My first E-booklet was just released on Amazon!  It’s titled “14 Shifts in Disciple Making & A Framework.”  It’s subtitled “A Dynamic E-booklet,” because it has been designed to be expanded by you, the community of believers.  It’s not free, but the proceeds will go towards ministering to those in need of much relief in the Andes Mountains Cloud Forest Region of Ecuador.  That said, I’d invite you to purchase it and write a review on Amazon.com

Act I:  Why kill a movement when you can kill the idea which powers it? Create a drama about its inception by redefining, reiterating or re-clarifying the words which caused the movement in the first place.

Act II: 2011 was, for me at least, was fascinating etymologicallyspeaking.  In the world ofecclesiology, some words were new, others redefined, reiterated, or re-learned.  Some were made malleable.  Missional, Incarnational, Organic, and others came to the forefront as the church seeks to reshape, regroup, and reassign its place in the world.  This is not new for the Church as whole, because the battle for words has existed since its birth.

Act III: One word in particular, "Discipleship," and all of its derivations has gotten a lot of attention in 2011.  Making Disciples, Discipling, Discipler, Discipleship, and Make Disciples, all come from what some call "The Great Commission." Jesus, promised his disciples to make them Fishers of Men, and then spent years with them showing them how.  He culminates his training with his apprentices on a mountain in Galilee saying,  “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Act IV: Seems pretty straight forward to me.  The nature of the command is necessarily multi-generational or spanning across future generations by the inescapable logic that if disciples are to make disciples who learn to obey ALL the commands of Christ, then this command too is included.  Some have thought to bring discredit to the term "Making Disciples," by equating it with Amway or other annoying multi-level marketing schemes or attaching it to some other distasteful concept like they do with "sub­si­dized health­care."  Others simply by continue arguing what the "original" Greek REALLY says.  Some attack it on other levels by citing its conceptual absence  in the rest of the New Testament after the commission was given (Not True).  Others, simply create straw-man arguments and attach all of the "bad stuff" that has happened as a result of trying to make disciples.

Intermission:  Perhaps it's time not to redefine, reiterate, or relearn, but to re-clarify this set of words centered around their original root word, "Make Disciples."

Act V: μαθητεύσατε, see, I just threw in some fancy Greek, mathēteusate, is mention only once in scripture, that being found in Matthew 28:19,20.  Its meaning?  to disciple, i.e. helping someone to progressively learn of God to become a matured, growing disciple (literally, "a learner," a true Christ-follower); to train (develop) in the truths of Scripture and the lifestyle required, i.e. helping a believer learn to be a disciple of Christ in belief and practice.

Act V, Scene I:  I think most of us could agree on the above meaning, but then again that's the intent of this post.  To question whether or not we need to redefine this word and its cousins and concepts.  A couple of weeks ago, I tweeted,  "The best way to learn a new language is by immersion. The best way to learn the language of Making Disciples...the same."

Final Scene: But perhaps it's not that we need to learn, but to re-learn the rules of this language or maybe not relearn, but re-clarify and yes, even re-define.

Challenge:  What words related to "Make Disciples," and their respective definitions have you found wanting?  Which cousinal (new word) words have been defined incorrectly?  Why are these made up words even needed?  And finally how would you define Making Disciples, Discipleship, Discipling, Discipler, and the rest of the related & flagellated family?

If you had the other teams play-book, and knew in advance when they would execute those plays, you certainly would have a great advantage.  When it comes to discipleship, discipling, being a discipler, or the overarching subject of making disciples, many presume to have the playbook.  In fact, there are many play-books, and many different approaches to this all too critical “game.”

There are valid and biblical processes to making disciples, and then there are some questionable and often unbiblical methods.  Plays executed under certain conditions in the arena which forget that we are dealing with human beings, a diversity of culture, and the various stages of growth within each. 

