7 Ways to Make Disciples This Week Without Rearranging Your Life
You're not too busy. You're just not seeing what's already in front of you.
Most Christians aren’t making disciples because they’re too busy.
They’re not doing it because they’ve been trained to treat ordinary life as the waiting room before the real ministry starts.
And so they wait. To feel ready. For the right context. They keep showing up to their actual lives, the 8am commute, the lunch they eat at their desk, the neighbor they wave at from the driveway, half-asleep to what’s right in front of them.
Meanwhile the people they actually know, whose names they actually know, keep moving further from God. Not because nobody cared. Because nobody noticed.
Paul called it redeeming the time (Ephesians 5:15-16). Not finding time. Seeing the time you already have differently.
Here’s how to start doing that this week.
1. Write down three names
Not “lost people.” Not “my sphere of influence.”
Three actual first names. Close to you, far from God.
Work through four lanes:
Passions (the rec league, the fantasy football group, the thing you do Saturday mornings)
People (the coworker two desks over, the brother-in-law, the friend you keep meaning to call)
Places (the coffee shop you go to before work, the gym, the barbershop)
Profession (whoever you eat lunch near, whoever you’re on a project with right now).
Pick three names. Write them on a sticky note and put it somewhere you’ll actually see it, on your monitor, above your kitchen sink, in your car.
You can’t make disciples of people you’re not thinking about. Once their name is written down, something shifts. You start praying differently, listening differently, noticing things you walked past before.
Everything this week starts here.
2. Move one conversation one stage forward
You’re already going to talk to people today. The question is whether you stay on the surface.
Most conversations stay there not because people don’t want to go deeper, but because nobody asks the question that opens the door. You finish the work update, you say “sounds good,” and you both go back to your screens.
“How are things at home lately?”
“How are you actually holding up with all that?”
That’s the first move in what we call the Conversation Box: four stages conversations naturally move through. Casual, meaningful, spiritual, discovery. You don’t need to get to spiritual in one convo necessarily.
You just need to move one conversation one stage forward.
Ask the question. Then listen. Really listen. Don’t fix it or pivot to Jesus. Just be the person who stayed in the conversation two minutes longer than everyone else does.
Next Lab: “From Lost to Leader.” (Wednesday, May 20th at 3PM ET). Learn a simple path to help people move from far from God to growing disciple.
3. Pray about the specific thing they told you
Here’s where most prayer for the lost stays va
gue and useless: we pray for categories, not people.
“Lord, be with the lost.” Okay. But who?
When your coworker mentions in passing that his wife asked for a separation, or your neighbor tells you her mom’s cancer is back, or the guy at the gym says he hasn’t been sleeping since he got laid off, that’s not just information. That’s an invitation. Bring that exact thing to God, with their name attached.
Pray for that situation. Pray that something cracks open in them. Pray that you’ll know when to say something and when to just show up again.
And if someone on your list hasn’t told you anything real yet, pray for the door. Pray that this week you get five minutes with them where it goes somewhere. Then pay attention, because God tends to answer that prayer by using you.
4. Go first
The reason most spiritual conversations never happen: everyone’s waiting for the other person to bring it up.
Nobody brings it up.
So you go first. Not a sermon, not a pivot, not “well as a Christian I believe...” Just honest.
Your coworker is stressed about a performance review. You’ve been there. Instead of “yeah that’s rough,” you say: “I went through something like that two years ago. Honestly the thing that helped me most was...”
Your neighbor mentions her marriage is hard. You don’t change the subject. You say: “I’ve been praying about something similar in our house. It’s been a hard season.”
You’re not performing. You’re just telling the truth about your life. And when you do, you make it safe for them to tell the truth about theirs.
5. Eat with someone
Not a meeting. A meal.
Thirty Slack messages don’t do what thirty minutes at a table does. Nobody’s got their laptop open. Nobody’s glancing at the door. People slow down. The conversation goes somewhere it wouldn’t otherwise go.
Text someone from your list right now and ask if they want to grab lunch this week. The taco place near the office. The diner you both pass on the way in. Doesn’t matter where.
Jesus was constantly at someone’s table, and it was never just about the food.
Before you go, ask yourself: where is this person right now? Have you gotten past casual small talk yet? What’s one thing you want to move toward?
You were eating anyway.
6. Follow up on the real thing they told you
Think back to the last time someone told you something real. The hard thing. The thing they said kind of quietly while you were both doing something else.
Did you ever follow up on it?
Text them today.
“Still thinking about what you shared about your dad. How’s it going?”
“You’ve been on my mind this week. Hope things are looking up a little.”
That’s it. Two sentences while you’re waiting for your coffee to brew.
Almost nobody follows up. Most people say something hard once, feel slightly exposed, and then wait to see if the other person noticed.
When you text them three days later about the specific thing they said, you become a different category of person in their life. Not a friendly acquaintance. Someone they actually talk to.
That’s how casual turns into something real. Not in one big conversation. Across twenty small ones.
We track this in the Conversation Box at obey.tools. It’s a simple way to remember where each person is and what your next move actually is, instead of trying to hold it all in your head.
7. Bring someone with you
If you’re walking alongside someone who’s newer in their faith, stop doing this solo.
Next time you grab coffee with someone you’re trying to go deeper with, bring them along. Let them sit there and watch you ask the question. Let them see you share something honest about your own life. Let them watch the other person open up, or get awkward and change the subject, and see you handle both without freaking out.
Afterward, on the drive back, ask what they noticed. Ask who in their own life they could try that with. Help them write down three names.
This is how it actually multiplies. Not by one person doing everything forever, but by one person bringing the next person along until they don’t need you anymore.
You don’t need to be far ahead. One step is enough.
The thing underneath all of this
Most people are trying to add mission to their life.
The shift is realizing the life you already have is the mission. The Tuesday morning commute. The lunch table. The driveway conversation that went three minutes longer than you planned. Just different eyes on the same week.
Pick one thing from this list and do it before Friday. Then actually tell me what happened. Reply or drop it in the comments. Not being polite. I want to know.
If you need help tracking names and not dropping the thread, use the free Conversation Box at obey.tools.
Start here → https://obey.tools/
Join a 45 Min Skills Lab Zoom Call → https://covomultipliers.com/
Walk with others → https://forms.gle/YwqLhonNSipybAD8A
This is so helpful! I have been really trying to be mindful of this lately! It’s amazing how people will talk if you are willing to listen, ask the right questions and follow up! Thank you for sharing this … such a great tool to referring back to!
Very practical ways to make evangelism a natural part of our life and service to God. Writing these down!