Jeff Johnson:
I grew up in a non-Christian home and was saved as a senior in college. I spent the next two years in a fundamental Bible church before making what I consider one of the greatest discoveries I’ve ever made—the New Testament assembly. For the last two years of my schooling I was in fellowship in an assembly near Chapel Hill, NC.
At the end of those two years, I moved to New Orleans to do a two-year residency program. Just before I moved to New Orleans, I was at a Southeast Worker’s Conference where I heard and met a man by the name of Vernon Schlief. I heard that he was involved in a discipleship program and I saw a brochure which described the program that he was offering. Saved four years, two years in the assembly, it sounded like something from which I could benefit. When I went to New Orleans, I moved right into the same neighborhood as the Schliefs and began the discipleship training program. I spent two years being discipled by this godly man.
Vernon Schlief is one of my heroes of the faith. I think of him as a modern day George Mueller. He was a real man of faith. His faith was used by God in a mighty way in the Deep South in seeing hundreds of people saved and many assemblies planted. He had a serviceman’s center, a boys’ home, and was used in a mighty way, particularly in the decades that he spent discipling young men.
There is no way I can tell you how much that helped me. I am not the same person. The time spent with this man of God made an eternal impact on my life.
My wife and I met with him every week. He fed us lunch on Sunday and then we spent the whole afternoon talking with him. During the week we studied the Scriptures and made outlines of what we were learning. On Sunday afternoon we would present our outlines and talk about the Lord, talk about our week, talk about whatever was on our hearts. We went to meeting in the evening and then back to his house so he could feed us again. He was a generous man. For two years, this man poured his heart and soul into our lives and made a tremendous impact on us.
I finished my residency program and moved to a little town called Reidsville, NC—about 15,000 population. We were in fellowship thirty minutes away at Shannon Hills Bible Chapel in Greensboro. At the end of a nine-year period, the Lord put a burden into the hearts of four couples to see a New Testament assembly started in our town of Reidsville. All four of us had connections to Reidsville. We began by having Bible studies in my office. The Lord blessed. After about two years of Bible study, we started meeting as a local church in a rented room in the YMCA. After seven years of meeting there (about four years ago) we built a new building. The Lord has really blessed our assembly. Our group is around 100-110 people on the Lord’s Day and probably about 75 on Wednesday nights.
One of the things we’ve seen in our assembly that has been a real blessing is personal discipleship. It has pervaded our assembly. We have quite a bit going on—both men and women are meeting one-on-one, investing themselves in the lives of other believers.
I have been fortunate to see discipleship from both ends: I’ve received the benefit in my own life and I’ve seen it from the giving end. I am here to testify to the tremendous value that it can be in the life of a believer.
Who would not have benefitted from someone coming along, taking you under their wing, and helping you along in the Christian life? I think we can all identify with that.
Bob Brown:
I was in the navy, and thirty-two years old when I got saved. Some time after, I received in the mail a notice of a discipleship program with Vernon Schlief and thought, “I would like to learn the Bible.” It was for young men—I wasn’t. It was for people who lived in Mr. Schlief’s area—I didn’t. He was thinking of some single young men who could move there, get a part time job, and spend time with him. I was none of those things.
I told him, “I would really like to learn the Bible. Would you teach me?” He said, “I don’t know. Why don’t you come over and have dinner with me and I’ll find out.” He asked me a lot of questions: Was I serious? Was I willing to spend a minimum of one hour a day on my own digging in the Scriptures? Was I willing to be at every meeting whenever the doors were open? Was I willing to make a commitment to the things of God in my life and make my life count? I was, so he agreed to meet with me for three hours a week.
Tuesday was my night. I’d leave work at 3:45 and go to the Schlief’s bookstore. I’d browse around, following Mr. Schlief wherever he went. I observed what he did, what he said, how he dressed, who he talked to, how he talked to them, how he carried himself. I watched everything about him. Then we would go to his house where his wife, Gladys, served us dinner and we would talk about the Lord’s things—how they got there, where they came from, what they had done. I got to know the man. I didn’t think I was learning Scripture, but actually I was learning how Christianity comes out in a life. It’s not dead words in a book—it’s living and more powerful than anything we’ve ever seen. It changes lives. You don’t learn that in a classroom.
Then we would go to his Bible study room and for a couple of hours we would talk. When we sat down, he’d asked, “So how did your week go, Bob?” The first hour or so was spent talking about my week. “Well, this guy poked me and I was ready to rip his head off…” “What do you think the Lord would have done in that situation?” We weren’t even in the Book yet—we just talked about life and how the Word applies to life’s circumstances.
He made me buy a steno pad. Down one half of the paper, I would write questions from the things I had been studying during the week. After we talked about my week, he would say, “Well, do you have your pad?” I’d open it up and we’d start with the questions. “Where did Cain get his wife? Can God make a rock that He can’t lift?” Sometimes he would say, “Bob, those are questions that unsaved people ask when they’re trying to put God in a box. Our God is bigger than any box. I remember the time when the men from the servicemen’s center were staying here. We didn’t have a bit of food and I prayed and do you know what happened? A ship ran aground on the curve of the Mississippi River. In order to lighten the ship they had to throw bananas overboard. We ate bananas for a month—fried bananas, banana sandwiches, raw bananas. Can God make a rock that He can’t lift? I don’t know. But He can make a ship run aground in a place that it has never since run aground in order to feed a bunch of men.” During those times I learned that God is real, faith is real and Scripture isn’t just words on a page. It is real and it changes life.
I thought, “That’s the God I want to know. That’s the God I want to serve—not the big, faraway God that I learned about at the fancy church where I grew up.” I wanted some excitement and He is an exciting God. He is bigger than any box and you don’t learn that just by reading words. You learn it by living it out.
Written by Jeff Johnson and Bob Brown