We have our play-books.  We need the opposing team’s game plan.  I think, though, that we (the church) the body of Christ collectively have the opposing teams play-book already.  I am not simply saying the “enemy’s” play-book in some wormwood-esque fashion, but also all of our experiences where someone else has tried to dissuade you or diffuse your disciple-making from within the church.  In these past two years since I have started the Making Disciples Page on facebook, and have with others sought to bring a resurgence of  focused discipleship, many have come from within the body to debunk Christ’s command for us to do so and to diffuse & confuse even the most basic concepts of the gospel.

Finally, there are those who are not yet disciples of Christ who are very good at keeping our heads out of the game or putting us in the penalty box, or even calling “ off-sides” at every forward motion.  I want to include these as well in our assembly of the other teams play-book.  I know beyond any doubt that all of  you have a page of this playbook that the rest of us might not have.

So, here is the challenge.  Let’s assemble our collective experiences, our play-book pages, and write, so to speak, an online resource, a syncroblog of experiences in the comment section where we all can share what ways friends, enemies, or the indifferent, have sought to dissuade or diffuse your disciple making endeavors.  We have the opposing team’s playbook in our collective experiences.  Let’s open it up and share them together.

In order to stimulate thinking, here are a few questions:

What have others said or claimed with respect to disciple making that have caused you pause?

What have those outside the church done or said to make you doubt yourself or your efforts?

What tactics would you use, knowing what you know about the church’s weakness to diffuse discipleship.

Please use the comment section below as a running list of Screwtape type letters where you play the part of one trying to dissuade, diffuse, or destroy a disciple making movement.  I will keep this blog post updated and assemble it into a single document when done with all reference to the original authors.

Here is my first contribution as an example:

Dear Mathēte,

I has come to our attention that there is a resurgence of desire to make disciples of all nations.  Despite our best efforts to diffuse these outbursts, I must again point out the importance of attacking this at it’s core.  We must simply convince those that are about to, or are in the process of making disciples, that this command of the ancient one is no longer valid or applicable for the church today.  That is was given only to the disciples of old, and that its intent was for a single generation. Finally, you must cease every opportunity to insert distractions or detours into the command itself that keep them away from the 3 basic means by which the ancient one commanded, namely going, teaching them to obey all that he commanded, and baptizing them in the name of… well you know who.

Whether or not “The Gospel” can be narrowed down to a presentation or a “Plan of Salvation,” is of secondary concern to this post.

Certain assumptions must be made before we begin and you will have an opportunity to discuss whether or not those assumptions are valid in the comment section.

1.  The Gospel is “Good News,” and news contains data.

2.  Data can be summarized or expanded and transferred from one person to another or one community to another.

3.  This transference of  Gospel data is called “Evangelism.”

4.  Evangelism is not soul winning directly, but the data transmitted has the power to win souls.

5.  The Gospel is also a person.  That person being Jesus Christ Himself.

6.  We can demonstrate Christlike actions towards others and in like matter & “show” the Gospel.

Now to the purpose of this post.  How many times have you heard one person or another say that they were out sharing the Gospel or they were out on an evangelistic campaign?  How many “Gospel Presentations” have you either learned, seen, or taught?  Can the Gospel Message be reduced to a set of sentences?  If we allow, for the moment, that the Gospel can be summarized, then we would have to assume that the summary can be transmitted from one to another.  Most “Plans of Salvation,” that I have seen in tracts and in other forms on the surface do a pretty good job of introducing the Gospel, but are not by any means “The Gospel.”

Can The Gospel be presented in a small tract or contained in some other form?  I will leave you to answer that question later.  For now, another set of questions:

Did Jesus present The Gospel to the woman at the well?  John 4:13-30

Did Peter Present the Gospel in Acts 2? Acts 2:13-40

Did Paul Present the Gospel in Acts 17 on Mars Hill?  Acts 17:16-43

Did Philip present the Gospel to the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8?  Acts 8:26-40

Did Paul present the Gospel to the Corinthian Church in 1 Corinthians 15? 1 Corinthians 15:1-58

