Wednesday, May 10, 2017

The Key to Renewal is Discipleship

The Great Commission as given by our Lord Jesus Christ and recorded in Matthew 28:19-20 gives the Church her divine marching orders. We are to make disciples by declaring the Gospel, incorporating new believers into the Church, and teaching them to obey the teachings of Christ as recorded in God’s Word. While we sometimes give the impression that being and making disciples is an activity for super-Christians in actuality it is not optional. All Christians are by definition disciples, followers of Christ, whose lifelong goal is to become more like Christ and who in turn use of their calling and gifts to lead and disciple others in Christ. To actualize the Great Commission in our churches we must move beyond an intellectual assent to the command and develop a culture of discipleship as well as identify specific constructs for the processes to occur (Geiger and Peck, 2016). Before we move to the practical implementation of disciple-making, we need to consider three foundational issues: The Church’s mission, a definition of disciple making, and a model for discipleship/leadership. We examined the issue of the church's mission in a previous post (see January 4, 2014). In our next two posts, we will discuss a definition of disciple making and propose a model for discipleship/leadership.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Amen! I have been doing some reading on discipleship over the past year and see a huge need for many churches to get back to what we as Christians were called to do...make disciples. I am as guilty as anyone for not being faithful to this. I often did not know where to begin or even how to begin but was awakened by the Lord to realize that I need to begin in my own home and move from there outside to those He sends my way. Pray for me to be faithful to this. I believe that all of the church planting and local church strategies that exist need to focus on discipleship if they want to be effective in the lives of those God sends to them.

On a separate note, I read a really good book on discipleship by Bill Hull. It is called, "The Complete Book on Discipleship". It takes discipleship from the days of Jesus' disciples through church history into today allowing the reader to see that discipleship is the core of who we are to be and what we are to do as Christians/disciples in the world today.

Glad to find your blog! I look forward to reading your posts and interacting with you from a distance. Maybe one day we can meet face to face on a regular basis again. I really miss that...and really need that.

Jason