I’d like to share my discipleship story and ask you to pray for me.  Last fall, I began to ask the Lord to bring people into my life that actually wanted to be discipled. I live in a “religious” part of our Canadian province, and many people just don’t want to be discipled.  Life is just too busy for that!

So, around Christmas time, I felt a gentle nudge to befriend a lady who had tragically watched her husband drown while saving their only child and, as a result, suffered from post traumatic stress.  We connected, and God has greatly blessed both of us in our friendship.  But, it hasn’t been what I thought it would be.  It’s slow going and certainly requires lots of grace and patience.  She seems to be seeking God and searching, truly hungry for love, but is presently looking in earthly relationships to fill this void.  She is also being pursued by a married “Christian” man. 

Then, shortly after Christmas, a friend that I hadn’t been connected with for a long time was brought back into my life.  She apologized to me for the way she had treated me and then proceeded to tell me her story, which she had been attempting to suppress for years.  She had been sexually abused for many years, starting when she was four years old.  Currently, her “Christian” husband is being unfaithful to her and telling her that she is the reason he is doing this.  She believes this and is broken-hearted that she is the cause for “ruining” a godly man.  SO much pain and damaged emotions wrapped up in this precious lady’s life.  Amazingly, God has opened the way for her to accept a few truths from me.  However, she does not believe that God is good right now, so trusting Him is an issue.

I truly believe that God has answered my prayer by giving me these two ladies as disciples, and I believe He is going to do great healing and bring them into His Light and Life.  Will you please pray that I will abide in Him and have wisdom, love, patience, and grace in the process. 

This is not what I expected discipleship to be like at all, but it is amazing to know that Christ is living through me.

Engstrom’s article is titled, “What Makes a Missional Community Different?” Different than what? A community group, a Bible study, and a small group, for starters, though he’s not saying that those terms are wrong or that the term “missional community” is right. Yet generally, Engstrom also shows how the ideas behind missional communities are different from the idea that someone should attempt to make disciples lone-ranger-style. The difference is huge, and if we are seeking to effectively make disciples as the body of Christ, we would do well to consider some of the vital truths and practical help that Engstrom offers as he encourages missional communities… whether we call them that or not.

“It all started with a simple question, ‘Would you guys be interested in helping out with Cub Scouts?’ I think we literally laughed in Keri and Shellie’s face,” says Mitch.

What began as doubtful laughter turned into grace-drive service. Let me introduce you to Mitch and Cory – not the engineers, but the Cub Scout leaders. Here’s their story.

For more information about Shattered, the magazine that published this article, be sure to check out their website.

How can I reach my neighbors?

What are some ways I can be an effective witness in my workplace?

How do I tell people about Jesus as an introvert?

What are some ways I can share my faith?

If you’ve ever asked any of these questions, you’re not alone. These are great questions! Sometimes we can know all about discipleship, believe in the mission, and even desire to be obedient, without knowing where to begin. But when the rubber meets the road, we’ve got to know how to actually make disciples… not in theory, but in practice.

In light of this, check out this Verge post containing practical ways to be “missional,” which they simply describe as living “as Jesus lived – as sent people who live everyday life with gospel intentionality.”

Maybe we aren’t all supposed to be career missionaries… fair enough. But then what did Jesus mean when he said to make disciples of all nations?

At least one thing it means is that we don’t have the right to be merely American in our Christianity. Nor do believers in China have the right to be merely Chinese in their walk with God. Believers everywhere serve the same God, and he is the Creator and Sustainer of Chinese people, American people, and all peoples in between. As such, he deserves the praise of them all. We can celebrate our respective cultures and enjoy them, but we cannot hate or ignore other cultures.

So when we become aware that there are 4.1 billion unreached people in this world, we don’t have the option of responding (or not responding) apathetically. God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth,” and he has appointed us to be his ambassadors (1 Timothy 2:4; 2 Corinthians 5:20).

This doesn’t mean we forsake the local ministry with which we’ve been entrusted. People are either lost or saved, and to reach out to the lost is always a great thing, no matter where you do it. But there is a difference between being lost in America’s Bible Belt and being lost in the mountains of Nepal. UPGs (defined in the previous post) do not have access to the gospel like the other people groups of the world, and that’s an urgent need we must address. To say one must choose between either local ministry or global missions is to create a false dichotomy. It’s not an either/or, but a both/and. You can live here and work for there; you can go there and impact here. Faithful local ministry and faithful global missions actually serve one another.

Have you considered the entirety of the Great Commission? Are you intentionally making disciples of all nations, even if indirectly? Do you have a heart for the unreached? The task is huge, and the task is difficult, but what a privilege to be a part of it! As a quick look at Revelation 7 will tell you, it is a joyous task that is guaranteed success.

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” (Revelation 7:9-12)

For more information about the nations, check out Operation World, Joshua Project, and People Groups.

