I became a Christian in May of 1976, while serving in the United States Navy at the Naval Operations Base in Norfolk, Virginia. I owe a debt to the Navigators who invested their lives in me. Nearly fifty years later, I understand that debt better than I did then.
The Navigators began through the ministry of Dawson Trotman, a lumberyard worker and layman with a passion for evangelism, who though possessing no formal theological education or ecclesiastical office, became convinced that the great need was disciples who could make disciples. He found his pattern in Paul’s words to Timothy: commit what you have learned “to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.”
That was the Christianity I encountered in Norfolk. The men who discipled me did not merely lead me to Christ; they taught me how to pray, study the Scriptures, memorize the Word, share my faith, and help men grow in Christ. Their approach was intensely relational and remarkably simple.
In the years since, I have studied Reformed theology, ecclesiology, apologetics, eschatology, and many of the great theological controversies that have occupied the Church for centuries. That study has been valuable. It has corrected errors, sharpened my thinking, deepened my understanding of Scripture, and given me categories I did not possess as a young Christian.
But I can say without hesitation that none of it has done me more practical good or contributed more to my growth in Christ than the simple disciplines instilled in me during those first months with the Navigators. What I needed to know to live a productive Christian life, I learned as a young sailor. There was nothing complicated about it. The power was in the practice; simple disciplines practiced daily compounded over time.
Scripture memory, in particular, became the single most valuable discipline the Navigators instilled in me. It was God’s word hidden in my heart, which I memorized many years earlier, that called me back when I had strayed away from the faith. Another significant truth I learned is that discipleship is fundamentally relational. Church membership doesn’t make disciples; disciples make disciples.
The Navigators taught me that the work of making disciples belongs to ordinary Christians.
Nearly fifty years after becoming a Christian, I have accumulated more theological opinions and doctrinal convictions than I possessed as a twenty-one-year-old sailor. Some of them matter greatly. But when I ask what has most sustained me, shaped me, and helped me grow in Christ, I return to the simple disciplines promoted and instilled by the Navigators.
