A Life Devoted to Discipleship: An Everyday Disciplemaker’s Journey

When Larry Beck first came to faith as a college student in the 1980s, he felt like a spiritual orphan.

Larry was alone the day Christ saved him. He had gone to church one Sunday morning, and as he later drove away from church by his university, he thought, “God, look at me — what a sinful man I am. Would you please take away the guilt for all of my sin?” He felt a shift in his heart that he couldn’t explain — but he began thinking about God and praying to Him fervently every night for the next several days.

Without a strong religious background, all Larry had was a Bible and a newly formed prayer life, neither of which he fully understood. Without someone to guide him in his new Christian faith, Larry began to wander. He moved to Kansas a few months later, and for two and a half years, he lived a mostly fleshly life before the Lord turned him on a different path.

Larry felt the hunger for a spiritual mentor, but didn’t know where to find one. At the time, he lived with roommates, and one of them would meet with an older Christian once a week at their home for one-on-one Bible study. Curious, Larry would sit at the top of the stairs and listen in to their meetings.

“I thought, ‘I need that,’” Larry remembers. “‘I need somebody to walk alongside me, teach me the Bible, and help me understand how to live the Christian life.’ I didn’t know where to go to find someone that would help … until I met Don.”

Don Henry, a Navigator, was teaching a Scripture memorization class that Larry was in. Knowing that Don was an active disciplemaker, Larry asked Don if he would be willing to meet and disciple him. Once the class was finished, they began to meet one-on-one, and Don encouraged Larry to continue having daily quiet time with the Lord and sharing his faith with others.

Equipping disciples in everyday life

Through discipleship, God helped Larry establish a foundation for his faith, learning how to walk and move forward in his Christian life. But his journey did not stop there. Since then, Larry has devoted the past 40 years of his life in Wichita, Kansas to meeting one-on-one and in small groups with men and passing on what he has learned, helping them grow as disciples of Christ and share their faith with others.

“I will never leave another orphan behind,” Larry says. “If I know somebody is new in their faith, and I see their need, I’ll adopt them. I understand the cost of not having someone come alongside you.”

Larry began meeting men wherever he could to help establish them in their walk with Christ and equip them to do the Lord’s work in everyday life, whether that was in his work in the aircraft manufacturing business, his church, or his neighborhood. He remembers how when he and his wife moved into a new home in the 1990s, they met a couple down the road. “I told my wife that it doesn’t get more obvious than this — they were deliberately dumped in our laps,” he says. He and his wife started meeting with the couple individually to do one-on-one Bible studies, and the Lord saved his wife; the husband was already a Christian, but very young in his faith. Now, the Becks and the next door couple are still close friends, serving in church together.

Reaching the Next Generation

Sometimes, Larry has had the pleasure of seeing multiple generations of believers come out of those he has discipled. One such man is Carson, a young man Larry met through church. Carson was expressing dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of the ministries he was involved in, so Larry started to disciple him over his summer break home from university. Larry passed on the knowledge that Don taught him years before through Life-to-Life^® discipleship, and encouraged Carson to share what he was learning with others.

The next school year, Carson started to meet with another student, Russ, to help Russ grow as a disciple of Jesus. Carson was already meeting with a small group of other students and asked Russ to join them. Together, Carson, Russ and the small group began developing deeper relationships with Christ and sharing the gospel with their classmates. Even though Carson has now graduated and moved back home, the ministry he kicked off by investing in Russ continues today on that campus.

“Faithful men may be hard to find,” says Larry, “but the investment you make in them will go on when you are no longer there. And that makes it all worth it to give ourselves to raising up lifelong everyday disciplemakers for Jesus.”

Adopting others into God’s kingdom

Larry is the epitome of an everyday disciplemaker: someone who dedicates their life to raising up disciples, no matter where they are. Larry has never worked on Navigator staff, and yet, through living faithfully in his everyday life, he has adopted a multitude of spiritual orphans into God’s kingdom, one relationship at a time.

“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others” 2 Timothy 2:2 (NIV).

Discipleship Tip:

Look around you. Do you see anyone who is new to their faith, who might need someone to come alongside them? Seek “spiritual orphans” in your life and consider how you can adopt them as a disciple.