Book Review: One-To-One: A Discipleship Handbook By Sophie De Witt In the opening of this book Rico Tice says; ‘If you understand this book and put its principles into practice … you’ll be absolute gold dust in any church family.’ I can only echo these words as I have benefitted massively from reading this book and hope that because of it my church family will too. As a student trainee at church one of our main areas of ministry is meeting up with students one to one. This is a really valuable ministry as you can study the bible together and apply it very specifically into the student’s lives. It also gives you the time to talk and pray through encouragements and problems. One to one’s can be particularly strategic with new Christians, people that you think may go onto ministry themselves and with people who are not yet Christians but want to learn about the Christian faith. Well, Sophie De Witt really helps people with this book who want to be part of doing one to one’s as she lays out biblical principles of how valuable this work is, along with guidelines on how to carry it out and some good resources so that you can get on and do it.
1. The Value of One to One’s.‘God’s plan is that we live and grow as Christians together, this only happens as we focus on each other as individuals.’There is a great quote from John Stott at the start of the book where he talks about someone who led him to Christ and then discipled him for many years, it turns out that this same man also did one to one work with Michael Green. God clearly used this man in a hugely valuable way to train and disciple people and encourage them to grow in their love and service of the Lord Jesus. In the New Testament we find these principles through Paul’s example with Timothy(Acts16) and Titus(2Corinthians1v13). The strategy of Jesus was to teach 12 disciples and then to let them go and spread the gospel: ‘Jesus’ strategy for reaching the world was to first reach a small group in a thorough way – so that in time through them he would then reach the world’.In essence then one to one work is massively valuable as we seek to point the whole world to Christ and see the extension of his kingdom.2. The how to of one to one’s.One of the main strength’s of this book is that it is totally practical and covers many areas of one to one ministry. From how to get one started, amounts of time to spend, where to do it, who to do it with, how to study the bible, prayer, what to do when things get difficult etc. It is clear that Sophie de Witt has lots of experience in this area and she has spoken to many people that have to. Throughout the chapters they are punctured by speech boxes from other people who also shed their wisdom and insight on specific areas of one to one work.This is really helpful even for people who have been involved in one to one’s for some time. It may give you new ideas, correct what you do currently or encourage you that what you are doing is considered worthwhile and right. Through all the practical elements of the book the common thread is still that ‘the most important thing in personal work is to get people to be disciples of but one man – and that is Christ’. 3. ResourcesAt the end of the book is a great list of resources that would be great to use in one to one work and really useful in setting it up yourself. There are some sample bible studies that serve as a great example and also books and web resources that you can use yourself or point others to. Overall, I would really recommend this book to people who want to be effective in bringing people Jesus and encouraging people to maturity with Jesus through personal work. It is great to equip you with all that is necessary to do it and also encourages you that we have a soverign God who can work in our weakness and chooses us to bring about his plans, namely people bowing the knee before the Lordship of Jesus.