This is an important component of the Commission. Jesus could have just as easily said, “Go, make disciples,” and left it there. But he didn’t. In fact, he made a point to specifically command them to go beyond their own people. This is enforced in Acts 1:8 when Jesus names specific areas to which his followers, empowered by the Holy Spirit, would go. The short list was then ended with a big vision for “the ends of the earth.”

We don’t have to stop with Jesus’ words to his disciples before he ascended to heaven. From Genesis to Revelation, God has an evident heart for the nations. He starts by blessing one nation, ultimately purposing to bless all of them through Israel (Gen 12:2-3). We see glimpses of God’s international redemption in people like Rahab and Ruth, and then in prayers like Psalm 67, a plea to God to “let all the peoples praise [him].” Then, as the church is spreading, the Bible ends with a picture of heaven in which people from all the nations of the earth are worshiping their Savior and King (Rev 7:9).

So does this apply to us?

There are currently 6,600 unreached people groups (UPGs) in the world, which means that less than 2% of the people in each of those groups (designated as such by common ethnic identities and languages) are evangelical Christians. 4.1 billion of the world’s 7 billion people are unreached.  Of those 6,600 UPGs, 3,500 are also unengaged, which means that there is no evangelical church-planting strategy underway among them.  There are 350 million people In these unreached unengaged people groups (UUPGs).

For someone born in a UUPG, they will most likely live and die having never heard about Jesus.

So, let’s ask again, does the “all nations” portion of Jesus’ command apply to us? We’ll put it this way: the Great Commission has yet to be accomplished.

Statistics gathered from the IMB

Right?

Some of you are probably familiar with the John Piper quote, “Missions exists because worship doesn’t.”  Our God is worthy of all people’s worship. So, out of love for God and love for people, we endeavor to lead those who aren’t currently worshiping God to do so. In other words, the purpose of making disciples is that people will worship God.

And this rings true in Scripture, doesn’t it?  From the Ten Commandments (Ex 20, Dt 5) to the Great Commandment (Mt 22:36-40, Mk 12:28-31), God is concerned with people worshiping and loving himself above anything he created. This means that we are to subject ourselves to his lordship, obeying his commands. “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3). In obeying God, we worship him.

Therefore, we can worship God by obeying Jesus’ Great Commission to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:18-20). And we must worship God by making disciples of all nations… it is, after all, a command. Worshiping God by being a witness of Jesus is why God has left us on this earth until Christ returns. For worshiping God in heaven would surely be “far better,” but worshiping him in the meantime by discipling others is “necessary on [their] account” (Ph 1:21-24).

Yet in all this, we must be mindful that making disciples is only a piece of the puzzle which, when put together, is a complete life of worshipping God.

It only makes sense, really. How are we to expect people to listen to us when we tell them to be baptized if we have not been baptized ourselves? How are we to teach them all that Jesus has commanded us if we don’t know and practice his commands ourselves? Making disciples is certainly an act of worship, but aren’t prayer, studying, giving, singing, and thanking also acts of worship?

It stands to reason, then, that you can’t make disciples well if you aren’t also doing these other things. So our encouragement to you is to worship God. By making disciples, yes, but also by not neglecting the other worshipful acts of the Christian life. While disciple-making will pass away, worshiping God will endure forever, and that should be our ultimate goal. Our desire at Multiply is to help equip and encourage you in the disciple-making portion of your worship, so this is what we focus on. However,  other areas of your worship need focus as well.

Are we deemphasizing disciple-making? Not at all! In fact, by emphasizing worship as the ultimate purpose of all disciple-making disciples, obeying the Great Commission is elevated to its proper place. Likewise, as we become better worshipers, we become better disciple-makers too. Praise God for his glorious design!

What do we find when we examine the portrait of a disciple in Jesus’ parables? A consistent emphasis on the disciple’s need to do two things:

1. Understand the current eschatological moment.
2. Live accordingly.

In other words, discipleship is portrayed in terms of “wisdom,” and wisdom is defined by living in light of “what time it is.”

Take a look at some examples…”

Read the rest of Trevin Wax’s post here: “A Disciple Is Someone Who Knows What Time It Is”

Now, here is Peter’s description of Jesus’ suffering some years after he went to the cross:

For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Pet 2:19-25) 

If you want a real perspective-changer, sit on these verses for a little bit.

Jesus, “though he was in the form of God” (Phil 2:5-11), humbled himself by coming to us as a human. Not stopping there, though such an act needed no further humbling, Jesus allowed himself to be scorned, reviled, despised, rejected, and, ultimately, killed by people who lied about him. Knowing that obedience to the Father was the most important thing he could do, and knowing that he would be vindicated in the end, he did not take it upon himself to justify himself to the wicked people he came to save. Though falsely accused, he was silent, and he carried his own cross to Calvary.

To see if we can more fully realize how amazing this is, imagine little, wooden toy soldiers that could talk. Just think of a toy maker carefully crafting and carving these toys with his masterful hands, and then, when he was finished, the soldiers coming to life in their own wooden-toy world. Now imagine their maker becoming a wooden soldier himself so that he could more clearly convey to them his concern for them, for their good. Although that move hardly makes sense in the first place, of everything that exists, it would seem that the wooden soldiers would appreciate it the most. But instead, they falsely (and ridiculously) call their now-wooden maker a fraud, slander him, and hate him. They beat him up, scratch his finish, and crush him.

