I was driving my friend Robert to the airport and I used the hour to grill him on how to make disciples. Back in Uganda, he cares for over a hundred pastors, several dozen orphans, and he does evangelism in prisons – a good range of experiences to explore.

“Well first I listen to their story….” and I’m like “Ya, ya, of course, but how do you disciple them?”

The next day I had an appointment with my physiotherapist. She has an effective but unusual approach which requires convincing people that, e.g., their knee injury isn’t the real problem, it’s just a symptom of their ribs being out of alignment. What!? Anyways, I asked her how she “converts” her clients.

“Well first I listen to their story….” and I’m like “Wait. You what? Why?”

She spends over half the first hour-long appointment understanding their story. She explained she’s looking for beliefs or feelings that will get in the way of their treatment. And then every time they come back, like she does with me, it’s not “how’s your knee?”, it’s “how’s your last couple of weeks been?”

Then I checked with another friend, who has thousands of interactions with unbelievers each year. “Oh ya, there are many things where I vary my approach, but 100% of the time I’ll get their story first.” The others said similar things. Why are they doing that?

Stories build our faith. Well, let me specify: stories about God and his love build our faith.

Often people tell their stories as if God was not with them in their suffering, which is never true. When we help them recognize where God was in their story (e.g. “Close your eyes. Jesus, show them where you were.”) they can believe he’s with them now and will be with them in the future.

Stories give us the context for discipleship. I don’t gather up my kids to tell them 3 things I learned and apply that to their lives. Well, actually I do sometimes. Nuts. Anyways, the point is that when we love people, we listen to them, see where God’s at work, and join in their stories. We don’t ask people how they’re doing to be polite before we get on with the meeting, we love them where they’re at. That is the meeting.