Ever since I discovered Relationship is different than Religion, I have been passionately interested in Discipleship, at becoming a follower of Jesus, at being more than a “pew-warmer.”
I discovered I needed to be discipled.
I discovered I wanted to be discipled.
I discovered I deeply desire to be a disciple and make disciples.
Discipleship: Are You Obeying Your King?
The first part of November I attended The 2019 National Disciple Making Forum, held near Nashville, TN.
This is the fourth Disciple Making Forum conference; and the third one I have attended.
- Each time I have been overwhelmed by the flood of information, the range of possibilities, and the spectrum of disciple-making processes.
- Each time I have been encouraged to see so many who seek to be a disciple-making disciple.
- Each time I have been heartened to see the number of clergy, representing so many churches, who are ready to take up the mission Yeshua gave His church, His Body on earth, to expand His Kingdom on earth.
- Each time I have been thankful to hear from those who are successfully making disciples who make disciples
King Jesus
This year’s theme was King Jesus.
The National Disciple Making Forum (www.discipleship.org) is dedicated to promoting discipleship and bringing churches back to disciple-making.
As stated on their website, their goal:
Bring everyone back to obeying King Jesus and His Great Commission.
This year’s over 1,000 attendees included members of the clergy, church staff, lay leadership, and congregation members.
- They attended three main Forum sessions.
- They chose from 27 different discipling tracks, selecting from 200 breakout sessions.
- There were resources and information available from 28 organizations.
- There were opportunities to break bread (or at least Chik-fil-A) and share experiences with other Christians who are interested in discipleship and disciple making.
Organizations in Attendance:
- The Bonhoeffer Project
- Brentwood Baptist Church
- Dandelion Resourcing
- discipleFIRST
- Discipleship for Women
- Emotionally Healthy Discipleship
- Exponential
- Faith International University: The Robert E. Coleman School of Discipleship
- Final Command
- Freedom in Christ Ministries
- Global Discipleship Initiative
- Great Commandment Network
- HIM Publications
- Impact Discipleship Ministries
- Leadership Network
- Legacy Disciple
- LifeWay: Bible Studies for Life
- Lionshare
- Navigators Church Ministries
- Relational Discipleship Network
- Renew Network
- Replicate
- Small Circle
- Sonlife (Like Jesus Initiative)
- Third Drive Media
- Freedom in Christ Ministries
- Resonate
Why Have A Disciple Making Forum?
Because discipleship and disciple making matter.
Why Does Disciple Making Matter?
Because Jesus said so.
18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20 NASB
For more information about disciple making and the Great Commission, see my article The Disciples and the Great Commission.
So How Are We, the Church, Doing at Making Disciples Who Make Disciples?
Not so well.
Here are the results of a couple of studies:
In the Foreword for Recovering Discipleship: Making Jesus’ Final Words Our First Work, by Robby Gallaty, Ed Stetzer wrote of the book he, himself, wrote with Eric Geiger, Transformational Groups, about one study.
They found that:
- 54% of American Protestant churchgoers say they set aside time daily to a few times a week for private worship, praise or thanksgiving to God (prayer not included).
- 42% of American Protestant churchgoers intentionally spend time with other believers in order to help them grow in their faith.
- 41% of American Protestant churchgoers do not attend small classes or groups from their churches.
- 25% of American Protestant churchgoers say they have shared their faith once or twice; 14% have shared three or more times over the last six months.
- 19% of American Protestant churchgoers read the Bible every day.
I see a great need for the clergy and leadership of the church to know how to implement the Great Commission.
In fact, in January 2019 the Barna group published Translating the Great Commission.
As reported in the Barna blog:
… more than half of U.S. churchgoers have not heard of the Great Commission. Additionally, even when presented with a list of passages, 37 percent don’t recognize which well-known passage typically goes by this name.
https://barna.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Barna_2019_GreatCommission_charts_v1.jpg?w=1024
So, What’s a Church to Do?
That is, how can the church do what the church is supposed to do, if the people who are the church, don’t know what they’re supposed to do?
For many churchgoers today, the concept of being a disciple is for the “super-Christian,” not for themselves.
