Our churches are often suffering from a lack of fully-formed disciples because, in part, there is a large divide in our thinking --- a divide between evangelism (the announcing that God has made a way back to him) and discipleship (the intentional guiding of others’ lives to trust and follow Jesus).
We believe this is is a false dichotomy. Most don’t realize that the words “evangelism” and “discipleship” are not actually in the Bible. They are words that we use to describe sharing the gospel with lost people (evangelism) and helping Christians to become more like Jesus (discipleship).
But the problem is deeper … as traditionally understood, evangelism without discipleship often creates a shallow, short-lived faith, while discipleship without evangelism can create a sterile faith.
The expression “disciple making” is drawn from the exact words in Matthew 28:19-20 and it encompasses both evangelism and discipleship, but in a more vibrant connection. In disciple making, those sharing the gospel and those helping Christians to become more like Jesus are engaged in the same ministry. And people need both to grow in healthy ways.
And while I hope it changes, a lot of churches still don’t get disciple making...oftentimes reducing it to a program or curriculum.
Disciple making is what Jesus modeled for His disciples.
What we’re saying is that churches are often in crisis due to the disconnection between evangelism and discipleship.. If your church’s health is measured only by one of the two, it will suffer..
This is exactly why we created the The National Disciple Making Forum.
At the Disciple Making Forum, my team and some of the best disciple making leaders in the world share what’s working right now in disciple making and how to apply it to your church.
This is the place to come to get practical insights from people who are doing it every day!
Talk soon,
The Discipleship.org Team
P.S. The National Disciple Making Forum…on sale ... Click here >>
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Phil - Appreciate your faithfulness to the Lord and to the mission He has given you - both of which led you to create this community.
Thank you Jim,
Needs more "work" ... and more good posts - please add related posts from your blog. Your writings have affirmed many of my thoughts and inspired me to offer a place where people like us who are solidly committed to Christ and Scripture are realizing we need a radical reorientation to the wineskins/packages/settings we carry and express our faith with,
Phil
The Lord is pleased by our commitment to making disciples, which we exhibit not just by our words but our actions (hard work) in creating this forum and writing blog posts to build a platform to encourage discipleship. The amount of activity on this forum is good and the response to my blog has been solid, but we do all this in obedience and to glorify God, no matter how many join our networks. Disciple-making, at least in the sense that Jesus exemplified, remains a fairly unpopular (and radical) topic among modern church-builders, but that can't stop us from pressing on and "pounding the rock" for what discipleship truly entails.
The Lord is pleased by our commitment to making disciples, which we exhibit not just by our words but our actions (hard work) in creating this forum and writing blog posts to build a platform to encourage discipleship. The amount of activity on this forum is good and the response to my blog has been solid, but we do all this in obedience and to glorify God, no matter how many join our networks. Disciple-making, at least in the sense that Jesus exemplified, remains a fairly unpopular (and radical) topic among modern church-builders, but that can't stop us from pressing on and "pounding the rock" for what discipleship truly entails.
Hoping the Lord uses us and many others to stir-up the Church!