What did the artist-in-toy-form do? That whole time, he silently and humbly endured it. Though he could have turned back into the human toy maker at any point to justly exalt himself and immediately shame and crush his wicked creations, he did not.

Though imperfect and incomplete, maybe this silly little example will help us see how much more astounding it was for God’s only Son to suffer ridicule and death at the hands of his creation.

Yet in the middle of the violence, Jesus kept his eyes on the prize. Jesus knew that in the end, he would be “highly exalted” as the one bearing “the name that is above every name,” the one to whom “every knee should bow,” and the one about whom “every tongue [would] confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11).

Now, because of Jesus’ humble obedience and love, we have been reconciled to God through his death, and we can cling to the same promise of ultimate vindication in the end. If you endure when reviled for following him, remember that in God’s eyes, you are doing a gracious thing (1 Pet 2:19). Keep your eyes on the prize of the glory of eternal life with God in his eternal Kingdom. To pick up on what Paul lays out in Romans 8:18, the suffering you endure now doesn’t even compare to that prize.

As you share Jesus with people, chances are, you’ll be shot down sooner or later. Many times. And chances are, it won’t just be Jesus they reject and revile, but you with him. Before you stand back up, ready to duke it out with them in a verbal boxing ring, remember Jesus’ example. Will you have the guts not to defend yourself, even if what people say about you isn’t true? We must be prepared to defend the hope that is within us (1 Pet 3:15), yet like Jesus, we must also be ready to silently and defenselessly endure when we are mocked because of it. All the while, we can joyfully count such suffering a blessing, for in the end, we will be victorious. As Jesus’ said to his disciples, “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kind of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matt 5:11-12).

Every disciple is a disciple maker. This is not a peripheral truth. On the contrary, we ought to keep it in the forefront of our minds as we follow Christ and grow in our love for Him.

But we aren’t naive enough to believe that disciple making could ever be reduced to a simple equation or single-dimensioned formula. The fact of the matter is that there is a wide array of spiritual gifts that are intended to be used for building up believers in the local church. These gifts often lend themselves to various roles in the church (e.g., someone builds community through hospitality and generosity, someone else leads musical worship, someone else preaches, someone else leads a Bible study, someone else is a faithful Bible study participant, etc.). On top of that, each person has different strengths and different weaknesses. It makes sense, then, that from discipler to disciple, these gifts, roles, strengths, and weaknesses won’t always match up, and sometimes this can get messy. Yet this is how God intended disciple making to work.

On one level, each believer is supposed to make disciples in an evangelistic sense. This is vitally important to the accomplishment of the Great Commission. We are to seek out nonbelievers from every nation and proclaim the good new to them: that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim 1:15).

By now you probably know that once a disciple is initially made (i.e., someone repents of their sin and trusts in Jesus), the disciple making process is not over. In many ways, it is only beginning. Now begin maturing in their faith as they learn how to actually follow Jesus, growing over time by God’s grace through His Spirit.

At this point, Jerry Bridges, Christian author and long-time disciple maker, has some helpful comments. He submits that in the first stage of post-conversion discipleship, new believers should be personally discipled in how to pray, spend time with the Lord, read their Bibles, rightly apply biblical truth to their lives, etc. This first stage is something that all believers should be engaged in… bringing up baby Christians to the point where they can “self-feed.”

He then discusses a second stage for elders and church leaders, saying that this is not something every believer is necessarily equipped or gifted for. This stage entails what is described in 2 Timothy as entrusting biblical teaching “to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” According to the 2 Timothy context, Bridges calls this “training,” specifically in the realm of church leadership. This would involve church elders identifying and discipling future church elders. Not every believer is intended to participate in this.

Check out his entire twelve-minute audio interview at Desiring God.

Bridge’s observations on 2 Timothy make it clear that not every believer is meant to disciple everyone in all the ways they need. So, you shouldn’t feel defeated if you find yourself in a situation where you can’t seem to meet a particular need for the person you’re discipling. Be faithful in building into him or her as the Lord allows, and then allow others to use their gifts to meet other needs. Each of us is wired and gifted in unique ways. If the person you’re discipling needs teaching and equipping that you can’t adequately provide, connect them with another believer who is gifted in this way. In some ways, this is what makes discipleship so messy. Yet this is also where we see the beauty of Christ’s Body shine through.

In summary, every believer is to make disciples in terms of engaging unbelievers evangelistically, and every believer should look to build into younger Christians as they begin to grasp the basics of following Christ. However, due to our different giftings, roles,  strengths, and weaknesses, disciple-making requires a team effort. Gratefully, God has given us the church for this. Just as every person is not supposed to teach high school calculus, so not every believer will be equipped to train up future pastors and teachers for the work of ministry. Bridges reminds us to be faithful in the role God has given us.