Any combination of yes or no answers to these questions will have implications, or should have implications with how and when you share “The Gospel,” in the future.  What is certain, and getting to the main point of this post, is that there are unnaturally created moment where the Gospel is presented out of its natural context.  I can remember vividly when I was a very young man playing pinball in a New York Deli, yes they had pinball machines in Delis, when I was approached by another young man not much older than I, and he began to “preach” at me a gospel message or sorts.  My first reaction was anger.  Mind you the thrust of what he was saying had not yet sunk into my heart nor were the words yet like salt in an open wound.  That would come later in my life.  I was angry because he was interrupting my game and I was doing quite well.  There was no hello, no “Hey, looks like you are doing well here,” or even, “Hi my name is…”

His desire to share the Gospel was earnest, I’m sure, but completely out of context.  This brief encounter did not turn me off the the idea of Jesus, but it did make me suspect of those who supposedly carried His message.  I did not reject the Gospel at the time, I rejected the person who was presenting it and the manner in which he was doing so.

If there is an appropriate environment, setting, or context in which to make a Gospel Presentation, surely that was not it.  How many times with good intentions do we as followers of Jesus do exactly the same thing?  We cleverly assemble a few pages, a video snippet, a gospelizing gadget, or an emotion filled verbal soliloquy, and say we are “sharing the Gospel?” How many times do we take those very same instruments of data transfer and foist them upon unsuspecting and unready hearts?  We insert ourselves into foreign and strange territory and speak from an authority that is not our own.  Some of us are so well prepared to win arguments, that we have equated argument winning with soul winning.

I am not saying that spontaneous evangelism should not occur, or that we should be ready in season and out to preach, nor that there may be times when the Lord leads us into a situation to speak the message of the Kingdom to another we do not know.  I am saying that too many times, these Gospel presentations are like a teargas grenades launched into a unsuspecting person’s window.

Is it any wonder why there is such fear in evangelism?  I have literally seen people get so worked up about going out evangelizing that they have thrown up.  We look at them and think, “Oh, they’re just young in the Lord, and they will have more courage when they mature.” Perhaps, though, it is because they understand better than we seasoned believers that this may not be they way Jesus intended HIS GOOD NEWS to go forth.  Maybe it’s time for us who have evangelism nailed down to a science to take a step back and unravel our giant rubber band ball of evangelism.  Like the ball which accumulates size with each band, our pride too, in most cases feeds our zeal and does little for our spiritual tact.

We want to be able to summarize the Gospel so that we can present it quickly, force a “decision,” and get them to say a quick prayer in order to put another notch in our salvations count.  What’s wrong with simply introducing someone to Jesus, introducing someone to the Gospel, and trusting that God’s word will have its intended effect?  1 Corinthians 3:6  Let’s be honest, when we can’t report #’s people are disappointed or think that you were out goofing off.  If we were truly interested in benchmarking evangelism, why not count the number of people we’ve loved today, how many personal sacrifices we’ve made on behalf of others, how many seeds we’ve planted, or how many have been rightly introduced to the Kingdom?

This post is a mix of questions and commentary and is designed for you to engage the conversation.  Surely there is one question or one comment in this post that hit a nerve.  If so, please leave a comment.

Obey or Observe?  What’s the difference?  Us Christians sure like telling others to obey.  After all, we are commanded to in the Great Commission, aren’t we?

The New American Standard Bible  renders the Great Commission in this way:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

Most of us are used to reading “obey all that I have commanded you;”  To me, at least, these two words have very different meanings and possibly different implications for how we implement the command.

It is interesting to note, that Strongs defines it in this way:

5083 tēréō (from tēros, “a guard”) – properly, maintain (preserve); (figuratively) spiritually guard (watch), keep intact.

It is also interesting to note that in Ephesians 6:1, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right,” where there is little, if any disagreement that obey there means obey in the normal sense of our understanding, is a completely different word.

Strongs defines that word 5219 hypakoúō – properly, to obey what is heard (literally, “under hearing”) & suggests attentively listening, i.e. fully compliant (responsive).

If the Great Commission is to be translated as observe instead of obey, does that change the way we implement it?  If so, how?

