How Jesus Made Disciples

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how Jesus made disciples

Many Christians and churches in North America do not reproduce themselves. Nearly four thousand churches close every year in North America. Ed Stetzer estimates that 70% to 80% of all evangelical churches in the U.S. have either stopped growing or are in decline![1] The main reason is this: North America’s church is not reproducing. In contrast, the church in the global south (Asia, Africa, and Latin America) is exploding in number simply because they are reproducing. The Disciple Making Movement (DMM) that we hear about in North America is based on the experience of the disciple-making movements in the global south. We need to learn from the global south and our Lord Jesus how existing churches in North America can become a reproducing disciple-making movement once again.

The ultimate goal of discipleship is to reproduce disciples with the gospel through developing disciple-making leaders and church planters.

Reproduction ensures that a movement will live past its founding stages. The church was never intended to be an end in itself; instead, it is called to reproduce and fulfill the Great Commission to make disciples. Reproduction is the goal of every living thing. We see this throughout the pages of the Bible. The Bible is full of reproductive language. God created humankind, animals, and plants to reproduce. Reproduction is also seen in Jesus’s agricultural language throughout the gospels.

The Evangelical Free Church of the Philippines has a vision of planting two hundred churches in the Philippines and internationally, including Canada and the U.S., by 2026. The Evangelical Free Church of Canada is part of this exciting project. To put it simply, their plan is for each local church to reproduce, at least to plant one church within four years!

Intentionally reproducing disciples’ results from selecting, training, and empowering leaders and church planters who will reproduce themselves in others. This begins locally with the church and then can take place on a larger scale through the reproduction of church plants regionally and internationally. You and I can be a part of a 21st-century disciple-making movement that can change our world for Christ. Let us reproduce and multiply!

Ike Agawin
ServeBeyond Director

[1] Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson, Comeback Churches: How 300 Churches Turned Around and Yours Can Too (Nashville, TN: B & H Publishing, 2007), p.18

The Walk

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“Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.” (Galatians 5:25 – MSG)

One of the odd things about discipleship, is that we live in a physical world, but discipleship involves spiritual realities. If I’m honest, I know that much of what I have called spiritual growth could be done just as easily if the Holy Spirit were not present. I remember the day when some of this physical, spiritual divide really started to come together for me. Unexpectedly, it was the act of going for a walk that helped me bring the physical and spiritual aspects of discipleship together in a way that has changed the way I experienced my own walk with God and the way I seek to help others in their discipleship journey.

I came across an interesting path. The path was centered around the shape of a cross. If I followed the path. It would lead me to the center of the cross. It was not possible to make a wrong turn and get lost. Even though the next steps were always clear as I walked, I could never tell if I was getting closer or farther from the center.

Sometimes the path would take me very near the center and then it would turn, and I would be walking at the outer edge again. This physical walk is meant to provide a participatory demonstration of what it’s like to walk with the Spirit. To walk this path, you have no choice but to trust the path. It will lead you to the center of the cross. But even when everything in you says, leave the path and take a different route, if you trust the path, you will never get lost.

As I followed that path back out from the center, I began to understand what I had not before. In the process of trying to live the life of the spirit, I was always trying to force the issue. If I did not feel spiritual, I would pretend or invent spiritual stuff. If it seemed I was not close to God as I was before, I was filled with guilt and even shame. As I left the path that day, I understood what it means to believe better than I had. Trust the path. Trust the spirit. Trust the promises of God.

Follow the spirit and the path will be true. I will never know when the way the spirit takes me will lead me closer or farther. But if I remain in faith, it will lead me to Jesus. In God’s way and in God’s time. I will not be lost. Trust, believe, walk in faith. You can imagine that this understanding transformed how I seek to disciple others.

If I can help another fellow disciple in finding the path, and then walking with them until they trust the path, I can trust the life of the spirit to take it from there. Sometimes it seems the other person is moving away from Jesus and sometimes it seems they are closer than they really are. I no longer try to force others to be where I think they should be. They will not be lost. Trust, believe, walk in faith.

“Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.” (Galatians 5:25 – MSG)

Marvin Penner
EFCC Alberta Parkland District Superintendent

Following Jesus is not like SnapChat

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following Jesus is not like snapchat

Social media is such a mixed bag. One thing it has done is bring back the word “follow.” However, it feels to me like it has made the word distant and passive.

“Follow me,” was Jesus’ call to the first disciples. Action was the response. Proximity of relationship was required. A saying of some Jewish rabbis was, “Cover yourself in the dust of your rabbi’s feet.” The idiom means being right on the heels of the rabbi. Following closely, observing, imitating, learning to be like the rabbi. In the rabbinical system of Jesus’ day, the call to follow a rabbi meant you would leave the life of the family trade behind and enter a new life with one goal and only one – be like your rabbi.

Jesus’ call to us is similar. Our society is different. We don’t have family trades and Jesus doesn’t call all of us to leave our current jobs behind. Although that might be the call for some of us. However, the call to be a disciple is a call to leave our previous life behind and enter one of close relationship with him, with one goal – being conformed to the image of Jesus. This goal is not one we manufacture. We are transformed by the Holy Spirit’s work in us.

Does that sound passive? Just sit and let the Holy Spirit go to work? But that’s not following like a disciple. That’s closer to the kind of following we do on social media. If we follow Jesus like the first disciples, it will be active. They made time for Jesus, walked with him, went places together, talked with him, watched him, ate with him, were astounded by him, and devoted years of their lives to him. Yes, there were also times they failed him, forgot about him, doubted him, and even betrayed him. They weren’t perfect. Neither are we. Yet without active long-term relational connection with Jesus, they would never have grown more like him. The same is true for us. Disciples don’t SnapChat with Jesus. The more time and space we make for Jesus, the more we are transformed by the Spirit. Paul says it this way,

And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God…Let them be a living and holy sacrifice…Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Romans 12:1-2

What does this mean for you and me? Whoever you are, whatever you do; the highest calling for all of us is to be followers of Jesus.

Do we desire to be close to Jesus? What are we doing to get closer?

What practices shape your day around him? How do they help you listen and see him better?

When you hear and see him better, how do you imitate (obey) what you observe?

Disciples need each other as well. Who is walking along side you in this journey of following Jesus?

Neil Bassingthwaighte
ServeCanada Director & Interim Prayer Catalyst