{"id":4694,"date":"2025-06-11T09:48:44","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T13:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=4694"},"modified":"2025-06-12T09:49:41","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T13:49:41","slug":"vtps-very-trainable-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/11\/vtps-very-trainable-people\/","title":{"rendered":"VTPs Very Trainable People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>

As summer heat gives way to crisp autumn days, Midwesterners typically throw open their doors and windows.

Then as nighttime temperatures become downright chilly, most homeowners will notice some visitors at their front door.

We\u2019re talking about houseflies.\u00a0

Having luxuriated for weeks in the warmth of August, flies who survive until September increasingly have one abiding mission:\u00a0I\u2019ve got to find a place to hang out during the winter.\u00a0<\/em>And your family room definitely looks like a great bed and breakfast.

Every time you approach your screen door, there they are.\u00a0And they\u2019re just dying to get in.

There\u2019s a certain kind of person whom we might describe as a Screen Door Hanger.\u00a0

They belong to the third category of Gordon MacDonald\u2019s five domains of individuals who make an impact on our energy for living.

We\u2019re talking about VTPs, or Very Trainable People.\u00a0<\/strong>If a Very Resourceful Person (a mentor) raises our energy by +3, and a Very Impactful Person (a friend or ally) stokes the fires of our perseverance by +2, a VTP, according to MacDonald, lifts our energy by +1.

That\u2019s not a huge boost, but it\u2019s definitely a positive.\u00a0

A Very Trainable Person is a potential apprentice \u2013 someone who looks up to you, who wants to learn from you, and who basically wants to be<\/u><\/em> like you when they grow up. That of course would include our children, nieces, nephews and the like.\u00a0In the eyes of the next generation of your own family, you unquestionably fit the mold of a VRP.\u00a0

But don\u2019t stop there.\u00a0It\u2019s highly likely there are other people in your world who admire you.\u00a0When you talk, they listen.\u00a0When you lead, they follow.\u00a0When you teach, they learn.

Sometimes these folks are hard to see.\u00a0That\u2019s because most of us rarely look for them.\u00a0

But every time you turn around, there they are. It\u2019s as if you shut your front door and they\u2019re hanging on the screen.\u00a0They\u2019re dying to get in because, when it comes right down to it, they just really want to spend time with you.

We can scratch our heads and wonder why in the world those VTPs keep bugging us.\u00a0

Or we can embrace them as gifts from God. They are, after all, very trainable<\/em> people, and they\u2019re hoping we will be the ones who will pour into their lives something of our insight, our passion, and our coaching.

That sounds like hard work.\u00a0Often it is.\u00a0

But Gordon MacDonald wisely assigns a positive <\/em>energy value to the time we spend with VTPs.\u00a0That\u2019s because their eagerness and willingness to know us as mentors can feel like a jolt of raw energy when our own spirits are lagging.\u00a0

According to what we know of Paul, from his letters and the book of Acts, Christianity\u2019s earliest missionary was rigorously committed to training spiritual apprentices \u2013 especially a young man named Timothy. The presence of someone like Timothy \u2013 someone who is receiving from us the gifts and insights that we have received from God \u2013 is the surest evidence that we actually believe Jesus\u2019 \u201cfamous last words\u201d about raising up disciples in every nation.

Paul tenderly describes him as \u201cmy true child in the faith\u201d (I Timothy 1:2) and \u201cmy son\u201d (I Timothy 1:18), and even says to the Philippians, \u201cI have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare\u201d (1:20).

Paul confirms he wasn\u2019t the first discipling presence in Timothy\u2019s life: \u201cI have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you\u201d (2 Timothy 1:5). There were already three generations of faith under Timothy\u2019s roof. The VTPs in our lives, in other words, might already be sitting at our dinner table every evening.

In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul tells Timothy he needs to entrust what he has learned to other people. In Greek the word \u201centrust\u201d means making a secure run to the bank to deposit a treasure.\u00a0

Here we need to be careful to remember that discipling another person is not doing a \u201cdata dump\u201d into a particularly teachable brain. Paul knew Timothy. He loved him. Disciples are not widgets. Every human being is a uniquely crafted bearer of God\u2019s image, and the ways we teach, model, pray, and share life with that person will always include elements of sheer mystery.

The decisive phrase in 2 Timothy 2:2 is the last one: who will be able to teach others also. <\/em>Effective disciplemaking thus involves four generations. In this verse we see Paul, who\u2019s pouring into Timothy, who\u2019s doing the same thing with a few others \u2013 with the key proviso that Timothy must find a way to carry out this mission so that the chain will not be broken \u2013 to ensure that the third generation will raise up a fourth.\u00a0

Our call, in the end, is not to be spiritual cul-de-sacs, or end users of the grace of God.\u00a0

So who is your Timothy? To whom are you entrusting what God has entrusted to you?

Why, after all, has God enriched our lives through the love, encouragement, and wisdom of others?

His blessings and gifts have come to us because they\u2019re on their way to someone else.<\/em>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to today’s reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here As summer heat gives way to crisp autumn days, Midwesterners typically throw open their doors and windows. Then as nighttime temperatures become downright chilly, most homeowners will notice some visitors at their front door. We\u2019re talking about houseflies.\u00a0 Having luxuriated for weeks in the warmth of August, flies who survive until… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4695,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[940,942,941],"class_list":["post-4694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apprentices","tag-discipling","tag-timothy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4696,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4694\/revisions\/4696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}