In either case, observe or obey, is teaching them how implied? What are your thoughts?

I recently had a short but provocative twitter conversation with Ukumbwa Sauti, M.Ed.  who is a professor of cultural media studies, and is trained in Indigenous African Spiritual Technologies in the Dagara tradition.  The conversation centered on the perceived cultural imperialism of Christian Missions.  This is by no means a new concept, and the tendency towards being colonial in Missions still exists.  I would have to say the my North American brethren are far more prone to making little North Americans then Making Disciples of Jesus.  In  my work on the mission field in Ecuador, I have worked among the Shuara and Quichua Indians, and the Mestizos (the mixed indigenous).  I have also worked in the midst of countless sub-cultures in the Cloud Forest Region and beyond.  I have also worked among the Navajo people in the United States.  I can honestly say that I have never, in my desire to bring Christ to these people have sought to simultaneously change their culture.  One could argue that bringing Christ into a culture is to change its culture, and if that be the case, then I am guilty.  A question which should follow logically then, is, can we bring Christ to a people, a culture, without contaminating that culture?

What if the Great Commission, Matthew 28:19,20 , was the generative source for all Ministry in the New Testament?  What if every other ministerial function in Church found its genealogy in Going, Making Disciples, Baptizing them in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded?

See the rest of this post.

If there can be strange fire in worship, then what about discipleship?

There is a principle in certain denominations called the "Regulative Principle," and it mostly applies to how we worship God. In a nut shell, the regulative principle states:

"The acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men." We are to worship God in the way he has commanded, and not according to our own desires. Westminster Confession of Faith (XXI:1)

Restated in simpler terms, true worship is only commanded by God; false worship is anything not commanded. Any thing outside of what is commanded in scripture for worship is considered "strange fire," taken from Leviticus:

Lev 10:1 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.
Lev 10:2 And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.

I will reserve my thoughts on the regulative principle for another time, but move directly to whether or not such a principle applies to discipleship.

If this principle is valid for worship, then wouldn't it be valid for discipleship? Jesus command to "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you... " (Matthew 28:19,20) seems simple enough. There is a command, the command has clearly delineated instructional points, and there is a clear objective.

Today, there no shortage of manners, methods, and motives, for making disciples, of which few resemble the criteria that Jesus himself laid out.

Should tactics that originate from man's imaginations and devices be used in fulfilling the Great Commission?

See original post here.

Also, if you are on facebook you can check out Making Disciples.

• Has a pattern of behavior been established within a text or its context?
• Is that pattern verifiable or based on assumption?
• Beyond a pattern, has this behavior developed into a practice?
• Has that practice been established or incorporated into church life?
• Is the pattern or practice for all believers for all time or for a specific group of believers for a specific time?
• Is that practice to be modeled by us and passed on to future generations of the church?
• Is the practice, pattern, or model directly commanded or just inferred from the text?
• Does the particular passage simply recount history or is it instructive for the future?
• Does the passage describe what certain church actions looked like, or does it prescribe what they should look like?

• Have we matured enough in Christ so as not to bring our preconceived notions into the text?
• Do we have a tendency to want others to behave the way we do?
• Are we judgmental of others who have a different way of expressing their faith because of our personal conclusions?
• Are we more concerned with a model, mode, or modification that we have established by experience, or are we willing to consider that the Spirit may be leading us to accomplish His will in a way that might be peculiar to others?
• Do we have an inclination to be controlling?  
• Do we tend towards already made conclusions, or are we willing to reexamine how we arrived at those conclusions.

Making Disciples on facebook was started a little over a year ago, and has been the center of discussion about all things having to do with Making Disciples for quite some time.  There are over 10,000 hits daily on this site and it is genuinely a community of believers who engage in love and deep thoughtfulness.  I urge you to visit us and "like" our page, participate in the discussions, and help encourage others to Make Disciples.

Have you personally ever taught all of Christ's commands to another person?

If not, have you ever truly made a disciple?