Keystone - You Will Not Believe This Training
I'm in Keystone until April 2nd, and the training has begun with great intensity. I have heard many speakers but none compare to the annointing upon Richard Greene. Because of this annointing I have never been in training that has impacted my life as much as this. And this is only Friday with only two days of training. I sit and listen with tears in my eyes as Richard Greene speaks of making disciples who make disciples who give birth to churches. The goal must not be to build churches who make disciples, it must be to make disciples who make disciples who give birth to churches. We are to make disciples and God is to build His church.
We realized the Top Priority of the Great Commission -to make disciples who make disciples, something that is almost missing in the western church. We tend to be a "Come and See" church and everything is geared for Sunday. Well, it's not Sunday we should be living for! Why not live Monday through Sunday with intentional disciple making? We should be living for everyday to enjoy God's presense and follow His leading and share Jesus with people so as to impart our Savior to others who also share Jesus with others. The goal is making disciples! We are learning that disciple-making is one on one and never a group or class activity. We need to teach believers the priority of the Great Commission and the mandate to make disciples who make disciples. We have even seen in Scripture that to be a disciple you have to make other disciples. If I am a disciple why wouldn't I share the Jesus I have and make other disciples who share the Jesus they have?
In all sadness, the church in the west needs an infusion of Great Commission priority, of disciples making disciples who make disciples. The church in America is not the Church of the New Testament. The New Testament disciple was known by his or her fruit of making other disciples. Where did we go wrong. Who taught me that all I needed to do was go to church amd make a few disciples? Where did I go wrong and not demand that we follow the New Testament model of making disciples who understood they were also to make disciples. When did we learn to come and see and sit in a pew and make coming to church the priority instead of coming to Jesus the priority? When did we learn that everything needed to be geared for Sunday at the expense of Monday through Saturday. The Church in America is in serious trouble. We need to get back to making disciples who know they are supposed to make disciples who know they are to make disciples.
Tomorrow we learn what it means to live in the Spirit and let the Spirit of God teach and lead us. I cannot wait. I am seeing things in Scripture I have never seen before. The scales are falling off my eyes, I will never see the world the same again. Disciples making disciples is my charge. I'm praying for God to give me five people to disciple who will each disciple another who will each disciple another who will each disciple another until in ten years -you will not believe how many disciples will be reached. Never again will I settle for just going to church and hoping for souls to be saved. I'm going to try doing it the Jesus way. Afterall, I have tried it my way and while I made disciples -how many of them have made disciples themselves? This is the saddest reality of all. I repent for not making disciples to the fourth generation. This means I make a disciple, who makes a disciple, who makes a disciple, who makes a disciple. Four generations of disiciples who continue making disciples. Can you see a glimpse of this vision?
After the five, I'm asking for ten, twenty and thirty who make ten, twenty and thirty. You do the math and then compare soul work to the soul work of the traditional church in America.
If you are like me, let's never again settle for the American model for church that is not working.
posted by Bob Carder @ 9:22 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
No doubt that you are on to something here. It is amazing how the Church has “devolved” to its current state in America. There are so many congregations that are struggling to maintain a # that they believe is viable? Jesus left a band of disciples that obviously followed the disciple making process to have achieved the explosive growth of the early Church. You are right in the fact that they did not follow the “western” model that has stagnated the Church as we know it in America today. We had a young gentleman share this last Sunday about his opportunity to travel to Brazil to study abroad and to disciple others while they are there. They are not going to street preach or conduct crusades, they are going to befriend one or two and strategically enter into a disciple producing relationship with the goal of reproduction. The “Church” might state that they would better serve if they conducted crusades that could reach many more? He showed a graph on the ROI (return on investment) showing that if one person discipled two a year and they in turn discipled two more each year, that after 25 years had passed, there would literally be millions that would have been discipled. To address your statement about what it would look like in ten years if you discipled five a year and they in turn discipled one a year thereafter, you would be looking at over 5,000. So yes, following Jesus' model would fill all the current Church buildings and then some. Jesus was very clear that he gave complete authority in Heaven and on earth. “GO” and make disciples of all nations… teach the new disciples to obey all the commands…Be sure of all this, “I am with you always, even until the end of the age”. May God richly anoint your time of teaching and learning. Keep the fire. John Wesley once stated something like, find something that you can get on fire about and people will come from miles to watch you burn. Sounds like this is the case with the Discipleship movement and the Church planting / harvesting direction.
I'd love to know who this missionary is and I'd love to have you on our team. You understand the call of God to make disciples who make disciples.
If God leads you to join us, all you have to do is make disciples who make disciples. You wouldn't have to worry about buildings, budgets, Sunday's, by-laws, meetings, dealing with the feed ME mentality of the Come and See Church in America.
All you are expected to do is make disciples who must also make disciples.
Crusades and large gatherings of people do noy reap many disciples who make disciples. One on one disciples making doesn't make human sense but it is God's multiplication process and it really works.
Sound appealing?
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