Most Christians would think of it as a sub-set of Salvation, something you do for a period of time and then you gratuate. Bill Hull, Disciple Making pastor
In any event, if disciples need to be made, then “that’s for the clergy (and maybe staff) to do.”
Congregants think it is the clergy’s job to reach the world, listen clergy, they won’t change their minds until you change yours- https://t.co/plCrxs0Gb9 now taking applications for 2018 Bill Hull, Disciple Making pastor
However, in no way, is being a disciple who makes disciples expected of them.
As a result, obedience to their Lord, their Savior, as given in His last command, is ignored.
In Bill Hull’s opinion:
The main reason Christians do not understand the need for discipleship is that pastors don’t teach it, they don’t practice it personally, because they don’t believe it. It is a theological problem
Why Make Disciples?
With the “Why” question, the struggle is “What is the view of actions of obedience to the King?” – i.e., acts that are in response to receiving salvation through grace.
The question is posed this way by Jonathan Lunde, in Following Jesus, the Servant King: A Biblical Theology of Covenantal Discipleship.
Why should I be bothered to comply with all of Jesus’ commands if I have been saved by grace?
After all, we read Paul, who says,
16 nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified. Galatians 2:16 NASB
Paul also says,
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.” Romans 1:17 NASB
Nevertheless, our Lord, our King, the One Who is greater than Paul, says,
34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35 NASB
Again, King Jesus speaks:
21 “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”
23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. 24 “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. John 14:22, 23-24 NASB
Furthermore, Yeshua again emphasizes His commands are to be obeyed:
12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.
17 “This I command you, that you love one another. John 15:12, 17 NASB
In one of his letters, John reiterates that believers in Jesus are to obey the commands of Jesus.
23 This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. 1 John 3:23 NASB
Obeying the commands of our Lord and Savior is our actions in response to His grace.
Our actions are not required for His grace.
Nevertheless, we are to have an active faith, not a passive faith.
We, who believe Jesus, who follow Jesus, are to be disciples of Jesus, and to be disciple-making disciples for Jesus.
How Can We Learn to Be Disciples Who Make Disciples?
Nevertheless, there are those who seek to be disciple making disciples.
Ed Stetzer, in Christianity Today, reports:
Today, there is a “discipleship deficit” in the church. Upon hearing about this, more than one concerned leader has asked us, “What should we do?” “How should we do it?” These leaders want to know the best ways to turn this deficit into a culture of robust discipleship.
I suggest, with the help of discipleship.org and their partners.
Discipleship.org is a collaborative community of men and women committed to the discipleship lifestyle—being disciples of Jesus and making disciples of Jesus.
For one thing, discipleship.org hosts The National Disciple Making Forums.
The Forums are a place where disciple-makers and want-to-be-disciple-makers-too can come together:
- To accept the past failure of the church to make disciples; but commit to not stop there.
- To understand why discipleship is imperative.
- To share processes, methods, and means to make disciples.
- To ask questions, and get answers.
- To find available resources, so that they don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.”
- To sympathize with difficulties, and celebrate successes.
- To see they are not alone.
Now It’s Up to You
Of course, being a disciple and making disciples entails planning, commitment, effort, perseverance, and requires a cost.
As Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, in The Cost of Discipleship:
Christianity without discipleship is always Christianity without Christ.
Is Christianity in the west today, through disobedience to Yeshua’s commandments, in fact, “Christianity without Christ”?
Is Jesus not our King?
If you choose to become a Disciple Making Disciple, then the National Discipleship Forum can help:
- If you want to learn about the necessity of discipleship
- If you want to learn about being a disciple-making disciple
- If you are sincerely interested in obeying the Great Commission
- If you are convicted to be “teaching them [disciples] all that I [Jesus] have taught you.”
I encourage you to “check it out.”
Blessings,
TLThomas MyWordOnTheWord.com
Save the Date!
The 2020 National Discipleship Forum: Intentionality will be November 5 and 6, 2020, in Nashville, TN.
See the discipleship.org blog for coming information.
(Sign up for the blog to be kept in the news loop.)
Don’t want to wait till next year?
Join discipleship.org in Phoenix, AZ, April 30 and May 1, 2020, for a reprisal of this November’s 2019 National Disciple Making Forum: King Jesus.
Copyright 2019 TLThomas