This is hard work. I labor struggling with all of His energy. Don't you love it? I labor. I struggle. But it's His energy, not my own, which so powerfully works in me.

"I want you to know how much I’m struggling for you." Paul's speaking to the Colossians—"for all who have not met me personally. My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding" (Colossians 2:1-2, paraphrased). That's my longing. I'm not able to do that. I wouldn't know enough to do that from September to June. But I long for them to have the "full riches of complete understanding" (verse 2, paraphrased).

I think of one popular book that was out several years ago that was such heresy. A lot of the gals in our area, and the guys too, really fell for it. They just thought that book was too cool for words. I had to say, “I've gone though it for three hours. First I read it quickly, then I read it again. Here are thirteen heresies that I see in this book.” It was eye-popping for them. But it was a wonderful learning tool for them to look for what is bad doctrine and what is error, what Satan might want to put in their heads that will distract them from the true sweet gospel.

So all of that is involved in admonishing and teaching. You struggle and you labor and you discover He's doing the whole thing, and to Him you give all of the glory.

Nancy: I find so many Christian women today who are lonely, who are feeling isolated maybe because of their season of life or the busyness. They may know a lot of people or are part of a big church, but they don't feel like they're really connecting life-to-life in a meaningful way. But a group like this, I would think, really helps believers develop close relationships with one another and become a part of each others lives.

Do you see those one another scriptures starting to take place in the lives over the course of the year?

Anne: Oh yes. Some years we actually take those thirteen words in the Bible that are one anothers: love one another, care for one another, lie not to one another, and so on. We make a chart of those thirteen down the left side and then their names across the top. We see how many of those blanks we can fill in, to be each of those to each of the women in the group.

It's really true that a lot of women who are at home—maybe they're newly widowed, or maybe their kids have left the nest—and their husband is busy at his job, and they feel unwanted and unneeded. This is the time for them to labor. They can get settled into too much television and too much goofing off, too much entertaining themselves or doing things that are simply superfluous and have no eternal value. Yet they've got this knowledge stored up in their heads. Maybe they've been believers for a long time. They need to give themselves away. They need new babies. They need to be reproducing so that they go to heaven with fruit that remains.

Nancy: I have such a burden for that generation—the baby-boomer generation. Seventy-seven million baby-boomers, the first ones of whom have hit retirement age. Many of those women who are recently empty-nesters are looking for a sense of mission and purpose. I say we need an army of those women who will not live for self but will live for others and be actively involved in investing their lives in the next generation. We need you women to be disciplers and to take responsibility to pass the baton of truth on to the next generation of women.

Anne: That's exactly what Titus 2 talks about. When Paul is telling this young pastor Titus, “Teach what is in accord of sound doctrine, and teach older men—and it tells what to teach them—likewise, teach the older women to be reverend in the way they live, not to be slanderers.” Oh, our tongues. He often has to warn us about our tongues. “Not to be addicted to much wine.” When I was growing up, that didn't need to be said, but it does in this day. We have taken hold of wine, and it can be a problem for Christians.

“Teach the older women not to be addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. Then they can train—and the word is the same as disciple—train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands so that no one will malign the word of God” (see Titus 2:1-5). 

What do we see today? Women leaving their husbands. Women not even loving their children many times. Do we see them busy at home? No. Do we see them subject to their husbands? No. All those things should be taught to them by the older women who are qualified.

Nancy: Part of being qualified is to live out those principles yourself. You can't teach someone else what you're not living yourself.

Anne: That's so important. It's a very cleansing thing to discipler, because you think, “Lord, I don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't want to wear a mask. I want to be what I'm telling, what I'm teaching.” That's something that I look for when I'm having lunch with these wives. I look to see what their lives are like, if they are examples to the younger women. Because those younger women will say, “If she has a bad habit, she does it, so I can do it too. She turned out okay. She's discipling people.” It is absolutely important that the life go along with the words.

Nancy: I think it's important that our listeners understand that this is not just something for pastor's wives to do. This is not just something for Anne Ortlund—she's an author, she's a speaker, of course she can disciple. This is something that every one of us as believers should be doing as we mature in Christ.

The format may look a little different. You do it with five. Somebody else may do it one-on-one. You need to be discipling someone. Paul had his Timothy. Paul said, “I'm going to train you with things, and then you are to pass these on to others.” So, let me just ask you, who is your Timothy? Who are you discipling? Whose life are you investing in? What will you have to show for eternity as a result of your heart to disciple?

Anne, thanks for investing in all of those small groups over the years and for challenging our listeners about something that if women who are listening now would start to do this today, this year, imagine forty years from now how many disciples there might be. Long after you're in heaven likely. How many disciples there would be following Christ for generations to come if we would take that mandate seriously.

Anne: You know what? Two thousand years ago, somebody told somebody who told somebody who told somebody until it came to you, listener. After 2,000 years, are you going to be the end of the chain? That would be terrible.

Nancy: What a great opportunity we've been given to take what's entrusted to us, and as stewards of that treasure to pass it on to the next generation.

Anne: Amen.

Leslie: Have you ever thought of yourself as a mentor? God could use you in powerful ways. Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Anne Ortlund have been explaining the value of discipling others. They've shown you how to do it. Anne Ortlund writes about her process of discipling women in the book Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman. The chapter, "Your Closest Relationships," describes the way she began to intentionally pour her life into others. I think you'll find the entire book helpful. She offers wise counsel on your schedule, relationships, work, and appearance.

We'll send you the book Disciplines of the Beautiful Woman when you make a donation of any size to Revive Our Hearts. Just call us at 1-800-569-5959, or visit ReviveOurHearts.com.

Imagine a church of 3,000 people all waiting. No programs, no practices, no meetings, just all of the people together waiting on the Lord. Anne Ortlund has seen this happen. She'll describe it tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

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