You serve, invite, share, love, weep for, and plead God for the soul of your unsaved friend for what seems like an eternity of days.

And then one day the switch goes on and he surrenders his life to Christ. The joy of this moment surpasses description in the mortal tongue! What do you do now?

Having put his faith in Jesus, he’s taken the first step of becoming a disciple of Christ. But his soul needs food—the food of corporate worship, fellowship, Bible study, prayer, and sharing the faith he once rejected. Just as parents would be horrified if they’re newborn remained a newborn all his life, God would not have His new child remain a toddler! Someone needs to come alongside this babe in Christ and teach him what it means to walk in the path of Jesus.

Whether it be your or someone else, make sure that someone from your local church takes this new believer under his wing, and continues to build on the foundation you laid. Following are twenty tips for discipling a new believer...

1. Embrace the purpose of discipleship which is likeness to Jesus. Let everything you do for your disciple be fueled by this single goal, for it is God’s goal as well (Rom 8:29).
2. Unless you enjoy strolling through spiritual minefields, don’t disciple someone of the opposite sex. The obvious exception to this is discipling your own wife or children. If you’re a guy, there is nothing wrong with discipling your girlfriend, in fact, it sets patterns for a dynamic marriage! But this should not replace your discipleship of or by another guy, because someone of the same sex is going to understand your struggles better and be less subjective in his directness. Your attraction to your boyfriend or girlfriend can also serve as a distraction, making it important to set limits on the time you spend and where you spend it.
3. Be your disciple’s friend. Know her struggles, victories, family life, and challenges in the workplace. Don’t distinguish teaching too much from fellowship, otherwise you run risk of creating a synthetic relationship. Intermingle life, truth, prayer, sorrow, and humor and your best discipleship moments will flow out in the most unique ways. Discipleship is not about “getting through a book” together but “growing together in Christ.” 
4. Be patient with your disciple (Col 3:12-13). Growth works more like a crockpot than a microwave. Remember how long it took you to arrive where you are today. Show your disciple the same grace God gives you every day.
5. Listen well. Don’t just hear what your disciple says, understand how your disciple feels. “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Rom 12:15). 
6. Be transparent and expect transparency. Your disciple needs to be open about his sin. If he isn’t, your discipleship will remain shallow and progress will short-circuit. There is only one thing that inhibits growth, and that one thing is the hardest thing for people to talk about: sin. Encourage openness by being transparent yourself. Of course, talk to no one about your disciple’s struggles or you may breach his trust and wound his walk severely.  
7. Exhort and prod your disciple. Don’t just go through the book or Bible passage. Immerse your time together with exhortation, encouragement, rebuke, and prodding. The Christian life is a fierce battle, so be ready for healthy conflict and friction (Prov 27:17).
8. Don’t be afraid to confront sin. Be bold and have the guts to tell your disciple the truth about what God thinks of sin and give her practical steps for turning away from it.  
9. Stay close enough for your disciple to see you, far enough ahead for him to follow you. This is the all time tension of leadership. If you try too hard to identify with your disciple at his level, you’ll end up leading him nowhere. But run too far ahead, and he’ll get discouraged and give up. Staying close builds trust. Running ahead keeps him moving.  
10. Pray like you breathe. Make it as natural to your discipleship as swimming is to a fish. Pray out loud before, during, and after your meeting and pray for your disciple all through the week. Ask your disciple to do the same and teach her how to do it. 
11. Pick a comfortable setting to meet. A living room is far more conducive to openess than metal chairs on a tile floor. 
12. Invite your disciple into the lives of other believers at your church through social outings, recreational times and Bible studies or Sunday schools.
13. Take your disciple witnessing. The idea that a new believer needs to get more grounded in the Word before sharing his faith is a myth and unbiblical (see Matt 5:19; John 9:25; Acts 9:20). The sooner he starts, the easier it will become. If he knows enough to be saved, he knows enough to witness. Drive to a place with crowds of people (mall, busy shopping center, park, university), spot someone looking bored, introduce yourselves, and say, “May we ask you a few questions about God and faith?” The times of fellowship you and your disciple will encounter in between witnessing conversations will be priceless. Questions the unbeliever asks will prod your disciple’s thinking and give you opportunities to talk about life, God, witnessing, theology, and world-views. 
14. Expect your disciple to do the assignments. If the only time he’s willing to study the Word is during his time with you, what’s going to happen to him if you move away tomorrow?  If after repeated requests on your part he refuses to follow through, lovingly explain that you won’t disciple him until he sticks to his end of the bargain (see 2 Tim 2:2). In the meantime, your time will be better spent with someone who’s ready to count the cost. 
15. Set goals and reach them. For example, you might do a six week study on Colossians, go through FOF in fifteen weeks, or study a theology book together for one semester. 
16. Squeeze the sponge. Sponges can only hold so much until they need to be squeezed. At some point, expect your disciple to do for someone else what you do for her, otherwise his growth plateaus. I’ve stopped discipling several guys because they loved receiving but had no heart for giving. Many of them later returned and asked for discipleship, now ready to disciple someone else. 
17. In most cases I’d suggest you not disciple a believer indefinitely. Unending discipleship relationships that go on forever with no goals or new challenges grow stagnant. You can only take your disciple so far. There are other believers who can teach them things you and I can’t, so plan ahead, decide how long you guys will meet, and then encourage her to move on to someone else. 
18. Grow in your personal walk with Jesus. Make war on sin and continually return to the cross for strength. Christian zeal is contagious and you want your disciple to catch it. You cannot pass on what you do not experience. The joy and freedom tasted through resisting temptation, putting others first, inhaling God’s precious grace, courageously sharing the gospel, delighting in the Word, watching God answer prayer, trusting Christ in your weakness, and feeling the conviction of the Spirit as He reveals sin areas in your life are pearls of worship that no study book can pass on to your disciple.  
19. Just like discipling an unbeliever, above all, love him. No one was better at discipling than Christ Himself, and He died for His disciples (John 15:12-13).